ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies contextual factors that influence crisis choices. It illustrates how external and internal factors contribute to crisis decision-making requiring different strategies depending on the crisis. The potential combination of multiple factors in a crisis increases the high-stakes nature of decision-making characteristics of crisis leadership. Crisis leadership understands the complexity of interacting contextual factors that raise the stakes of decision-making and influence actions a leader considers in a crisis. The management of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear events is complex and is made even more so due to the public weighing in on each decision made. A crisis never happens alone; there are several external contributing factors such as the thinking or non-thinking enemy, stakeholders, media, politics, public/audience, other decision-makers, bias, transparency, and the distribution of power. Extreme insecurity is both an internal and an external factor; it impacts the decision maker and may influence the decision-making process.
