Chapter 11: Building Resilience for Local Government Leaders in Times of BANI Crises

Local government leaders were caught unprepared in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. The chaos brought by the pandemic had made them confront a BANI world – brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible. With no playbook on how to deal with the emerging phenomena, local leaders had to make sense of what was happening around them, attend to their constituents needs and carry out COVID-19 counter measures quickly; often going beyond formulaic strategies and creating innovative solutions given the challenging circumstances. This chapter captures the stories of 12 provincial local government mayors in the Philippines as they led their localities through this pandemic. The mayors reflected on the competencies needed to be effective in their leadership role to hurdle enormous tasks and dilemmas they faced. These capabilities included creative problem solving and astute decision-making, crisis communication, and crisis responsiveness. However, the personal characteristics of the leader, particularly their empathy and compassion, political will, humility, and fortitude boosted the effectiveness of their leadership actions. With the possibility of a crisis with COVID-19 proportions happening again, the chapter ends with practical implications and suggestions for leadership development of public officials to prepare them for crisis leadership in today's BANI world.