Integrating Brain Science into Crisis Leadership Development

Recent advances in neuroscience and psychology research (“brain science”) provide a fruitful avenue for developing approaches to leadership development. Literature on the application of these advances to crisis leadership is sparse, despite significant neurological and psychological dimensions of crisis response scenarios. The current study analyzed the nature of perceived impact of leader behavior on outcomes in crisis management systems such as the Incident Command System (ICS) and National Incident Management System (NIMS), and explored the extent to which brain science principles are integrated into ICS/NIMS training. Analysis of survey data from a sample of 198 crisis leaders revealed that observed leader behaviors was related to ICS/NIMS performance and that typical ICS/NIMS training fails to address the behavioral aspects of crisis leadership. To address the identified deficiency, a training model incorporating brain science into crisis leadership training systems is suggested. Further research is recommended to better determine the impact of incorporating neuroscience and psychology research into formal crisis leadership training and to further evaluate effective measurement and teaching tools.