Impact of Transformational and Relational Leadership Theories and Ethics Towards Climate Change Resilience in Fiji
Abstract and Figures
This analytical essay explores the intricate interplay between leadership theories and the ethical dimensions inherent in addressing climate change, natural disasters, and their impacts on Fiji. Transformational and relational leadership theories are identified as crucial frameworks in shaping ethical attributes within organizations, creating ethical climates that address the implications of climate change and disasters. The challenges posed by natural disasters in Fiji, particularly on the economy, vulnerable sectors, and communities, necessitate effective leadership and ethical approach. This essay delves into multiple leadership theories, examining their relevance and efficacy in the context of Pacific Islands. Authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and culturally sustaining leadership emerge as influential paradigms, contributing to disaster risk reduction, resilience, and coping mechanisms. The Ethical and Effective Leadership (EEL) Model introduces propositions that underscore the impact of leader characteristics, people practices, institutional practices, and contextual factors on organizational outcomes. However, ethical dilemmas surface, as leaders navigate vulnerabilities, resilience, and societal expectations. Crosweller and Tschakert highlight the ethical challenges faced by leaders, particularly in balancing the urgency of climate action with the constraints of neoliberal policies. Complexity of leadership is discussed in disaster risk reduction, including the influence of worldviews and power dynamics within community-led initiatives. In summary, this essay synthesizes various leadership theories, and showcasing their applicability in the Pacific Islands, specifically Fiji, in addressing climate change and disasters. The ethical considerations woven into leadership decisions and actions underscore the need for leaders to navigate complexities, fostering compassion, inclusivity, and preparedness in the face of environmental and societal challenges.
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Urban climate and disaster risks are set to rise, driven by the interaction of two global megatrends: urbanization and climate change. A detailed understanding of whether, where and how cities are growing within or into hazard-prone areas is an urgent prerequisite for assessing future risk trajectories, risk-informed planning, and adaptation decisions. However, this analysis has been mostly neglected to date, as most climate change and disaster risk research has focused on the assessment of future hazard trends but less on the assessment of how socio-economic changes affect future hazard exposure. Urban growth and expansion modelling provide a powerful tool, given that urban growth is a major driver of future disaster risk in cities. The paper reviews the achievements lately made in urban growth and exposure modelling and assesses how they can be applied in the context of future-oriented urban risk assessment and the planning of adaptation measures. It also analyses which methodological challenges persist in urban growth and exposure modelling and how they might be overcome. These points pertain particularly to the need to consider and integrate (1) urban morphology patterns and potential linkages to exposure as well as vulnerability, (2) long-term time horizons to consider long-term developments, (3) feedbacks between urbanization trajectories and hazard trends, (4) the integration of future urban growth drivers and adaptation responses, (5) feedbacks between adaptation and urbanization, and (6) scenarios, which are developed within a commonly defined scenario framework.
Community participation and leadership as a shared responsibility of emergency and disaster preparedness is receiving increasing attention. This paper offers an approach informed by complexity and community development theories to support,
map and gauge community-led disaster preparedness. A review of existing research, theoretical debates and primary research with communities suggests
community preparedness is supported by action across 7 domains: information, networks, communication, resources, decision-making, self-organising and inclusion. These dimensions are best understood as part of a complex system; that is, dimensions interconnect and adapt in non-linear and dynamic ways. The aim of this paper is to offer theoretical foundations for work that strengthens community
preparedness.
Objective:
In January 2022, Fiji was hit by multiple natural disasters including a cyclone causing flooding, an underwater volcanic eruption and tsunami. This study aimed to investigate perceived needs among the disaster-affected people in Fiji and to evaluate the feasibility of the Humanitarian Emergency Settings Perceived Needs Scale (HESPER Web) during the early stage after multiple natural disasters.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study using a self-selected, non-representative study sample was conducted. The HESPER Web was used to collect data.
Results:
In all, 242 people participated. The number of perceived serious needs ranged between 2 and 14 (out of a possible 26), with a mean of 6 (SD 3). The top three most reported needs were access to toilets (60%), care for people in the community who are on their own (55%), and distress (51%). Volunteers reported fewer needs than the general public.
Conclusions:
The top three needs reported were related to water and sanitation and psychosocial needs. Such needs should not be underestimated in the emergency phase after natural disasters, and may require more attention from responding actors. The HESPER Web was be considered as a usable tool for needs assessment in a sudden onset disaster.
Grounded in conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study identifies the effect of leadership behaviors on the resilience of tourism firms and employees in Sri Lanka during the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis. The developed conceptual model links the resilient leadership behaviors of vision sharing, leadership of tasks, and management of change with employee resilience (cognitive, behavioral, and contextual) and organizational resilience (planned and adaptive). The findings highlight that resilient leadership behaviors in the early stages of the pandemic enhanced both employee and organizational resilience. The contextual and behavioral dimensions of employee resilience mediated the effect of resilient leadership behaviors on organizational resilience. The study offers suggestions for the development of organizational resilience and the specific support that may facilitate the recovery of the tourism sector from the COVID-19 crisis.
This study aims to explore the leadership of Indah Putri Indriani as a regent within the North Luwu Regency Government in the process of compassionate leadership in facing the challenges of the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in North Luwu Regency. This research method is exploratory-qualitative with a phenomenological approach in exploring the process of compassionate leadership in facing the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic in North Luwu Regency. The results of this study indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic in the North Luwu Regency highlights the need for leaders to apply the principle of compassion in order to be able to make decisions and programmes that encourage integrated and appropriate cross-sectoral responses, taking into account contextual factors in their implementation. In handling the Corona Virus Disease 2019, the government of North Luwu Regency created a cooperation programme with UNICEF Indonesia and Geneva Madani in North Luwu Regency. Then, from these two programs, create a home medicine budget allocation programme for people affected by the Corona Virus Disease 2019 in North Luwu Regency, highlighting the reduction of suffering and difficulties for local people in North Luwu Regency. This research contributes to providing knowledge about lessons learned from local governments dealing with difficult situations such as the Corona Virus Disease of 2019 by prioritising the mindset and attitude of compassionate leadership. This approach emphasises a better understanding of the real needs and difficulties faced by the community.
Span of control may be a critical structural condition for ethical leadership. According to social learning theory, emulation and vicarious learning processes are mechanisms through which ethical leaders enhance ethical commitment among employees. However, if the span of control (number of employees per manager) is too wide, ethical leadership can be difficult to practice due to a more distant relationship between manager and employees. Using a mixed method design with survey data and interviews, we analyze the relationship between span of control and ethical leadership among doctors in Danish hospitals. Survey results from the study show no statistical association between span of control and clinical directors’ self-reported ethical leadership. Interviews with employees and managers support this finding by showing how ethical guidance unfolds through social exchange relationships where employees can act as moral professionals. This suggests that span of control is not a critical structural condition for intending and perceiving a high level of ethical leadership. Span of control is indirectly relevant through the perceived distance between manager and employees. The findings thus enhance our understanding of how ethical leadership takes place in complex, professionalized public organizations. This might inspire managers to lower the organizational power distance and promote professionalism.
This study aimed to examine the relationships between ethical leadership behavior, ethical work climate, employee jobperformance, and customer service quality. The impact of ethical leadership on three types of ethical climates—egoist,benevolent, and principled—, employee job performance, and customer service quality were analyzed, as were therelationships between all of these variables as well. Data were gathered from 379 bank branch employees and 406 bankcustomers in Izmir, Turkiye. Results of the PLS-SEM analysis revealed that ethical leadership behavior affects benevolentand principled ethical climates, but contrary to the hypothesis suggested, it also has a positive effect on an egoisticclimate. However, the results indicate that the egoist and benevolent climates do not have a significant influence onjob performance, but the principled climate positively affects the job performance of employees. In addition, ethicalleadership affects job performance positively. However, ethical leadership and service quality, as well as job performanceand service quality, are not significantly related. These findings further suggest that ethical leadership behaviors affect anethical working climate and have a positive effect on employee job performance and quality of service.
Strategies of community‐based disaster risk reduction have been advocated for more than 2 decades. However, we still lack in‐depth quantitative assessments of the effectiveness of such strategies. Our research is based on a national experiment in this domain: the “Comprehensive Disaster Reduction Demonstration Community” project, a governmental program running in China since 2007. Information on more than 11,000 demonstration communities was collected. Combined with the local disaster information and socioeconomic conditions, the spatiotemporal characteristics of these communities over 12 years and their differences in performance by region and income group were analyzed. We performed an attribution analysis for disaster risk reduction effectiveness. This is the first time a series of quantitative evaluation methods have been applied to verify the effectiveness of a large‐scale community‐based disaster risk reduction project, both from the perspective of demonstrative effects and loss reduction benefits. Here, we find that the project is obviously effective from these two perspectives, and the disaster loss reduction effectiveness illustrates clear regional differences, where the regional economic level and hazard severity act as important drivers. Significant differences of urban‐rural and income call for matching fortification measures, and the dynamic management of demonstration community size is required, since the loss reduction benefit converges when the penetration rate of the demonstration community reaches approximately 4% in a province. These and further results provide diverse implications for community‐based disaster risk reduction policies and practices.
Pacific Islander communities in the USA experienced some of the most severe effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative synthesis examines the literature on Pacific Islander community responses and lessons learned from COVID-19, using a systematic search that identified 28 articles with this focus. Thematic analysis was subsequently used to classify both documented efforts by Pacific Islander communities to respond to the pandemic, as well as lessons learned and best practices from research in this area. Results revealed multiple efforts to address the pandemic, including Pacific Islander grassroots approaches, government responses, inter-sector collaboration, and research. Results further emphasized the importance of culturally and linguistically responsive outreach and messaging; partnership, engagement, and capacity building; and changes in research and policy approaches to promote health equity. Future efforts to address public health crises should make the most of Pacific Islander cultural approaches to disaster response. To achieve this, government and other organizations that work with PI communities need to support the development of the PI leadership, healthcare and research workforces, and work with Pacific Islander communities to build long-term, sustainable, and trustworthy partnerships.