Leadership in Extreme Situations

This book covers various aspects of leadership in critical situations and under extreme conditions. Today’s leaders often face challenging situations or unexpected difficulties, and mastering these requires a wide spectrum of competencies such as creativity, courage and empathy. Therefore, this book provides an interdisciplinary approach including both theoretical concepts and practical findings relevant to optimizing leadership in extreme situations. Issues such as why people act as they do in stressful and extreme situations, or what constitutes the nexus between leadership/followership, organizations, and culture etc., are addressed. Leadership under extreme conditions is a very complex topic and one that has been approached from a variety of perspectives. The contributions to this volume thus originate from various academic disciplines including political science, social sciences, psychology, and philosophy. Insights from the study of in extremis leadership can help researchers and practitioners understand the individual, team and contextual factors that influence leadership and, ultimately, organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Leadership in Extreme Situations is a collection of contributions by selected scholars and field experts. It addresses key issues of leadership, morale and cohesion, as well as ethical questions; provides an ideal entry into the complex world of advanced leadership; and serves as a practical guide for the successful implementation of modern leadership.

Michael Holenweger has a PhD in political science. At the Military Academy at ETH Zurich, he is the project leader of a research project that is concerned with strategic communication. He studied political science, communication studies and ethnology at the University of Zurich and teaches, among others, courses on the topics of leadership and communication. In addition, he acts as a consultant in politics, particularly in the area of security and foreign policy and as a consultant for crisis management in international companies. He is the editor of the forthcoming book ?Anwendungsgebiete und Grundlagen strategischer Kommunikation” (“Application and foundations of strategic communication”), published by Nomos.

Michael Jager has a master’s degree in political science, film studies and German philology from the University of Zurich. Since 2013, he has been working as a project assistant at the Military Academy at ETH Zurich. His areas of interest include political leadership, leadership and film as well as civil-military leadership.

Franz Kernic is head of Leadership and Communication Studies at the Military Academy at ETH Zurich. He is also professor of sociology at the Swedish Defense University in Stockholm (on leave) and a senior research fellow at the Austrian National Defense Academy in Vienna (on leave). He received his PhD in history from the University of Vienna, his habilitation (post-doctoral qualification) in political science from the University of Innsbruck and in sociology from the University of the German Armed Forces in Munich. He has been a visiting scholar and professor at many universities in Europe, North and South America, including Stanford University, University of Minnesota, Texas State University, Carleton University and the Catholic University of Santiago de Chile. His main fields of interest include leadership and communication, security policy, military sociology as well as peace and conflict research.