Personality Type for RMT/CRT (Risk Management Teams and Crisis Response Teams)

It will come as a surprise to most that I do not feel I am the best suited person, personality-wise, to be a member of a Crisis Response Team, or even a Risk Management Team. I love writing about risk, researching risk, thinking through exegetically how the Bible can specifically help us address Cross-Cultural Risk analysis, management, as well as stewardship issues. I also love consulting on risk because it helps me think through another unique angle on a Theology of Risk and I get to hear what God is doing in another challenging situation to further His kingdom through His saints.

But when it comes to Crisis Management Teams, "that's a whole 'nother ballgame," as we like to say in America.

I recognize that there are few with my experiences and understand what is involved, so I have on occasion accepted to be part of a Crisis Management Team. Neal is really much better suited to this. Really, in the end, the reason we have RMT's and CMT's is because of threats against a team or individuals or because a field worker has been kidnapped or killed, or some other major risk event has taken place or is threatening to take place.

We do this difficult work for the love of our King and His saints serving in dangerous places. But there is wisdom in working to get the best team together for Risk and Crisis Management, and this includes self-awareness and awareness of the personality mix of the individuals and the RMT/CMT mix of folks.

Research has demonstrated fairly accurately the personality type best suited for Risk and Crisis Management and Leadership, and when I compare the results of the studies with those men and women who I have leaned on in crisis, they really match the following descriptions. 

How can you tell that a certain person has the personality type?  I know it when I see it, which really isn't helpful to everyone else.  But it's really a mysterious mix of calmness, reticence to speak until a certain amount of data has been gathered, decisiveness in ambiguity and total clarity of thought and purpose despite immense stress and pressure.

This person, at the exact same time all this is going on, is able to speak calmly and generally graciously but directly and with confidence. It is not more a male trait than female, but seems to be distributed in both genders.  The best Crisis Response Team member and leader is not typically an "A-Type" dominant leader, (usually not), and it is not always a phlegmatic personality, either.

Here are the brief conclusions from a study copied and pasted from this source: 

The results from this study suggest that personality assessment can make a useful contribution to identifying and selecting individuals that are most suited to crises management roles.
It can also help to provide individuals with a more detailed level of feedback in order to understand their own reactions and behaviors under challenging circumstances, and to inform future training programs.
The key areas to assess are:

• Extraversion
• Leadership
• Group orientation
• Emotional stability

Those that are socially confident, influential and comfortable taking the lead are most likely to perform well in crisis situation. Being able to communicate and work well in a team is critical to managing crisis situations, as well as remaining calm under stressful circumstances.
 In addition, other important areas to assess are:

• Ease in decision making
• Work pace

In a crisis, the situation can change at a very rapid pace.
New information can arrive at any time, which may change the course of action that needs to be taken and shifting work force allocation. Individuals need to be able to assimilate this information and make decisions that could have far reaching consequences in a short space of time.
Some unexpected results that emerged from the study were:

• Variety seeking
• Conscientiousness (low)

During a crisis, the situation may be changeable and  ambiguous.
Therefore individuals that are able to cope with ambiguity and change maybe more effective during a crisis. Individuals that have a high need to follow rules and be supervised, may find managing a crisis more challenging.
Those that are too analytical may also find emergency situations challenging – overall too much conscientiousness could get in the way – certainly in emergency situations.

References and further reading:

Choi, J. N., Sung. Y. S. & Kim, M. U. (2010). How groups react to unexpected threats? Crisis Management in Organizational Teams. Social Behavior and Personality, 38 (6), 805-828.
Flin, R. & Slavin, G. (1994). The selection and training of offshore installation managers for crisis management. Health and Safety Executive – Offshore Technology Report, OTH 92 374.
Seeger, M. W., Sellnow, T. L. and Ulmer, R. R. (1998). Communication, organization and crisis. Communication Yearbook 21: 231–275.

Unhelpful Things People Say in Risk #7

This series is based on real statements actually heard in risk situations.

#7 "This Too Shall Pass."

A worker is sharing a risk situation with a veteran on the field or supporter back home, not knowing what to do, and receives this response, "This too shall pass." Being on the receiving end of this statement, a "tape" of synonymous thoughts implied by this statement begin playing in my head:

• "I'm making too big of a deal about the risk, threat, danger - whatever it is that is causing my anxiety.
• "I'm being weak, not strong like the other person, because clearly that threat isn't bothering them.
• "I'm reading the situation wrong"
• "I would know this if I had been here as long as him/her.

I've always found Daniel 4:3 to be so inspiring and calming - God's Kingdom will go on forever and ever. It helps me to keep my eyes up to know that one day, all will be made right.  But it still doesn't answer the urgent question, the urgent demand, of knowing what to do TODAY.

There are no guarantees that "it shall pass," so it seems a bit condescending and arrogant to suggest that one knows this.

As with all the previous unhelpful statements discussed, a worker needs help in discernment and decision making when they share.  Giving a trite statement like this is really self-serving for the individual saying it, and is slothfulness of soul because there is an unwillingness to really help the worker sort through what is the risks, dangers, threats.

Let's be the spiritual mothers and fathers needed by all those serving in dangerous places and graciously and humbly help those trying to work out what it means to persevere in hard situations.


Go To:
Unhelpful Things People Say in Risk #6

Sloth In The Soul

"There is an evil which most of us condone and are even guilty of: indifference to evil. We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done to other people. Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself; it is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous. A silent justification, it makes possible an evil erupting as an exception becoming the rule and being in turn accepted."(1)

"Patience, a quality of holiness, may be sloth in the soul when associated with a lack of righteous indignation."(2)

Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7, 8 states, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: ...a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love, and a time to hate."

The Oxford Dictionary defines "Sloth" as "Reluctance to work or make an effort; laziness."

One saint defined sloth as this:
 "sluggishness of soul or boredom because of the exertion necessary for the performance of a good work. The good work may be a corporal task, such as walking; or a mental exercise, such as writing; or a spiritual duty, such as prayer."(3)

"Man's sense of injustice is a poor analogy to God's sense of injustice. The exploitation of the poor is to us a misdemeanor, to God, it is a disaster Our reaction is disapproval; God's reaction is something no language can convey." (4) 

In other words, maturity and deep discernment in Christ results in righteous anger and just action in the face of evil, not patience and apathy. The opposite of sloth is passion of the soul that feels what God feels. It takes work to sift through our emotions and it is uncomfortable to examine our own souls. Are we being slothful of soul in the face of evil?

We live in a time when more clearly than ever wherever terrorists strike, there is a parallel movement of the Spirit happening. Reading the news with spiritual eyes takes a combination of research and hunting - we need to sign up for missionary prayer letters and search the private blogs to learn what God is doing all over the world. 

There were two terror attacks in downtown London in 2 weeks time. After the 2nd one, I kept asking myself - what is going on in London that this happened? After doing very little research on Google, I quickly was reminded that London is the base for the largest seminary training of Iranian pastors.  These terrorist attacks around the world seem random and coincidental, but actually mirror the reality of the spiritual war between God and His enemy. 

Are our hearts broken by the suffering of the Yazidi people?  While we need to pray and work to stop terrorism, and evil doers need to caught and jailed, at the same time we also know of ISIS soldiers coming to Christ.  I hear of pagans taking in refugees and helping them make a new life. Are Christians taking in Muslim refugees to help them? What about the Ethiopian Christians being placed in horrible concentration camps - this news goes unreported in the main media. I wonder sometimes, are we, the modern day church so racist that we just don't pay attention to what happens to our black brothers and sisters? 

Lord have mercy on them. Lord, have mercy on us.  

The way to break the sin cycle of slothfulness of soul, of indifference and apathy is to repent and ask for God's help.  We are to love others as we love ourselves.  Sloth is pure selfishness and self-idolatry.  This is why we need to repent. Then we need to regularly read and hear stories and cultivate awareness of what horrors others are experiencing and what God is doing to demonstrate His faithfulness in our day.  The opposite of slothfulness is work, and this includes the work we need to do in our souls to feel what God feels, to see what God sees (Divine seeing),  to be angry in the way God is angry, and to love passionately all those He loves.

Praying through the news helps us to empathize with those suffering and we begin to cultivate a Divine perspective on the human situation around the world.  Slothfulness of soul is a particularly American Church sin.  We are an adolescent church that doesn't know what it is to suffer or risk our lives to the point of death.  

The problems the American church argues over are 1st world church problems, issues that we do not have the luxury of discussing when we are in a "fox hole" engaging in the front-line battle for the souls of men, women, boys and girls. 

I plead with our generation to engage in the cosmic battle and become alert to the battle in our souls and for our souls. Slothfulness is a highly effective strategy of the enemy to blind us to what is truly happening in the world.  May we become God's voice, hands and feet to minister to all those who have no voice to cry out against the evils being done to them. May we have holy unrest because of all those who still have yet to hear. 

Resources Cited: 
(1, 2, 4) Abraham Heschel - The Prophets
(3) - The Three Ages of the Interior Life