AMSA released a handbook aiming to provide leaders with cross-jurisdictional, multi-cross-sectoral framework and conceptual guidance for managing complex maritime emergencies.
Complex maritime emergencies (CMEs) constitute a persistent threat to the global maritime environment, often ranging from collisions to offshore spills and even the loss of aircraft in remote areas.
In order to be truly effective in the management of complex maritime emergencies, AMSA recognizes it must work in a coordinated and collaborative way with numerous partners and stakeholders—many who bring an advanced understanding of the operational environment, and many who do not.
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In this context, if applied consistently, the frameworks and concepts in the handbook will provide a clearer understanding of multi-jurisdictional issues requiring management and consideration, improve public communications and minimise misinformation, among others.
Principles
Among others, the handbook provides a series of principles that should complement existing arrangements to coordinate maritime emergencies. These five principles, which broadly align with the following Australian Emergency Management Principles, are:
- Planning to enhance existing arrangements, enable adaptive responses and address stakeholder interests, capabilities and limitations.
- Collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
- Leaders should span beyond traditional boundaries and be willing to operate in concurrent and connected domains of activity.
- The control of CMEs is likely to be distributed, as consequences are realized concurrently in ambiguous operating environments.
- Emergency management should take into account the legal and liability challenges inherent in CMEs.
Strategic incident priorities
Consistent with national guidance, the agreed response priorities are as follows:
- Protection of human life.
- Minimizing harm and injury to people, including those with special needs and the CME responders.
- Provision of essential humanitarian requirements that protect people’s dignity and keep them safe.
- Protecting or re-establishing communication networks to ensure the provision of information, warnings, emergency service communications, with and for affected communities
- Protection of critical/essential infrastructure that, if damaged or destroyed, would have significant consequences on the community, jurisdiction or nation.
- Protection of primary places of residence.
- Protection of assets that support livelihoods, the economy and community financial sustainability.
- Protection of cultural and environmental values.
Essential leadership characteristics
The following characteristics are considered essential for all senior leaders and their organisations when leading CMEs:
-Highest success measure: The ability to deeply appreciate and honour the criticality of upholding the trust and confidence of the community as well as the multiplicity of stakeholders being afforded protection prior to, during and after any event of significance as the highest measure of success.
-Greatest mission: The ability to deeply appreciate and commit to containing, reducing, and negating further harm and suffering of humans and non-humans (living and non-living ecology) to the greatest extent possible as the greatest mission.
-Ethical premise: The ability to think, speak and act ethically and inspire others to do so. In addition to upholding trust and confidence, leaders need to exercise compassion and humility, treating all people within and beyond the leadership team with dignity and respect whilst acknowledging their moral worth and innate rights. Courage and equanimity are critical in creating spirited resolution to improve survivability, reduce morbidity and reinforce organisational resilience in the face of opposing forces.
-Authenticity: The ability to exhibit authentic attributes such as accessibility, adaptability, astuteness and emotional intelligence as well as highly developed social competencies, acceptance of accountability and personal discipline. Self-awareness of personal limitations, as well as the ability to delegate authority, are also critical. Credibility and trustworthiness are central in collaborating with all levels of governing authorities. All these attributes help promote open communication, professional respect and mutual trust that are the foundation of effective CME collaborative networks.
-Strategic cognition: The ability to think the “unthinkable” by being alert to dangerous warning signals, latent problems and potential failures that would otherwise evoke shock, disbelief, paralysis, panic, disregard, inappropriate and delayed responses and chaos that often prove disastrous for individuals, organisations and communities. Possessing strategic cognition allows leaders to withstand shock as well as sensory and information overload during critical events.
-Environmental perception: The ability to recognise that threats often compound and escalate into new risks and threats that require continuous environmental scanning and monitoring, situational awareness, risk assessment and resource analysis.
-Relational capital: The ability to forge dynamic collaborative networks between diverse professional communities. A collaborative work style is required to develop positive dialogue, understanding and trust. This networked approach works to motivate and coalesce the diversity of stakeholders and their divergent views towards the singular mission of containing, reducing and negating further harm and suffering to the fullest extent possible.
-Social value engagement: The ability to engage individuals, organizations and communities in emergency preparedness, response and recovery planning and operations as a recognized social value and responsibility that enhances community resilience.
-Logistical strategising: The ability to strategise logistically to ensure access to effective supply chain networks regionally, nationally and internationally. This will require working with suppliers in the private sector, the defence sector, communities, governance and non-governmental agencies as well as maintaining secure critical communication and transportation infrastructures.
-Intuitive foresight: The ability to create a compelling vision that acknowledges the interrelatedness of environments, emergency events and responses and possesses powerful insights into complex human and socio-political behaviour in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges.
-Experiential knowledge: The ability to draw from cogent knowledge, frontline experience and proven expertise in emergency management systems as well as training in operational and strategic management, emergency logistics, human resources management, planning and strategy formulation and execution. Systemic knowledge, including an understanding of legal and socio-political contexts and governance, is also important.
-Decisiveness: The ability to act rationally and decisively with balance based on input from diverse sources, and/or in the face of incomplete, or imperfect, information and/or time pressures and information overload.
-Transformational skills: The ability to lead and change organisational cultures by inspiring others and innovating with proficiency in areas such as change management, conflict resolution, innovative thinking and negotiation. Transformational leadership can help to improve the performance of emergency management systems, co-opt and engage communities to collaborate in the change process and achieve performance excellence in operational outcomes.
This humanistic approach to leadership reinforces the need for authentic leaders who are astute, adaptive, empathic and possess cogent insight into human behaviour. Simultaneously, leaders should build relational and social capital to create sustainable collaboration with the multiplicity of stakeholders engaged in CMEs. The ethics of trust, honesty, humility, integrity, compassion, courage and equanimity are also essential qualities of CME leaders. Such characteristics enable them to constantly challenge the status quo and strive for transformational changes in the best interests of the communities they serve.