Public leadership in times of crisis: Lessons to learn from a crisis communication point of view

Abstract

Courses

Public Relations, Public Administration, Crisis Communication, and Crisis Management.

Objective

Students explore crisis communication in a public setting, where public leaders are supposed to communicate the impact of a crisis to citizens, the media, and other stakeholders.

Introduction and rationale

Current research in crisis communication seems to be highly skewed toward American reputational case studies (Arendt et al., 2017; Jong, 2020), where organizations adopt response strategies and reframe their crisis responsibility in order to protect their brands. To shed light on the importance of another aspect of crisis communication, a new activity was devised. This activity takes the public response to crises—such as terrorist attacks, explosions, floods, and airplane crashes—as a central element of crisis communication. These are the situations that evoke political and psychological mechanisms with the power to change the way in which people, organizations, governments, polities, and the media act and interact (Ansell et al., 2014). People who experience a crisis look at their leaders to make sense of what happened and to place it within a broader perspective (Boin et al., 2016; Stern, 2013). Public leaders try to give an understanding of “what is going on” in order to reduce uncertainty, to provide recognition, to offer hope (Noordegraaf & Newman, 2011; Pennebaker & Lay, 2002), or to call actively upon resilience and pride (De Bussy & Paterson, 2012). Well-known examples of public leaders in times of crises are Mayor Giuliani of New York after 9/11, Mayor Livingstone of London after the July 2005 London bombings, Mayor Nagin of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and President Obama after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012). More recently, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has received worldwide praise for her response to the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, and for her crisis communication approach during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic (McGuire et al., 2020).

One of the best forms of preparation for crisis management is to experience a crisis, reflect on it, and apply the learning to future crises. This is why simulations are fundamental to crisis communication education (Pyle, 2018). Through in-game activities and extended discussion, instructors promote student interaction, help them overcome the lack of understanding of content curriculum, and achieve better learning outcomes (Vlachopoulos & Makri, 2017). This is applied in the activity of an in-class simulation, where students personally take on the role of a public leader at a time of crisis. First, examples are discussed in a plenary session. Afterwards, students are asked to write their own statement based on a given scenario as if they were asked to give a public announcement as a mayor of a city under attack. The learning goal of this assignment is to engage students by asking them to draft their own communication instead of passively reflecting on the statements discussed in the literature. As students will experience, drafting the texts themselves enhances their understanding of the difficulty of communicating with stakeholders in times when every word counts.

At the end of this activity, the active learning technique results in students: (1) understanding the importance of and key elements to public leadership, (2) increasing their knowledge of referential material, (3) being better prepared to assess communication efforts by public leaders in times of crisis, and (4) becoming better future advisors in the domain of crisis communication in a governmental context.

The activity

The activity requires four hours in total. First, students are informed of the class topic. In this introduction, it is important to create a safe learning environment, where students who have experienced traumatic events at some point in their lifetime are enabled to address those experiences before the actual assignment starts. For example, if a student or his/her friends or family have experienced a terrorist attack, it is necessary to validate those experiences respectfully and to provide the opportunity to discuss or choose another topic for the assignment. Following this acknowledgment, which should be part of any crisis communication course, students are introduced to the key concepts of public leadership in times of crisis.

The theory is introduced with reference to Boin et al. (2016) and Jong (2017), who explain the public expectations of public leaders in times of crisis. As part of the course material, an article by De Bussy and Paterson (2012) is used, who assessed the communicative styles of public leaders after floods in Queensland, Australia. Video footage from press statements during the Queensland floods is available from YouTube. As De Bussy and Paterson (2012) refer to these statements, showing the press statements truly enriches the findings from the literature. The video material is used to create an in-class discussion on why Queensland Premier Anna Bligh was perceived to be inspirational and charismatic, while Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s communication style was characterized as robotic and rehearsed (De Bussy & Paterson, 2012). Regarding Bligh’s statements, she stressed that it did not matter where people lived, whether it was in the capital city or the tiniest country towns, every single person affected by this event was going to be looked after—or, as she said, “You won’t be forgotten.” This contrasts with Gillard’s comments, who first discussed the images of tossed-around cars and signposts before she referred to the people who died from the floods.

In a similar way, the address to the nation by President Reagan after the explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 can be shown and discussed, based on material available on YouTube and with reference to Lule’s (1990) and Mister’s (1986) assessments of the speech.

As a guideline for these discussions, the lecturer can ask students to identify different elements in the speeches. Students are also encouraged to quote strong elements or to rephrase those elements that contain poorer language. The following topics can be used to streamline the discussion:

• How does the public leader convey bad news to his/her audience?

• Who are the main audiences that the public leader addresses?

• What words does the public leader use to acknowledge what happened and to describe the situation?

• Does the public leader refer to emergency responders, and what is done to get the situation under control?

• Does the public leader address uncertainty?

• Does the public leader make a call to action to his/her audience?

In the second half of the session, students receive the following scenario:

On Thursday morning at 8:20am, there was an explosion at the Central Station. The huge devastation means there will be victims, although it is still unclear how many. The cause is still unknown. The emergency services are on their way. The first photos, videos, and messages start to appear on social media. The media are speculating about an attack and drawing comparisons with the devastation at the Belgian airport of Zaventem, near Brussels, in March 2016.

Preferably, some of the available online images of the Brussels attack are used in order to give students an impression of the disaster scene.

After students have read the scenario, they are asked to take 15 minutes to write a statement for the mayor. The following elements could be part of the statement:

• The mayor as conveyor of bad news (whether or not it has explicitly been called an attack);

• Acknowledge what has happened (while there is still a lot of uncertainty);

• Description of the situation when the explosion occurred (factual description);

• Describe what is currently being done to bring the situation under control; and

• Call to action (expectations and stimulating resilience among citizens).

The students are asked to write their statements individually. Afterwards, students are asked to form groups of four to five students and then to combine their own statements with those of their fellow students into one overall statement. This two-step approach is set up in order to intensify the students’ learning experience. Starting with an individual assignment encourages students to participate actively, while also using the benefit of group work. In the individual assignment, students experience that every word counts, but there is also room for individual preferences on the level of emotional or rational language.

Alternatively, the students could be asked to form groups and come up with a list of the five most important stakeholders that need to be addressed. Following this exercise, students individually write their own statement addressing these stakeholders, after which they are asked to return to the group and combine their statements in a group session.

Whichever approach is chosen, the group assignment creates opportunities for critical thinking, for the exchange of different perceptions among students, and for a discussion of the reasons why certain wording might be more appropriate than others. The group assignment also helps students prioritize the stakeholders that should be addressed in such a statement. The group work stimulates teamwork, as students will notice that any statement becomes even stronger when the elements of different authors are combined.

Debriefing

In the debriefing session, the students present their group statements in class. Strong and convincing elements are highlighted and discussed. The lecturer asks for their deliberations and why they chose to use certain wording, while comparing their contribution to speeches presented by other groups. The stakeholders can also be discussed, including the order in which the public leader addressed them in his/her speech.

Questions such as the following can help to guide the discussion. What is the main goal of their speech? Do they want to provide instructions, stimulate resilience, or restore public confidence and trust? Do the speeches confirm that a terrorist attack was likely or not? Why? Do the students focus on casualties? Did the mayor primarily focus on his or her own citizens, or did (s)he address a larger audience? How did (s)he refer to the people who were at the central station at the time of the explosion? How did (s)he describe the situation? Were only references to “the people at the station” made, or did (s)he use a more emotional description, referring to travelers, school children, employees, old and young, men and women?

Sharing the examples within groups and between groups can clarify that communication goals can be reached in different ways by using different words and emphasizing different aspects. There is more than one path to building a convincing story line.

To discuss the different elements in the speeches presented, the following building blocks from the first part of the lecture can be used as a guideline:

The mayor as conveyor of bad news (whether or not it has explicitly been called an attack)

• We are all shocked by the terrible news we got this morning. Like you, I am bewildered by the awful photos of the Central Station.

• I guess I am speaking on everyone’s behalf when I say that we are dumbstruck by this morning’s events.

Acknowledge what has happened

• At around 8:30 this morning, there was an explosion at the Central Station. It is still unclear what caused the explosion. And it is not yet known exactly how much damage it has caused. Based on the incoming information, we must assume that the situation is serious.

• Twenty minutes ago, there was a large explosion at the station. We are not ruling anything out, including an attack. What is clear is that the first eyewitness accounts indicate that we must prepare ourselves for a day of bad news. The explosion was big. We know that there are victims, but do not yet know how many. The emergency services are on their way. That is what we know. No more.

Description of the situation when the explosion occurred (factual description)

• The explosion occurred in the middle of the morning rush hour. Travelers. Commuters. School children. Students. On their way to work. To their studies. To traineeships. The possibility that there are victims among them cannot be ruled out.

• It was a day on which so many different people were getting ready for the day ahead. Travelers, school children, employees, old and young, men and women. An awful drama has taken place.

Describe what is currently being done to bring the situation under control

• People at the station went straight to help. Meanwhile, the emergency services arrived at the scene. The station is being evacuated.

• Large numbers of emergency workers are there. Speaking here, I wish to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to all those workers and to all the travelers who have provided assistance at the scene of the incident.

Address the uncertainty

• It will take time before we can share more information. It won’t be fast enough for you, or for me. But it takes time. Emergency workers in every branch of the emergency services are working tirelessly. Let’s support them in the same way as we can support each other.

Call to action

• We ask you to follow the instructions of the emergency services. Help them where you can and give them space where necessary.

• Show restraint when sharing photos and reports on social media. On behalf of the police, I ask you to share these photos with the police, since that can help piece together what happened this morning.

As a wrap-up, the students could be asked how it broadened their perspective from corporate crisis communication to the requirements of crisis communication in the setting of public leadership. It enables the teacher to explore further the differences between business-to-business or business-to-consumer crisis communication and crisis communication in a public setting. Finally, the instructor might wrap up the in-class assignment by showing the earlier mentioned six-minute footage from Prime Minister Ardern from New Zealand, where she addresses the nation after the attacks on the Christchurch mosques.

Appraisal

This power of this in-class assignment is that it combines both practical and real-life examples with observations from academia. Students gain knowledge based on practical examples and by crafting their own statements. Students confirm that it is helpful to hear what other students wrote, to compare their views, and to see what different options would work or not work. They acknowledge that it is important to strike the correct balance between sharing facts or plain information and a more empathic and personal tone of voice. Hearing statements from other students and discussing their own contributions helps them to develop a feeling for the right tone and balance in a statement.

Students confirm that it became evident that the language and phrasing a public leader uses is incredibly important. They also learned that they have to be aware of possible interpretations and how important it is to consider all stakeholder perspectives, angles, and situations to ensure crisis communication is done efficiently. One of the students explained her discussions with other group members: “Are you putting the emphasis on the affected people, your emergency responders, or your citizens? Are you implying stereotypes about the perpetrators, or are you aware of potential side effects this could bring along to a vulnerable community?”

In her feedback, another student shared that before this class, she did not realize how different it is to be listening or reading a speech as a general audience in comparison to analyzing it as a crisis communication student. She realized that getting people on your side when you have limited information available is very difficult. As such, the students experience how well thought out such statements are and what makes them powerful and convincing toward a community under stress. Students are easily engaged. It generates interesting discussions, both within the groups and as a plenary discussion.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Lodewijk van Wendel de Joode, speech writer at Dutch National Police, for sharing his insights on public statements following terrorist attacks.