Tactics, command, leadership

organisational rules and norms. Moreover, one must be aware
that stress will affect all individuals who in various ways are in-
volved in conducting emergency response operations. Stress can
be both positive and negative. A certain degree of stress can often
be positive, but it can be difficult for an individual to determine
when he or she has reached his or her own threshold. Those in
the vicinity, however, may be painfully aware that their superior’s
stress threshold has been reached because the decisions made are
often irrational.
Tactics, command and leadership are strongly associated with
making decisions. What is important to keep in mind in regard
to decisions and decision­making, among other things, is that the
issues that must be dealt with are sufficiently complex that a lone
individual can seldom handle all of the decisions that are necessa-
ry for gaining and maintaining control. There is normally reason
to distribute various types of decisions or authorities among se-
veral different individuals. The term decision domains is used as an
umbrella term for the scopes of authority that are associated with
decision­making. Different management personnel have different
decision domains. The decision domains can constitute subsets of
one another. A subordinate supervisor’s decision domain is thus
a subset of a superior supervisor’s decision domain. The scope in
these decision domains is restricted by a single individual only
being able to influence a limited area and that a single individual
can only handle a certain limited amount of information.
Due to the character of the decisions, responsibilities and infor-
mation, in certain cases decisions must be handled in groups. Even
if group decisions are not normally used – for clarity in the ma-
nagement system, a decision must be possible to link to a specific
individual – it can be necessary that several individuals working
together with information reach a consensus as to the decisions to
be made and take joint responsibility for the decisions’ execution.
Lack of time, etc. can entail that there is not enough space to put
all that much energy and effort into establishing a common un-
derstanding of the decisions made; the person in charge is always
responsible for decisions. Effectiveness in the command system,
however, is based on loyalty in regard to the decisions made.
There are differences between the ways that experts and novi-
ces make decisions. The differences are primarily in how indivi-
duals with varying degrees of experience or competence handle
information and decision­making materials. The actual act of