Leadership through COVID-19 The Buffering Role of Leadership in a Crisis
In times of crisis such as we are currently facing with COVID-19 leaders play a vital role. Their decisions and actions affect both the lives and livelihoods of those they lead, and as such, the coronavirus pandemic presents a critical challenge to leadership at all levels, and in all organisations. How our government, corporations, non-government, and community leaders respond to this public health and economic crisis will be crucial to how we recover, and as such like never before the specific leadership strategies and behaviours exhibited during this time are likely to receive extensive scrutiny.
Research shows that leadership effectiveness in crisis situations is largely dependent on a leader’s ability to construct barriers against high-pressure conditions (Lacerda, 2019). Such barriers include ensuring a supportive work environment, providing communication strategies that decrease ambiguity and uncertainty and actively monitor for toxic emotions and behaviours (Lacerda, 2019). The significant role of leadership in the development of productive organisation culture and behaviours has been well established (Wood et al., 2013). Research suggests that organisations who effectively navigate crisis have existing high-trust cultures and rely on employees demonstrating increased citizenship behaviours, including providing additional support to co-workers, displaying a willingness to engage in problem-solving and decision making and acting in ways that intentionally protect the organisation (Bowler, Halbesleben, & Paul, 2010; Lacerda, 2019).
Leaders in this current COVID-19 environment have been placed in the distinctly precarious position of ensuring employee safety and well-being are maintained while also safeguarding the economic viability of their organisation, their community, their state and at the highest level their nation. They are not only facing questions from employees or constituents that they are unlikely to have all the answers to, they also must apply strategies which will minimise anxieties and encourage engagement in productive behaviours.
As the COVID-19 crisis has evolved, many organisations have found themselves experiencing substantial deficiencies in dealing with the crisis. Many challenges have resulted from ‘clunky’ outdated systems that were not agile enough to be quickly transferred into a remote or critical environment. Notably, these challenges arose as high level leader’s were unable to both imagine and implement the adaptations necessary. More than ever before leaders have required the relational skills to ‘manage’ employee’s emotions, and organisations with highly formalised and beuracratic structures have been exposed with the apparent appointment of ‘fair weather only’ leaders.
What the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed is the observable relationship between the pre-crisis leadership styles and cultures of the organisations whom have effectively navigating the COVID-19 climate. These organisations have leaders who have the capacity to stay calm and remain confident in uncertain times. They have leaders who have a high tolerance for ambiguity and who have both a high degree of functional and relational skills. Their leaders are both compassionate to individuals while also applying a critical lens to the challenging economic landscape.
The leaders of these organisations have worked hard to build cultures and teams who have a high level of trust and place particular importance on systems for devolved communication and decision making. Leaders in these organisations have been able to tap into the knowledge and skills of their subordinates to arrive at not only timely but innovative decisions. Also, of significant importance is the fact that COVID-19 has required leaders to embrace both flexible and remote working arrangements, which in theory should open these practices up to employees on a more permanent basis. And while I suspect that leaders with strong communication skills, high levels of trust and who are comfortable with low levels of power distance may embrace this opportunity, others are likely to revert to the status quo as quickly as possible.
When we observer the broader national and world stage, it is painfully evident that distinctive leadership styles and decision-making process play a substantial role in both followers’ behaviour and the achievement of desired outcomes. While some leadership styles have appeared to elicit desirable and largely prosocial behaviours, others have seemed to create more chaos. What I would consequently hypothesis from both local observations as well as the broader global reflections is that when we critically review the role of leadership in relation to the COVID-19 crisis we will observe the buffering effects of both leadership style and pre-crisis culture on COVID-19 outcomes. I further suggest that this will lead to extensive research and new empirical understandings of the role of leadership in both crisis and pre-crisis environment that will forever change our post-covid world.
Lee Spencer BBus(Mgt), BSocSc(Psych)(Hons), MAPS
References
Bowler, W., Halbesleben, J., & Paul, J. (2010). If you’re close with the leader, you must be a brownnose: The role of leader-member relationships in follower, leader, and co-worker attributions of organisational citizenship behavior motives. Human Resource Management Review, 20(4), 309.
Lacerda, T. C. (2019). Crisis leadership in economic recession: A three-barrier approach to offset external constraints. Business Horizons, 62(2), 185-197. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2018.08.005
Murawski, L. (2011). Leadership traits, tools, and practices: Decision making in a crisis. In B. Standifer, R. High, & G. Peevely (Eds.): ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.
Willis, S., Clarke, S., & O’ Connor, E. (2017). Contextualising leadership: Transformational leadership and Management‐By‐Exception‐Active in safety‐critical contexts. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 90(3), 281-305. doi:10.1111/joop.12172
Wood, J., Zeffane, R., Fromholtz, M., Wiesner, R., Morrison, R., Seet, P., . . . Osborn, R. (2013). Organisational behaviour: core concepts and applications (Third Australasian ed.). Milton, QLD 4064: John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.