The Great 2020 Pandemic shed light on a myriad of issues regarding the need for effective leadership and disaster management. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has a robust system in place to respond to our civilian counterparts’ requests for support, and our basic approach has been to help others move from a state of “chaos” to “manageable.” Yet, with the standup of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Northern Command, and DoD entities within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, such as the Office for Homeland Defense Integration and Defense Support of Civilian Authorities, there might be a better way to employ DoD forces, particularly since the greatest areas of modernization, talent, professional credentials, and experience reside at the federal level.
The COVID-19 outbreak revealed that our approach of “every disaster is a local disaster” is no longer an effective planning assumption and local officials often do not possess the leadership practices or have the experience needed to effectively lead their community through a disaster. This webinar will quickly backcast key influencers that shaped our current disaster management system and examine the prompting forces that signal a time for a change in the nation’s disaster management approach. It will close with an open discussion of a future-oriented model that could help the next generation of leaders effectively diminish the impact disasters have on society.