Write 1 page response to post below . The article that I most enjoyed this week was Prewitt and Weil’s (2014) “Organizational Opportunities Endemic in Crisis Leadership.” While the authors describe crisis as “an unexpected, dramatic, and unprecedented event” (Prewitt and Weil, 2014), they also discussed that a good leader is one who truly understands the vision of the organization and is able to notice the signs that something might be coming along that is incongruent with their mission. The leader then uses a system of triage to handle the crisis, instead of shrinking away and trying to hide behind or blame others. Finally, the leader uses the lessons learned from the crisis to implement changes that will prevent a similar catastrophe in the future. To me, this means that a strong leader is constantly paying attention and never becoming complacent. This focus and attention to detail should be seen by others as a way to inspire them to reach beyond their usual ways of thinking, but also to build a level of confidence that will allow the subordinates to follow the leader when times get difficult. The triage system means that a good crisis leader is able to step back and deal with issues in order of importance as a way to return the organization back to a normal operating environment before beginning to tackle the underlying causes that set off the crisis in the first place. Furthermore, having a solid plan in place to question existing protocols can lead to improved crisis leadership. Bennett and Lemoine (2014) recommended experimenting with “unknown unknowns” (as cited in Hall and Rowland, 2016). At my organization, we have plans and procedures for everything and they are taken as gospel truths. However, every time we run a drill we are faced with someone asking a hypothetical “what if…” question that is not covered by the instruction. While these scenarios are often unlikely to occur, they are not impossible. In spite of the fact that they could happen, we disregard the question because our current protocol does not cover it. A great crisis leader would be responsive to the issues not covered by the current plan and incorporate answers. This would allow the staff to feel more comfortable and respected in the environment, as well as making the organization better prepared for disaster. In terms of training, there are such a wide variety of organizations out there and an equally exhausting list of crises that could strike that it is impossible to say that there is a single model of training that is uniformly best for each institution. For my particular organization, at a military air squadron, simulation-based training works best. According to Waller, Lei, and Pratten (2014), rehearsing a staff’s response to a crisis builds a team’s situational awareness while allowing for an increase in collective efficiency, as well as leading to rote memory improvements. The more physical practice the team gets, the more likely those responses are to become second nature, which in turn, would allow us to approach a real-life disaster calmly and well organized. Additionally, the drills allow each team member to build a sense of individual competence and team efficacy, which leads to increases in self-confidence as well as the team’s ability to work as one self-regulating and highly effective unit. The disasters my unit are most likely to face include aircraft fires, fuel spills, crashes and other scenarios that could go from small to catastrophic in just a few moments. The idea that everyone is well-rehearsed on what to do if one of these situations should arise could be the difference between life and death. While our instructions spell out step-by-step directives for each of the common crises we face, it is crucial that we are not standing around and trying to interpret each step as we read it. Disaster preparation should not be something people know is there but do not really know how to utilize. Instead, we should be well-practiced on how to respond to best reduce injury, death and damage to our equipment. Hall, R. D., & Rowland, C. A. (2016). Leadership development for managers in turbulent times. The Journal of Management Development, 35(8), 942-955. Prewitt, J. E., & Weil, R. (2014). Organizational opportunities endemic in crisis leadership. Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 15(2), 72-87. Waller, M.J., Lei, z., & Pratten, R. (2014). Focusing on Teams in Crisis Management Education: Integration and Simulation-Based Approach. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 13(2), 208-221.