For nearly 45 years Helio Fred Garcia has helped leaders build trust, inspire loyalty, and lead effectively. He is a coach, counselor, teacher, writer, and speaker whose clients include some of the largest and best-known companies and organizations in the world.
His most recent book (2024) is The Trump Contagion: How Incompetence, Dishonesty, and Neglect Led to the Worst-Handled Crisis in American History. This book is his attempt to bear witness to the decision-making that unnecessarily cost so many lives and disrupted life as we know it. This book also provides valuable lessons to help leaders avoid similar failures when they manage future crises.
His previous book (2020) is Words on Fire: The Power of Incendiary Language and How to Confront It. Words on Fire is about the power of communication to do great harm, and how civic leaders and engaged citizens can hold leaders accountable to prevent such harm. It focuses on the language President Trump uses that conditions an audience to accept, condone, and commit violence against a targeted group, rival, or critics. The book includes a history of such rhetoric, and identifies a playbook consisting of 12 forms of communication that typically precede genocides. Trump uses all 12. The language triggers lone wolves to commit violence. Since 9/11 rhetoric that provokes violence has been known as "stochastic terrorism," a phrase that tends to confuse and makes discussion difficult. The author suggests a more accessible name: lone-wolf whistle violence. The book closes with a call to action, helping engaged citizens, journalists, and public officials recognize the phenomenon and take steps to hold other leaders accountable in the future when they use such language.
His prior book (2017), The Agony of Decision: Mental Readiness and Leadership in a Crisis, was named one of the Best New Crisis Management Books of 2018 and also One of the Best Crisis Management Books of All Time by BookAuthority, the world's leading site for nonfiction recommendations. It was translated into Chinese in 2020 and published in 2020 by Posts & Telecom Press in Beijing.
His prior book (2012), The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively, was named to the United States Marine Corps Commandant's Professional Reading List for five consecutive years, 2013 to 2017. It was translated into Chinese in 2014 and published jointly by Pearson Education Asia Ltd in Hong Kong and Publishing House of Electronics Industry in Beijing.
Fred is president of the crisis management firm Logos Consulting Group and executive director of the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership. He is based in New York and has worked with clients in dozens of countries on six continents.
Fred been on the New York University faculty since 1988. He is an adjunct professor of management in NYU's Stern School of Business. He teaches crisis management in the Executive MBA program, where he was named Executive MBA Great Professor. He is an adjunct associate professor of management and communication in NYU's School of Professional Studies, MS in Public Relations and Corporate Communication program, where he twice received the Dean's award for teaching excellence, in 1990 and 2017. He also received awards for outstanding service and for 35 years service in teaching. In that program he teaches crisis communication and has taught courses in communication strategy and communication ethics, law, and regulation.
Fred is also on the faculty of Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he teaches ethics, leadership crisis, and communication to MS and PhD students.
For eight years until 2015 Fred served on the leadership faculty of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, where he taught an intensive seminar in the Master's in Advanced Studies in Crisis Management and Security Policy. He has also served on the adjunct faculty of the Starr King School for the Ministry - Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, where for six eyars he taught a seminar on religious leadership for social change. Since 2000 he has been a contract lecturer at the Wharton School/University of Pennsylvania. Since 2012 he has been a contract lecturer at the U.S. Defense Information School. In 2011 he was an International Distinguished Scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Fred is co-author with John Doorley of Reputation Management: The Key to Successful Public Relations and Corporate Communication; Fifth edition pending, 2025; fourth edition, 2020; third edition, 2015, second edition, 2011; first edition, 2007, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. A Korean edition was published in 2016 by Alma Group in Seoul. A Vietnamese edition was published in 2021.
Fred's two-volume book Crisis Communications was published by AAAA Publications in 1999.
Read more
Read less
