Leadership in Action: Leading Effectively in Humanitarian Operations

A CK N O W L E D G E M E N TS
First and foremost, we would like to thank the individuals who allowed their leadership to be placed in the spotlight as one of our case-study examples of effective operational humanitarian leadership. Their generosity and openness in doing so and in answering our many questions are greatly appreciated.
We also thank the many other interviewees who spoke to us frankly and shared their insights on what they valued in terms of operational humanitarian leadership. David
Peppiatt played an important role in identifying and facilitating a number of the case studies. Isobel McConnan carried out interviews and provided helpful comments on earlier drafts. Georgia Armitage helped with the literature review.
The Advisory Group provided invaluable input, words of advice and comments on the draft report, they are: Tim Cross, Wendy Fenton, Randolph Kent, Ky Luu, and
Claire Messina.
Paul Knox Clarke’s inputs undoubtedly raised the quality of the analysis. Deborah Eade provided excellent editorial services and comments. Sara Swords also commented on an earlier draft. Ben Ramalingam played a key role in getting the study off the ground and in its design. Finally, thanks to John Mitchell for his ongoing and valuable support to this work.
The project was undertaken as part of the joint initiative on leadership in the humanitarian sector in partnership with People In Aid, Humanitarian Futures Programme and the
Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy, Tulane University.
Thanks are due to the Federal Republic of Germany, whose generous funding helped make this project possible.

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Executive Summary
1. Introduction
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Why this study?
1.1.
9 Scope of the study
1.2.
10
2. Methodology
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3. Conceptual models of