| The purpose of the study was to identify dental hygiene education program directors’
perspectives of crisis leadership and how they used prepared leadership during crises to navigate
periods of uncertainty. The study research questions focused on the preparedness of dental
hygiene program directors to navigate current and future crises, what practices and procedures
are needed to manage crises, what obstacles impact crises, and how crisis leadership strategies
are currently being used in dental hygiene programs. This study explored crisis leadership
through the framework of Prepared Leadership (PL).
The research design for this study was a qualitative case study exploratory design.
Interviews were conducted via Zoom and transcribed using the closed caption feature.
Participants used a pseudonym for confidentiality. Respondent validation, memoing, multiple
coding strategies, and saturation were used to establish validity and trustworthiness. Interview
data were coded using open coding, and theme emergence occurred by using memoing,
deductive priori coding, and two inductive coding cycles one of which was weighted. Twelve
program directors from 2-year dental hygiene programs and 12 program directors from 4-year
programs were interviewed. Five themes emerged for both groups: Organizational Elements,
Faculty Challenges, Relations, Disasters, and Student Affairs. Each theme had subthemes. The
subthemes that emerged for the Organizational Elements theme were Administrative
Bureaucracy, Leadership, Operational Approach, Enrollment, and Accreditation. The subthemes
for Faculty Challenges were Faculty Development and Advanced Technology. Relations
subthemes were Communication and Synergy. The Disasters theme yielded Pandemic, Manpower Shortages, Violence (4-year programs only), and Professional. Subthemes for the
Student Affairs theme were Student Preparation and Mental Health. The additional round of
weighted coding was implemented with crisis responses using the PL framework.
Results indicated that program directors were not actively using PL strategies. Crisis
management was employed to confront crises. Crises were considered to be everyday
occurrences and included navigating higher education bureaucracy, faculty development,
communication and team building, disaster management, and student development. This
research highlighted a critical gap in crisis leadership preparedness and training. Crisis
leadership training using the PL framework is recommended.
Key Words: crisis leadership, prepared leadership, qualitative research, strategic resilience,
crisis management |