THE RESCUE MISSION OF THE WILD BOARS SOCCER TEAM, THAILAND: A Case Study on Leadership in Emergencies

Abstract

During the summer of 2018, the world was captivated by news about the Wild Boars soccer team, trapped in a cave in Thailand. This paper analyzes instances of leadership in the internationally-coordinated rescue effort.We share a lesson plan to support critical thinking in the roles of different leadership approaches and theories to apply this knowledge in a similar context. We present our methodology for developing this lesson plan and identification of leadership within the case; highlighted approaches include followership, servant leadership, situational leadership, and team-based leadership. We also pose three ethical issues that emerged within rescue operations. Educators can incorporate analysis of emergency response cases in their teaching to public sector officials to learn about various leadership styles that describe their approach. Our paper includes a risk management development plan exercise, incorporating a real-life emergency response incident.

The Relationship between Psychological Safety and Management Team Effectiveness: The Mediating Role of Behavioral Integration

“…We apply a cut-off point at 0.5, setting a moderate level of agreement for all our measures for the ICC(2) values. The ICC (2) values in this study range from 0.68 to 0.73 (see Table 3).…”

“…Another analysis conducted to justify aggregation of our data, estimating the reliability between team member scores and management team scores, is the intraclass coefficient correlation ICC (2). It takes into account the variance occurring within each group and between each group responding to the variable in question, and is often interpreted "as the proportion of observed variance in ratings that is due to systematic between-targets differences compared to the total variance in ratings" [83] (p. 822).…”

“…All of which resulted in a most impressive rescue operation, initially deemed impossible. In the aftermath, several people tried to make out the inner workings of the daunting operation [2] and the 2 of 24 teams participating in it, leading to one professor at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania calling it an exemplary lesson of leadership [3].…”

Teaching as regulated improvisation

“…Though often understood in the military (Suchman, 2015), aeronautical (Melander & Sahlström, 2009) and technical diving (Kuri et al, 2019) applications, Situational Awareness provides a useful model for us to understand the evolution and adaptation of regulated improvisation for teachers. Situational Awareness is often associated with highly stressful, time-sensitive applications.…”