What a Difference a Disaster Makes: The Role of Vicarious Leadership Learning in Differential Responses to Post-Katrina Hurricanes

Antoinette Phillips, Julie Nunenmacher, Bobbie Schnepf, Carl Phillips and Sam Cappel

Business and Management Horizons, 2013, vol. 1, issue 2, 94-106

Abstract: August 2005 and the ensuing months saw a natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina, and a leadership disaster surrounding governmental and institutional response to the storm¡¯s aftermath. An event of such monumental proportions would predictably offer numerous challenges; however, the extent of the weaknesses in preparedness and response revealed by Katrina was nothing short of astounding. Lessons learned from this experience were quickly incorporated into many organizations¡¯ planning, readiness, and response activities. This manuscript discusses salient aspects of less-than-optimal responses to Katrina¡¯s effects and explores changes in and different programs for coordinating subsequent disaster response. Interestingly, many such changes were undertaken by units not directly impacted by or involved in Katrina¡¯s aftermath. The authors propose the term ¡°vicarious leadership learning¡± to describe this phenomenon. Examples from a variety of organizations are presented, and the benefits of vicarious leadership learning are discussed.

Keywords: Leadership; Leadership learning; Katrina; Vicarious learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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