Sitting In The Hot Seat

Crisis management is an area of activity which has been propelled to the forefront of the management agenda as a consequence of a number of recent incidents. Increasingly, the responsibility for taking command in an emergency is being placed on senior managers in charge, not only of well-known high-risk sites such as oil rigs and chemicals plants, but also of places where the public have a right to expect to be safe. The bombings of the World Trade Center in New York and of Manchester city centre, and the Hillsborough disaster each called on the skills and courage of people in a suddenly high-risk and high-profile situation. These are internationally memorable incidents but every day there are non-routine critical incidents which call on the skills, and test the training, of emergency professionals and "ordinary" managers alike. How are they prepared for the task? How are they trained? How are they monitored? Increasingly, the responsibility of individuals who are required to take command in emergencies is no longer simply the domain of the military, police, and fire service commanders. Sitting in The Hot Seat examines the selection, training and assessment of individuals who are required to take the command role in an emergency. It presents latest developments from the emergency services, miltary and industrial experts. The emphasis of the book is on the individual manager or commander and his/her relationship with the team. Case studies, expert commentary and psychological research complete a comprehensive picture of the issues in public, and private organizations, the military, and the industrial sector. The Police, the Fire service, the Ambulance service, the Coastguard service,the Armed Forces, the Merchant Navy, commercial airlines, mining, chemical and petro-chemical industries, offshore oil companies, the nuclear and power industries, football clubs, major entertainment venues, hotels safety professionals and senior managers in all these organizations will find Sitting in The Hot Seat a rich source of knowledge and techniques.

About the Author Professor Rhona Flin is a Chartered Psychologist specializing in the application of psychology to safety and emergency management. She is Director of Research at Aberdeen Business School and Offshore Management Centre, The Robert Gordon University, where she leads a team of psychologists working with the offshore oil industry and the emergency services. She is a Visiting Fellow at the UK Fire Service College. She has also been involved with the ACPO MODACE course at the Police Staff College, Bramshill and she lectures on the Inspectors' Course at the Scottish Police College.