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Experts urge community‑centered leadership as disasters grow more frequent
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Summary
Speakers at an ACF convening said climate change, demographic shifts and economic fragility are making disasters more complex and urged leaders to adopt 'meta‑leadership' that centers community trust and local capacity.
Dave Kaufman, vice president and director for safety and security at CNA and a Georgetown faculty member, told attendees that disasters are becoming more frequent, more severe and more interconnected, and that leaders must adapt how they engage communities. "Things are more complex than they have been," Kaufman said, pointing to NOAA billion‑dollar disaster trends and population shifts into higher‑hazard areas. He noted demographic change — "about 13% ... of this country is 65" in 2022, rising by mid‑century — and warned that economic inequality increases uninsured loss and dependence on assistance.
In a linked presentation, Kelly Bence of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard outlined practical leadership tools she said help leaders function under pressure. Bence urged leaders to avoid making decisions when in a fight‑flight‑freeze state — what she called the "basement" of the brain — and to use practices that move teams into higher‑order decision modes. "We don't actually need to know all the answers," Bence said. "We need to be able to connect with those that are our peers."
Why it matters: Panelists argued that top‑down public information alone no longer generates the trust needed in crises; people increasingly rely on peer and local networks. Kaufman said trust has shifted from "top‑down to peer‑to‑peer to local," and that working through existing community networks offers the best path to effective disaster outcomes.
What leaders can do now: Kaufman and Bence both recommended investments in preexisting relationships and local capacity: train and fund community organizations, include diverse messengers in planning, and apply "swarm leadership" principles (unity of mission, no ego, stay in lane). They also urged operational steps such as combining official data with network signals (social media, community reports) to generate focused questions and faster situational awareness.
The convening proceeded to panels on direct service delivery, compassion fatigue and disaster case management; speakers repeatedly returned to the same focus: trust, flexibility and funding mechanisms that let local actors act quickly and with dignity toward survivors.
