Professor Gerard Seijts
Professor | Organizational Behaviour | Richard Ivey School of Business at The University of Western Ontario | Canada

The global financial crisis of 2008 was a powerful demonstration of the importance of character in leadership, or more accurately, the dreadful and detrimental impact when it is lacking in leaders. Regretfully, until that time, we tended to focus too much on what leaders do and we did not spend enough time on who leaders are – the character of leaders.

However, we are now over 12 years on from that crisis and are finding an almost ubiquitous focus on leader character sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has not only starkly displayed the character of leaders, but also exposed its critical role in their success or failure.

Gerard Seijts will highlight research on character as a critical element of leadership. The COVID-19 outbreak presented organizational leaders, as well as everyday citizens, with enormous challenges. Worldwide, individuals’ character was tested.

Gerard will discuss how character has been revealed – in both positive and negative ways – in the actions that leaders and citizens alike displayed during the fight to overcome this pandemic. He will help us generate an understanding and appreciation for the importance of leader character and candour in business.

For many, thinking and talking about our character is somewhat uncomfortable – but successful leaders take the time to reflect on who they are, not just what they do. Gerard’s belief is that being a leader is less about the position and more about the disposition to lead. Meaning, that the disposition to lead is a choice – it is what allows individuals to rise above the fray and bring the best of themselves to their daily activities: at home; in their community; and in the workplace.

Mark Inch
Secretary | Florida Department of Corrections | USA

This talk will explore the fundamental thought processes involved in guiding a large and complex corrections system through a major systemic disruption such as the COVID-19 Pandemic. We will explore how the Florida Department of Corrections dealt with the pandemic through a pre-crisis focus on professional fundamentals and then a modified application of systemic operational design coupled with disciplined staff processes. At the end of the talk, participants should come away with a useful perspective and set of principles through which to examine their own crisis action planning and decision making processes.

Jan-Erik Sandlie
Deputy Director General | Directorate of Norwegian Correctional Service

During the presentation Jan-Erik Sandlie, Deputy Director of the Norwegian Correctional Service, will briefly introduce you to the main statistics of Norway, Norwegian correctional service & spread of Covid-19 so far. Furthermore, he will outline Covid-19 timeline in Norway and within the correctional service explaining the main measures taken to adjust to the pandemic outbreak. Thus, he will introduce you to the main challenges in the decision-making and management of the outbreak. The presentation will be closed with few main graphs showing the consequences of the pandemics within the Norwegian correctional service –sentences execution que in prisons and on community sanctions & measures and isolation statistics.

Sara Snell
Prison System Adviser | International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) |Switzerland

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral and independent organisation whose exclusively humanitarian mission in detention is to secure humane treatment and conditions of detention for all those deprived of their liberty.

Accessing and protecting people affected by armed conflict and other situations of violence means that we see and work in situations of crisis and places of detention that few experience.

In this short presentation we aim to share with you some examples where the ICRC has seen the characteristics of leadership in the most daunting circumstances, our analysis of what sits behind that leadership and what we take from those examples for the Prison Services the speakers come from.

Dieudonné Koyenga
Prison System Adviser,International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) | Ivory Coast

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral and independent organisation whose exclusively humanitarian mission in detention is to secure humane treatment and conditions of detention for all those deprived of their liberty.

Accessing and protecting people affected by armed conflict and other situations of violence means that we see and work in situations of crisis and places of detention that few experience.

In this short presentation we aim to share with you some examples where the ICRC has seen the characteristics of leadership in the most daunting circumstances, our analysis of what sits behind that leadership and what we take from those examples for the Prison Services the speakers come from.

Robert Omita Okoth
Prison System Adviser,International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) | Uganda

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral and independent organisation whose exclusively humanitarian mission in detention is to secure humane treatment and conditions of detention for all those deprived of their liberty.

Accessing and protecting people affected by armed conflict and other situations of violence means that we see and work in situations of crisis and places of detention that few experience.

In this short presentation we aim to share with you some examples where the ICRC has seen the characteristics of leadership in the most daunting circumstances, our analysis of what sits behind that leadership and what we take from those examples for the Prison Services the speakers come from.