Selecting and Developing Crisis Leaders Using Competency‐Based Simulations

Crisis simulations provide organizations with a powerful means of selecting and training its leaders to effectively handle crisis situations. This article provides a hands‐on approach to developing high‐quality crisis simulations in organizations. Several topics are discussed, including: (1) the use of a Behavioural Crisis Analysis (BCA) to define the critical tasks and knowledge, skills and abilities involved in effectively addressing a crisis; (2) guidelines for designing a high‐fidelity crisis exercise; (3) methods for measuring the crisis handling performance of participants during the simulation; and (4) how to use the information obtained from the simulation for selecting, coaching and developing crisis leaders.