PS391 Unit 9 Crisis Leadership Paper Example

Smoke in the Charging Room at Two in the Morning: A PS391 Unit 9 Crisis Leadership Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS391: Psychology of Leadership

Unit 9 Crisis Leadership Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the warehouse, the crew and every detail are composite and illustrative; the articles cited are real.

The Fire

At 2:10 a.m. on a Wednesday in February, smoke began pouring from the battery charging room at the back of our Columbus distribution warehouse, where the forklift batteries are recharged overnight. A charger had failed and a battery was overheating. The alarm sounded, and I had forty people on the floor, including the satellite crew who had come over for a training session.

During the Crisis

The first minutes followed our emergency plan. Pickers filed out the closest doors and lined up by the light poles at the far end of the north lot, while I took the roster and the radio. At the assembly point, the headcount came up one short: Devon, a picker on his third week, was missing. Nobody had seen him leave.

I had to decide quickly. I told the firefighters, who had just arrived, exactly where Devon had last been assigned, and asked a lead picker to call his phone repeatedly. Four minutes later, he walked around the side of the building; he had been in the restroom with earbuds in, heard the alarm late and left through a side door. Those four minutes were the longest of my working life.

The fire department contained the fire in the charging room within twenty minutes. Nobody was hurt, though the smoke left the back third of the building closed for two days.

The plan got everyone outside; the roster and a clear message to the firefighters were what found the one person the plan missed.

What Research Says About Crisis Leadership

Wu et al. (2021) reviewed research on crisis leadership and organized it around what leaders do before, during and after a crisis and what shapes their effectiveness. In their reading of the studies, a crisis leader's work starts well before the alarm, with plans and drills; continues through the confusing first minutes, when the leader has to work out what is happening and choose with half the facts; includes plain, frequent updates and care for the people who were frightened or hurt; and is not finished until the organization has drawn lessons from the event.

Balasubramanian and Fernandes (2022) tested a model of crisis leadership against how leaders actually responded during the COVID-19 pandemic and reported support for the model and for its links to effective outcomes. Their study, set in a crisis that lasted many months, is a reminder that crises do not end when the immediate danger passes.

Before the Crisis

Looking back, the evacuation worked partly because of preparation. We had run a fire drill in October, and the roster was kept on a clipboard at the dock door, not only in the computer system. But preparation had gaps: the drill had not covered workers wearing earbuds, and new hires had only a one-page summary of the plan.

After the Crisis

The harder leadership came afterward. The fire marshal cleared the building at 4:30 a.m., and the operations manager asked whether the crew could finish the shift. Many people were shaken. Two older pickers had been in a warehouse fire years earlier and could not stop trembling.

I gave the crew a choice: anyone who wanted to go home could leave with full pay for the shift, and those who stayed would work only on the dock, away from the charging room. About half stayed. Individualized consideration, in Bass and Riggio's terms, means meeting each follower where that person is (Bass & Riggio, 2006), and that night it meant sitting with the two older pickers until their rides arrived and calling Devon's mother, at his request, to tell her he was safe.

Communicating What Happened

Rumors spread fast. By the next evening, people were saying the batteries were unsafe and that management had ignored warnings. Wu and colleagues stress clear communication after a crisis. I held a meeting at the start of the next shift with the operations manager and the maintenance lead, who explained what had failed, what had been replaced and what inspections were being added. We answered every question, including ones we could not yet answer, by saying when we would know.

My Own Reaction

I did not feel calm during those four minutes; I felt sick. What kept me functioning was having a specific task, the roster, and a clear person to report to, the fire captain. Afterward, when the building was cleared and I had sent people home, I sat in my truck and shook for ten minutes before I could drive. Crisis leadership research focuses on what leaders do for others, but leaders are affected too. The next day I talked with our company's employee assistance counselor, which I had never done before, and I told the crew in the follow-up meeting that I had, so they would know it was an ordinary thing to do. Three people from the crew used the service that month.

What the Operations Manager Did Well

The operations manager's response deserves credit. He arrived within forty minutes, backed my decision to send people home with pay, and did not argue about lost production. When the maintenance lead's first explanation used technical terms the crew did not understand, he asked him to start over in plain language. His support made my choices possible and showed the crew that the response came from the whole leadership team, not just one supervisor.

Learning From It

Within two weeks, we added three changes: a rule that earbuds are not worn in restrooms or break areas, a laminated evacuation map in every restroom and a buddy system for new hires during their first month, so someone always knows where they are. The next drill, in April, tested all three, and this time the headcount was complete within six minutes. I also asked the satellite crew, who had been in an unfamiliar building that night, what had confused them, and their answers led to clearer exit signs near the training room. The charging room itself was rebuilt with a heat sensor that cuts power to a charger automatically, a change the maintenance lead had requested two years earlier.

Conclusion

The battery fire tested leadership before, during and after a crisis. Wu and colleagues' review explains why preparation, quick decisions, clear communication and learning all matter, and Balasubramanian and Fernandes's study shows such models holding up in a real, extended crisis. The evacuation plan worked, the roster found Devon, and attention to frightened people and honest communication carried the crew through the days that followed.

References

Balasubramanian, S., & Fernandes, C. (2022). Confirmation of a crisis leadership model and its effectiveness: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. Cogent Business & Management, 9(1), Article 2022824. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2021.2022824

Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Wu, Y. L., Shao, B., Newman, A., & Schwarz, G. (2021). Crisis leadership: A review and future research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 32(6), Article 101518. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2021.101518