LEADERSHIP AMIDST PANDEMIC

By Aljun A. Desoyo

It is said that an organization is a reflection of its leadership, as leaders are the ones who
set the cultural foundation of the department and inspire teams to lead the organization during
crisis time. However, this global pandemic crisis has certainly put leaders on test as there are no
clear answers considering this is an unparalleled situation. Leadership during a pandemic as this,
need to work on keeping their teammates spirits higher than they usually do. This may require
some people to act out of role. Leaders need to convey that this is an opportunity which will help
them to learn and showcase their talent.

The speed and scope of the coronavirus crisis poses extraordinary challenges for leaders in
today’s vital institutions. It is easy to understand why so many have missed opportunities for
decisive action and honest communication. But it is a mistake to think that failures of leadership are
all we can expect in these grim times. When the situation is uncertain, human instinct and basic
management training can cause leaders — out of fear of taking the wrong steps and unnecessarily
making people anxious — to delay action and to downplay the threat until the situation becomes
clearer. But behaving in this manner means failing the coronavirus leadership test, because by the
time the dimensions of the threat are clear, you’re badly behind in trying to control the crisis.
Passing that test requires leaders to act in an urgent, honest, and iterative fashion, recognizing that
mistakes are inevitable and correcting course — not assigning blame — is the way to deal with
them when they occur.

In times like these, the citizen look up to the leaders of the nation, employees look up to
the leaders at the organization. The question that is posed on most of us - how does one
showcase effective leadership in a situation as unprecedented as this? There are no set scripts for
leaders to follow in order to sail through this situation, at least not the one that I have seen thus
far. This extraordinary situation has certainly placed some uncommon question like never before
to the leaders around the world. Traditionally, there have been few traits, described below, which
have continued to define leadership across generations, but the question remains whether they
hold any good in current time of managing the storm.
 True test of leaders is their ability to plan, both for the short and long term. While this
crisis has thrown all known plans out of the window, effective leaders will still be able to plan
their strategies around business, employees and operations. Another is constant communication.
It is the key to an effective leadership. Be it world leaders or business leaders, one who have
been able to communicate their true intentions well have disseminated clear and transparent
information to their people have been hailed as examples of true leadership. It is only human for
people to feel disengaged and demotivated at a tough time like these. It is expected of Leadership
to keep their people motivated and engaged, an example of the same being, Heads of State across
the world, finding new ways of encouraging health workers and engaging locked- in- people
with activities that seek to keep them positive and motivated. Organization leaders have to make
sure that they are engaging their talent in different assignments to keep their morale high.

While this crisis has thrown all known plans out of the window, effective leaders will still
be able to plan their strategies around business, employees and operations. A clear strategy with
possible scenarios helps bring confidence to people and helps them to stay focused. Given how
dynamic the situation is, Leaders have to continuously monitor the changes, revise their plans as
well as explore new business avenues.
As we can see, the traditional traits of leadership hold steady in this crisis too. The truly
effective leaders will come on the other side of this crisis as better, humble and more learned
leaders.