What Makes an Emergency Manager?

Posted on June 30, 2026 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Newsletter

I have written elsewhere about the work of the Principles of Emergency Management (POEM) working group convened by Dr Wayne Blanchard at the Emergency Management Institute in 2007. The main project of the group, the Principles of Emergency Management, identified eight principles that were intended to be used to guide the development of emergency management doctrine. The Principles were an attempt to identify what emergency managers were expected to do to be successful:

1. Comprehensive – emergency managers consider and take into account all hazards, all phases, all stakeholders and all impacts relevant to disasters.
2. Progressive – emergency managers anticipate future disasters and take preventive and preparatory measures to build disaster-resistant and disaster-resilient communities.
3. Risk-driven – emergency managers use sound risk management principles (hazard identification, risk analysis, and impact analysis) in assigning priorities and resources.
4. Integrated – emergency managers ensure unity of effort among all levels of government and all elements of a community.
5. Collaborative – emergency managers create and sustain broad and sincere relationships among individuals and organizations to encourage trust, advocate a team atmosphere, build consensus, and facilitate communication.
6. Coordinated – emergency managers synchronize the activities of all relevant stakeholders to achieve a common purpose.
7. Flexible – emergency managers use creative and innovative approaches in solving disaster challenges. 
8. Professional – emergency managers value a science and knowledge-based approach based on education, training, experience, ethical practice, public stewardship and continuous improvement.
9. In this, the POEM working group joined a long line of researchers trying to identify measures that define a successful emergency manager.

However, in a 2008 paper delivered at the FEMA Higher Education Conference, titled Constructing Theory for Emergency Managers: A Principles Based Approach, Dr George Youngs suggested that the Principles might be better used to define relationships rather than individual effort. In this, the POEM working group joined a long line of researchers attempting to define emergency managers by what they do, rather than who they are.

In his benchmark 1987 study, The Professional Emergency Manager, Dr. Thomas Drabek, studied the characteristics of 12 successful emergency managers and compared them to a random sample of 50 other directors from across the country. Drabek’s results were classified in three major categories:

1. Professionalism: successful emergency managers had established themselves in their jurisdiction as key players through a combination of perceived expertise and contributions to overall jurisdictional goals.
2. Individual qualities: successful emergency managers shared many key traits such as communications skills, organizational ability, human relations skills, and control under stress. The study participants also possessed traits based on their experience that were unique to each.
3. Emergency management activities: successful emergency managers were committed to comprehensive emergency management, taking a broader view of their jobs than just preparedness.

Drabek’s study was groundbreaking and defines essential qualities relevant to emergency managers: building credibility by demonstrating commitment and expertise. But here again we find emergency managers defined by what they do.

A further example can be found in a 2017 paper, The Next Generation Core Competencies for Emergency Management Professionals: Handbook of Behavioral Anchors and Key Actions for Measurement, by Shirley Feldmann-Jensen, Steven Jensen, and Sandy Maxwell Smith. This paper identifies a comprehensive list of thirteen core competencies that are required by the changing role of the emergency manager, again focusing on what the emergency manager must do:

1. Operate within the Emergency Management Framework, Principles, and Body of Knowledge: The emergency management professional utilizes a proactive, anticipatory, and innovative approach for guiding public policy and in the application of the emergency management framework and principles.
2. Possess Critical Thinking: The emergency management professional employs critical thinking to identify and reduce disaster risk in the communities they serve.
3. Abide by Professional Ethics: The emergency management professional both abides by and champions professional ethics.
4. Continual Learning: The emergency management professional engages in continual learning as a central means of increasing their efficacy when operating in a dynamic risk environment.
5. Scientific Literacy: The emergency management professional possesses an understanding and working knowledge of scientific processes, as well as a familiarity with the natural, social, fiscal, and applied sciences.
6. Geographic Literacy: The emergency management professional possesses a foundational and comprehensive understanding of the geographic configurations of hazards, vulnerability, and risk.
7. Sociocultural Literacy: The emergency management professional recognizes the social determinants of risk, as both the risks for and the effects of disasters are socially produced.
8. Technological Literacy: The emergency management professional possesses a fundamental understanding of evolving technologies, their relevant application to practice, and timely adoption of these technologies.
9. Systems Literacy: The emergency management professional sees the whole picture, particularly inter-relationships and patterns of change.
10. Disaster Risk Management: The emergency management professional communicates and facilitates disaster risk awareness, assessment, measurement, and reduction across a broad spectrum of stakeholders.
11. Community Engagement: Community engagement involves an open dialogue and relationship development that fosters working constructively to reduce the shared disaster risk.
12. Governance and Civics: The emergency management professional understands how to participate with civic and legal processes, from politics to policy.
13. Leadership: The emergency management professional is comfortable leading within and across organizations.

Let me be clear that I am not criticizing these papers. I believe they are important and seminal documents that should be required reading for emergency managers. I have written elsewhere about the three skills I believe every emergency manager must master and I also focused on tasks, not personality:

1. Speak persuasively
2. Write effectively
3. Facilitate meetings to effective conclusions

What I am suggesting is that we may want to study the personalities of successful emergency managers and look for those qualities in new candidates. What do I consider essential qualities? I’d look for a passion for service to others and a commitment to ethics.  Perhaps the best definition of an emergency manager was the one by my friend and colleague, Henry Rentiera, former head of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, “Emergency management is not what you do; it’s who you are.”