'What if? Lessons About Leadership and Team Dynamics From the Apocalypse' Leadership, Organisations, Behaviour and Reputation Research Seminar

Professor Hällgren serves as Head of Research for the department of Business Administration and as co-ordinator of the 'AI-Management' theme of the Centre for Transdisciplinary Artificial Intelligence for the Good of All (TAIGA), at Umeå University. His primary research interest is the everyday practice in extreme contexts, precisely organisational routines, leadership, sensemaking and group dynamics. His research includes ethnographic fieldwork on commercial ski guiding, commercial high-altitude mountaineering, hospital emergency departments, police detectives, the police Incident Command Center's handling of COVID-19, armed forces county administrative board incident command work, indoor climbing and IT- and construction projects. He also uses fiction to understand contemporary society and future unimaginable events, through (zombie) fiction. His research team is found on www.tripleED.com and he is the co-organiser of the www.organizingextremecontexts.org network.

The topic of this presentation is 'What if? Lessons About Leadership and Team Dynamics From the Apocalypse'. Professor Hällgren will explore the demands on leaders who will have to deal with extreme events that have not occurred before, which is becoming increasingly important as organisations need support to prepare for unknown, unprecedented and unimaginable events. Having conducted a workshop with a police incident command team, this seminar will explore how extreme fiction - radically imaginative narratives of accidents, crises and disasters - can help, responding to a scene from the apocalyptic television series The Walking Dead. By showing how extreme fiction can help to reimagine assumptions about crisis leadership, Professor Hällgren has found that crisis leadership can benefit from weaknesses, as it increases the response approach. He has also examined how extreme fiction creates engagement and reduces the reliance on simple, formulaic solutions that may be of little use in the future, thus helping practitioners prepare and build resilience for handling surprising, unimaginable extreme events.

The seminar will be held on 14 November 2024, 1:00pm, in room G03 of the Henley Business School building, Whiteknights campus. For those unable to attend in person there is also the option to dial in remotely via Microsoft Teams. If you are interested in joining, please contact Alex Baker on a.j.baker@henley.ac.uk

After the seminar has concluded, early-career and mid-career academics are invited to a Fireside Chat with Professor Hällgren at 2:15pm, facilitated by Professor Bernd Vogel. This session is titled 'How and Why to Establish an International Research Programme: Personal Insights and Growth' and is aimed academics looking to gain valuable insights from Professor Hällgren’s experiences in building an international research profile and fostering personal growth in academia.

Members of LOBR faculty may also request to book a one to one meeting with Professor Hällgren. Each appointment will last 30 minutes, between 3:30pm to 5:00pm. Slots are limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. To arrange an appointment, please contact Alex Baker on a.j.baker@henley.ac.uk

LOBR research seminars are co-ordinated by Professor Bernd Vogel and Dr Anastasiya Saraeva.