James Lee Witt Effective Leadership of FEMA

1945 Words4 Pages

In 1989, our great nation was hit by two devastating natural disasters; Hurricane Hugo and the San Francisco (Loma Prieta) earthquake. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew struck the Florida Coast and caused tremendous damage and death. After these major natural disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) came under severe scrutiny about its lack of responsiveness, preparedness and communication. When James Lee Witt took over as Director of FEMA in 1993, he refocused the agency’s direction toward improving disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. He was able to elevate an agency that was viewed negatively by most Americans to an agency that was focused, responsive and much more respected. By the time James Lee Witt left FEMA, most people, including federal, local and state departments viewed FEMA as a much more improved and effective organization. Positive and effective leadership will provide positive results to improve the efficiencies of an organization. James Lee Witt and the FEMA organization is a strong example to support this thesis.
The impact James Lee Witt made within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) demonstrates how his effective leadership positively influenced the response and recovery efforts during national emergencies and natural disasters. These same leadership skills, characteristics, and values that Witt brought into his position as Director of FEMA can also be applied to many other public sector managers involved in emergency management. These leadership skills were critical during the crisis of the Northridge earthquake, but were also beneficial to increase the trust and credibility of FEMA’s existence along with increasing public value and perception.
On April 5th, 1993, ...

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