The importance of critical thinking skills in disaster management

The adverse circumstances occasioned by disasters rarely remain static but rather continue to evolve, temporally and spatially, rendering preplanned response operations uncertain, at best, and ineffectual, at worst. As such, disaster management professionals need to think critically to implement response strategies best suited to the circumstances at hand, with the best available information. This paper provides an overview of critical thinking, and its importance in helping leaders provide order to the chaos often associated with disaster response and recovery efforts. Critical thinking skills include the ability to identify and define a problem, recognise assumptions, evaluate arguments, and apply inductive and deductive reasoning to draw conclusions from the available information. Understanding and improving a leader's critical thinking skills helps to provide a sense of confidence, trust and authority during a community-wide crisis. As such, emergency management professionals must continually enhance their critical thinking skills.