The challenge of leadership in flood disaster management: A case study on flash floods in Pakistan

Abstract

Disaster Management Authorities (DMAs) in Pakistan is seen to be facing some limitations in execution of the planning in different phases of disaster management. However, the leadership of these DMAs can effectively resolve this issue if they are professionally qualified, properly trained and by adopting an appropriate style, behavior and attitudes. So, before the DMAs focus on the ineffectiveness of disaster management they need to strategically asses not only the impacts of the decision and plans, but how these plans are designed and developed. Also, DMAs need to evaluate the process that how the disaster management (DM) profile is developed and what related alternatives are identified, this is what exactly the role of leadership effectiveness is about and they seeking for to accomplish. Considering the significantly important role of the leadership effectiveness in DMAs, this research is undertaken to define and demonstrate how the style and behavior of the leadership was affected during the FF2010 disaster and explored the way it could have been more effective and efficient dealing with this kind and magnitude of the disaster. The Mix-Method approach allowed the researcher for in-depth interviews with leaders, employee surveys and group discussion in the severely affected districts. The MAXQDA and SPSS are used for qualitative and quantitative data respectively in processing the collected data, thus the result are obtained and analyzed. The research extended the leadership theories transformational (TL) and leader-member exchange (LMX) in the context of disaster management. This research found that the style, behavior, dedication and commitment of leadership not only played a significant role in the effectiveness of the leadership, but also has an effect on maintaining the Leader-Member relationship. The study identified the impacts of the leadership traits and also the greatest challenge the leadership and DMAs are likely to face at the times of responding to disaster. The result analysis further indicated a communication gap between the leadership and their respective communities which can be attributed to the effectiveness of the styles and behaviors of the leadership. Finally, this study concluded that the human safety, reducing financial losses and improving the level of satisfaction of affected communities all depended on the leadership approach existing in DMAs. With the increasing complexity and instability in the country essential preparation of the leadership in DMAs is going to be significantly important and critical. This research is limited to the public and district level leadership in KP province so the potential of the future research would be to explore, compare and analyze the leadership at other district and provincial and national level, a broader study will expectedly reveal further interesting result and will definitely bring some fresh insight to this demanding subject.