Measuring the Efficacy of Leaders to Assess Information and Make Decisions in a Crisis: The C-LEAD Scale

Abstract

Effective leadership is needed in times of public health and safety crisis, yet the empirical research on what it means to be an effective crisis leader is scarce. We present a new measure, the Crisis Leader Efficacy in Assessing and Deciding (C-LEAD) scale, to further research on this important topic. C-LEAD captures the self-efficacy of an individual to perform two critical crisis leader behaviors, assessing information and making decisions, in the face of the ambiguity, high stakes, and urgency present in crises. In addition to the psychometric properties of the C-LEAD scale, we demonstrate evidence of its factor structure and discriminant validity from two related constructs - general leader efficacy and procedural crisis preparation. In particular, we found that C-LEAD more accurately predicts decision-making difficulty in a crisis context than general leadership efficacy. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords: Crisis leadership, public health and safety, information assessment, decision making, International Security, Leadership/Conflict Management, Welfare/Health Care/Social Policy