Challenges faced by leaders in post COVID-19
Introduction
The world we live in is not what we lived before at the beginning of
2020. Life of nearly 6 billion human beings has changed socially and
economically. COVID-19, or else the New Coronavirus, which started spreading in
the city of Wuhan in China by the end of 2019, took over the world in a flash,
and as of 03 October 2020, it has been spread across a total of 215 countries
and autonomous regions in the planet. According to Worldometers.info, 2020, total
infected cases are more than 34 million and had caused over 1 million deaths.
Almost every country had to take precautions to prevent the spread of
the virus by imposing countrywide lockdowns. As a result of this, many business
organisations were interrupted by their usual work. This resulted in a loss of
income to businesses all over the world. Even after the restrictions were
relieved the this had been not the same as before. Consumers’ needs have been
vastly changed due to various reasons, such as social distancing and COVID-19
preventive measures. However, some industries, such as online retailers,
Amazon, and Terraboost, media distributors of Hand sanitizing products,
succeeded in their businesses (Arora,2020). Many businesses were affected.
This article aims to emphasize the importance of identifying challenges
faced by leaders of organisations worldwide in the post COVID situation.
Furthermore, to understand what qualities will leaders have to show and
strategies to overcome these challenges in a changing world.
Main challenges for business leaders in the aftermath of COVID-19.
- Abridged consumer demand and dwindling markets.
Many employees and self-employed individuals have lost or reduced their
livelihood because of the coronavirus pandemic. “UN’s International Labour Organisation
predicts 1.6 billion informal economy workers could suffer “massive damage” to
their livelihoods” (Kretchmer, 2020). This has affected the buying power and
their daily needs as well. This has resulted in reduced turnover and
profitability of the organisations. To increase profitability, leaders of an organisation
should decide between increasing turnover and reduction of costs. An article by
Mukherji, (2020) describes that cost reduction decisions such as research and
development expenditure may look satisfying in the short run and seriously
affect the organisation’s survival in the long run. Therefore, leaders must be
very cautious before making such decisions because reducing revenues, rising
expenditure, and lack of innovation could move the organisation towards
bankruptcy. This will allow major organisations with very sound financial
strength in the same industry to succeed by acquiring those who cannot continue
their businesses.
- Leading
the team remotely
COVID-19 has affected the social relationships among people worldwide
due to social distancing guidelines provided by authorities. As a result, many organisations,
according to McLean (2020), several companies in the US (Facebook, Twitter,
Shopify, etc.) are planning to adopt the “work from home” policy to a certain
proportion of their workforce, permanently. Adopting such policies to the
workforce is challenging to leaders as it lacks control over the employees.
According to Nastasi (2020), leading teams remotely will affect productivity
and communication. So leaders have to change from leading their teams in the
offices to a virtual work environment, challenging because constant
communication and operation of advanced systems are required to operate in a
virtual office environment.
- Leading
in a constantly changing environment
This global crisis is changing rapidly, affecting the economic and
social life of every person around the world. Both political and corporate
leaders face immense tension because of not knowing what will happen next.
Political readers have to prevent the economy from going into recession, and
the leaders in the corporate sector should ensure that to make decisions in
line with the changing environment. Organisations have their goals, which they
achieve through utilizing the time and resources to create a certain product or
service. Even in an uncertain period, leaders have to lead their team towards
achieving the organisations’ goals. Baltzley, Newhall, and Dessing (2020, p.3)
state that:
It is a rapidly evolving and changing situation with conflicting sources
of information. This creates a situation where attention is constant and
fragmented, and at the same time, there is no single expert solution on how it
may resolve. These two features are what make it disorienting for leaders and
those around them.
- Uncertain
and unpredictable future
As many countries are experiencing a second wave of spreading of the
virus. So leaders cannot predict what the future would be. The first thing to
do is not to get panicked. Uncertainty and fear are already among your team
about their personal and professional life as well. Therefore, leaders should
build trust and confidence by leading their teams with respect and empathy.
v
What are your views and suggestions
about these challenges? Please comment below for your ideas.
How can leaders overcome these challenges and sustain their operations
in the future?
According to experts, COVID-19 will be there in this world for a long
time to come. Still, we cannot predict what the future outcome will be because
of the uncertainty. Organisations have to accept this bitter truth and find new
strategies to run their new norm operations. In an article by Martin, Straub,
and Kirby (2020) explains to solve problems “Techne” (learning about tools and
methods which need to create something), “Episteme” (understanding of the laws
of nature and other unbreakable pieces of evidence), and finally “Phronesis”
(the point of view taking and shrewdness needed to settle on choices when
contending values are in play).
As we discussed earlier, reduced demand and shrinking markets have
affected the profitability of the organisations. Many organisations have
adopted technology to their businesses, and according to LaBerge et al. (2020)
points out that “Digital adoption has taken a quantum leap at both the organisational
and industry levels.” This means that both organisations and the consumers had
to use digital channels during the pandemic, and as the risk of COVID-19 is still
there, it is better to continue this trend in the future. Organisations will
have to innovate technologically to provide their goods and services to
customers if they want to retain and expand their market share. Otherwise,
competitive products and services will penetrate and grab your market.
COVID-19 has changed the way organisations continue their routine work,
such as transforming office spaces according to the social distancing
guidelines provided by authorities will cause fear and uncertainty among all,
including the leaders. As a reason, many organisations allowed their employees
to work from their homes. Even though companies had to spend extra on
implementing new systems to coop with these requirements, it will bring many
benefits in return, such as reducing administrative costs. Furthermore, in
their article LaBerge et al. (2020) revealed that organisations worldwide have
fully or partially adopted digital channels to offer their products or services
to the customers. Surprisingly the global digital adoption for offerings has
accelerated 7 years ahead. (See graph below)
Disturbing times will uncover the current business model’s weaknesses,
strategies, infrastructure, and supply chains. Therefore, immediate actions
need to be taken with the rethinking of many arrangements. Many leaders will
take actions such as cost reductions, including laying off of employees.
Leaders should be careful not to overdo but to take emergency actions looking
forward to the future. Convert the crisis into an opportunity to invent a new
business model that will sustain in the uncertain future.
Recovering after the pandemic may also require creating new business
coalitions (even with the competitors), which were not required before the
crisis. These new consolidations will bring new stakeholders into the organisation
who may have got new technologies, talents, and ideas. the primary objective
should be to survive rather than compete and go bankrupt. If they try to start
from the point they paused, and by the time they are back on track, it will be
too late as the rest of the world may have passed way ahead.
According to Strack et al. (2020), the most desirable way to lead in a
time of crisis like this is to lead with the head, heart, and hands. This
really means that It may seem hard to measure the advantages of combining a
vision with good functional leadership skills and deep empathy, and the effort
needed is difficult to justify. Nevertheless, our work with consumers shows
that the statistics speak for themselves. Particularly in challenging times,
industries around the world that put together the brain, heart, and hands are
making gains while still developing a strategic edge for the future.
In every field around the world, the coronavirus pandemic is challenging
the representatives of businesses and organisations. Its repercussions could
last longer and present greater challenges than anyone expects. The prolonged
misunderstanding is all the more cause for leaders to accept the practices
outlined in this paper. All that will help build or improve attitudes and
principles that will sustain their organisations and societies through this
crisis, no matter how long it lasts, and plan for the next large-scale
challenge.
Finally, I leave you with a quote by late US president John F. Kennady,
which will inspire leaders in both the political and corporate world and change
their perspective about 'crisis'.
"When written
in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents
danger, and the other represents opportunity." ~ John F. Kennedy
(Source: https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/crisis-management.html)
W Shohan D. Perera
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