Parting the seas of today's chaotic crises: Advice for global leaders 

The world is in desperate need of clear, rational and fair leadership, especially given the numerous crises we are facing, and the impending ones of tomorrow. Yet it can seem as if we are heading in the opposite direction, with increasingly clamorous and dissonant echo chambers and divisive polarisation fragmenting unity and, therefore, our preparedness and resilience.



Professor Patrick Lagadec has often written on this topic, both in CRJ and elsewhere. He says guidance for, and stability of, leadership have never been more essential than they are today.

Published by Préventique, Lagadec’s new book The era of invention: Statesmen and women struggling with crises and disruptions in a chaotic world, attempts to address some of the challenges of leadership.

He says: “Since the turn of the century, I have observed that we are no longer having to deal with accidents and crises in globally-stabilised universe, but rather are facing an engulfment of crises in a chaotic universe.

“On all fronts, our paradigms and crisis management toolkits are being overwhelmed, he continues. “In such times, the great temptation is to capitulate by leaving the rudder to the jokers and pirates who promise anything and everything, and prepare futures of nonsense and hatred.

“I am convinced of a great urgency: to restore competence, benchmarks, dignity to statesmen and women so that they can fulfil their responsibilities, to engage with all viable and sustainable futures, to reinvigorate trust and invent passages through the unknown oceans that have become humanity’s universe.”

Sadly, this useful guide is currently only available in the original French, but will be of great interest to Francophone readers of the Crisis Response Journal. And we are hoping to publish insights into this book in our upcoming editions.

More details here.

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