Keys to leadership in emergency response: the team

Leaders in humanitarian aid, particularly in emergency response, face special challenges related the speed, change, complexity and stress associated with the projects they oversee. In addition to this, those new to their assignment often face skepticism among their team, a dislike for authority, and staff turnover causing a loss of institutional knowledge.

The key to overcoming these hurdles is to focus on being a process leader for your team. This will generate loyalty, morale, productivity and effectiveness.

An emergency response team is a group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common ethic, a set of goals, and a common approach, for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

Your job as a process leader is to enable your team achieve this standard throughout the response.

There are four parts:

1. "...a group of people...": Any more than nine people in any team becomes unwieldily. Break into sub-teams. Select meeting attendees carefully and tactfully. If expatriates outnumber nationals, start again. 
2. "...complementary skills...": Never overlook team members with soft skills such as context analysis and conflict resolution. You will need them when it counts the most. 
3. "...common ethic, a set of goals, and a common approach...": Commitment will stick when all three are included. A common ethic refers to strategic values, both big (organizational) and small (team ground-rules). Goals should be explicit and S.M.A.R.T. A common approach refers to tactics, for example, what you mainstream and what you don't. 
4. "...hold themselves mutually accountable...": Focus on supporting each other to get the job done. Either you all will succeed, or you all will fail. 

Finally, make sure you haven't skipped the forming and norming stage of team development. Many emergency response teams do. They storm into the response eager to make a difference, but suffer ineffectiveness and frustration due to poor communication and coordination. A sure sign is when team members email back and forth on an issue while sitting in the same office.

As the team leader its your job to correct this. There are no formulas for doing so. I will only say this: your team will chafe at "wasting" the time it will take you to lead them through forming and norming, but it will be worth it.