Emotional Intelligence & Emergency Response – Part 1

Now that the podcast is up and running again, we are pleased to offer a talk by Dan Goleman called Emotional Intelligence and Emergency Response. Whether you are a manager leading a team through a time of crisis, or a first responder handling a dangerous emergency, Goleman’s guidance provides a framework which may be used to prepare for such an event. Following his lecture, Goleman leads a discussion with Barry Dorn of the Harvard School of Public Health and Leonard Marcus of the Harvard National Preparedness Leadership Initiative.

Section 1: Applied Emotion

In this first section, Goleman describes why effective emergency response requires “the intelligent application of emotion.” He offers a neurological explanation for why cognitive intelligence is often rendered irrelevant in our response to highly stressful situations. During these events, the brain’s decision-making center shifts from the left prefrontal cortex (which usually governs logically and analytically) to the amygdala, the brain’s emergency response center. Since they are rooted in deep-seeded biological survival tactics, reactions typically generated by the amygdala are strong, sudden and emotional, and they often lead to poor decisions. In order to be effective in emergency situations, responders must learn to resist the “amygdala hijack” and remain calm and focused enough to draw on necessary expertise to devise an innovative solution.