Leadership and resilience in a crisis
I recently presented to the Royal United Services Institute in New South Wales on leadership and resilience in a crisis. I particularly noted that while there have been multiple texts published on military leadership, there is limited guidance on leadership in a prolonged crisis and even less guidance on public health leadership in a pandemic.1 This theme was further explored at the recent Royal Australasian College of Physician’s (RACP) Congress in a COVID-19 panel discussion. How do we best prepare our future military health leaders to lead and manage a prolonged crisis, whether that is a public health emergency, a prolonged disaster or a military conflict? Most leadership programs, even military programs, do not focus on the highly disruptive nature of such events, the complexity and ambiguity involved in the decision-making, or the political, regulatory and media overlay. I also recently finished reading The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester (recently released as the film Greyhound), which relates to the fictionalised account of the escort of 37 ships to England during the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942.2 The resilience required by all leaders in such circumstances and how we best prepare them for such roles also require further consideration, particularly as we move into more unsettled times. Some lessons can be learned from the current pandemic, both on crisis leadership and resilience, which we should be factoring into our future training.
Our second issue of 2021 contains a diverse range of articles, focusing on the impacts of infectious disease on military forces. These are also some excellent articles on military health support, communications training and fitness for aircrew training. We continue to attract a good range of articles, including from overseas. We encourage all our readers to consider writing on their areas of military or veterans’ health interest. We would particularly welcome papers based on our 2020 conference presentations or those being prepared for our 2021 conference, but welcome any articles across the broader spectrum of military health.
Dr Andy Robertson, CSC, PSM
Commodore, RAN
Editor-in-Chief
