Leadership in a continuous crisis

Abstract Research has focused on episodic crises (e.g., fire extinguished), with regard to causality, management, and recovery. But some crises (e.g., illegal migration) are continuous, with no clear conclusion, and the nature and timing of the recovery phase are indeterminate. To explore the challenges facing leaders in a continuous crisis, we turn to ‘extreme fiction’ – a radically imaginative narrative of possible accidents, crises and disasters. The television series The Walking Dead is an example of a continuous crisis. This is also a novel crisis, which means that crisis management routines, protocols, and standard operating procedures may not apply, and the value of past experience may be limited. Our analysis offers a novel perspective on the nature of the crisis leadership role, by showing how a continuous crisis generates three paradoxical leadership agendas: managing the crisis (which includes unmanageable elements), managing conflict (while initiating and participating in conflict), and managing values (which may have to be temporarily abandoned). Our findings also demonstrate how contextual properties shape the leadership role in a continuous crisis.