How Pandemics affect our view on leadership

What?

    How did the COVID pandemic affect our ability to manage and lead our teams through times of crisis? Well, a group of doctors and researchers from the University of Bern in Switzerland detailed their experience and findings on how the pandemic challenged their overall status quo. Pandemics challenge how operations are normally carried out which includes communication, and quality of work, and can impose additional stress on their environment. When pandemics or times of crisis happen, leadership needs to be able to reflect on previous mistakes in these scenarios so they can improve leadership practices and operations

So What?

    Pandemics challenge how operations are normally carried out which includes communication, and quality of work, and can impose additional stress on their environment. Pandemics also present a unique opportunity for leadership as they can help them analyze how effective and ready their teams are for challenges that they may face while also showing how adaptive they are to these changes (Beilstein et al, 2021). The authors of the article describe what a good leader looks like in a time of major crisis, in this case, the COVID pandemic. Decision-making is essential to creating an effective plan for the future. Decisions need to be made at the right time while being communicated to constituents efficiently so that they can understand the plan and direction the leader is aiming for (Beilstein et al, 2021). Another important quality for leaders to have during times of crisis and pandemics is to be more understanding and caring for members of their team. In addition to a massive change in their private lives, they also experience a massive increase in pressure and changes in their work environment. Employers must be able to offer as many resources and strategies as they can provide to help them build up resilience and coping strategies. This starts by providing constant and effective communication and a commitment to offering safe and open feedback channels for continuous improvement of leadership practices during potential times of crisis (Beilstein et al, 2021). The major point of a pandemic is how unpredictable they can be as we have seen with various waves and variants of COVID. Leaders should be able to think on the fly and create a quick and actionable plan that may not be perfect but can be practical in the current situation (Beilstein et al, 2021). 


Now What?

    To succeed in a time of crisis, a leader must be able to make decisions at a fast rate and communicate them in a transparent way to the rest of the group while also being ready to adapt to any change in the situation. I believe that leadership changed on the surface level but deep down it remains the same but on a different playing field. Leaders are still accountable for their employees and their actions and well-being. Leaders still have a role in creating a product, idea, or service in the most efficient way possible regardless of circumstances and resources are given. This article showed me that you should always be on your toes as a leader and be aware of potential threats to your routine as a group. One thing that caught my eye when reading about leadership during a crisis is when deciding on future practices you want to decide what not to do rather than what action to take (Nichols, 2020). This allows for a leader to strengthen their ideas and selection of those ideas by removing ones that will not work in a time of crisis that may work in a normal scenario.

References

Beilstein, C. M., Lehmann, L. E., Braun, M., Urman, R. D., Luedi, M. M., & Stüber, F. (2021). Leadership in a time of crisis: Lessons learned from a pandemic. Best Practice & Research Clinical Anaesthesiology, 35(3), 405–414. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpa.2020.11.011

Nichols, C., Trendler, C., & Chatterjee Hayden, S. (2021, February 1). 4 behaviors that help leaders manage a crisis. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2020/04/4-behaviors-that-help-leaders-manage-a-crisis

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