Here's how you can navigate complex and dynamic emergency situations with necessary leadership skills.

The key to leadership is ensuring that your team is well trained, well resourced and fully prepared for the rigors of managing an emergency. I am not sure I agree with the statement "Compassion is critical". I believe that empathy and situational awareness of the consequences if critical. To me, the notion of compassion can be a notion that will potentially create 'tunnel vision', which can have significant unintended consequences. You need to consider consequences of actions on both the team and the impacted and broader communities.

Being aware of team members limitations and recognizing the signs of approaching their limits of coping is helpful in assigning tasks, or reassigning tasks among team members to maintain engagement and not allowing your team become overwhelmed.

I agree that communication is the first thing to fail if an emergency is not being managed correctly. Planning is the key, not only to you own success but the success to the team. Having the team all knowing and working off the same communication plan means that you are not spending precious time fixing up avoidable communication errors.

Sticking to known and understood formats in presenting information can have a positive effect on reducing confusion. Asking for read backs to ensure the message has been understood as it was intended can be instrumental in an emergency operation running smoothly. If an emergency operation fails, it is highly likely it was due to a breakdown in communication.

One aspect of situational awareness is the ability to take the information you have and orientate that information to be able to project what is likely to happen next or in the near future. Understanding the consequences of the information can be vital when it come to deploying resources when those resources are limited.

Understanding the decision-making process is the key. Ensuring that you and the team have the right tools to document your decisions is critical. All after-action reviews have the luxury of knowing the outcome and being able to measure the decision against the result. Ensuring that you can demonstrate the information and evidence you had at the time of a decision is what I believe is the critical component. The one key term that is missing from this statement is "accountability". People need to be aware of their accountability, biases and scrutiny that will be attached to their decisions.

Effectively delegating and having team members stay on task is a crucial step in maintain the control of information both in to the team leader and from the team leader. Controlling the information allows for a greater clarity in processing and understanding the information in context, reduces confusion and maintain situational awareness.