Analysis of Leadership in Crisis-Mode: The case of BP and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Disaster

Analysis of Leadership in Crisis Mode
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Analysis of Leadership in Crisis Mode
On April 20, 2010, the world witnessed the worst environmental disaster after BP, a leading Deepwater drilling company, was unable to contain a gas leak that led to a blast of massive proportions. The incident took place in the Gulf of Mexico, which is located 50 miles from the coastline of Louisiana. The occurrence received much media coverage after 17 people were injured and 11 more killed after the oil rig burst into flames (Ciccarelli, 2011). At the time of the event, Tony Hayward was the CEO of BP and was relieved of his duties since the company did not have a crisis management strategy. In regards to the reaction of the Deepwater Horizon crisis, the leadership, particularly BP's CEO, was not well prepared for such a disaster (Ciccarelli, 2011). Thus, it is essential to explore the how the CEO in BP, at the time, responded to the disaster and what can be learned from the crisis.
The Disaster
Transocean, an offshore drilling company, leased to BP the oilrig that burst into flames leading to loss of lives for workers and seriously wounding others. It was learnt after the explosion, on April 20, that a concrete core installed by Halliburton was not strong enough to contain a surge of natural gas that caused the explosion (Starbird et al., 2015). The event revealed that it was not the first time that BP was involved in exploded oil rigs. The concrete core was found not to be strong enough to contain the force of the gas because they were installed using a blend of concrete that contained traces of nitrogen gas to speed up curing. According to Starbird et al (2015), the explosion caused environmental effects and affected wildlife in the area surrounding the Gulf of Mexico.
BP Leadership after the Deepwater Horizon Explosion
While responding to a crisis that has particularly affected many people, characteristics of strong leadership are important when building confidence. Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Hayward failed to communicate on such leadership qualities (Ye & Ki, 2017). Inopportunely, BP’s CEO failed to respond adequately to the warnings revealed by similar incidents that had happened in the past. At the time of the crisis, there were glaring shortcomings of organizational crisis communication that were blatantly ignored by the CEO (Sellnow, 2010). In addition, the CEO came under much criticism after he promised that BP would “fix” the disaster, considering that it resulted in the biggest oil spillage in ...