ARAB ACADEMY FOR SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY & MARITIME TRANSPORT

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADEMINSTRATION (MBA)

LEADERSHIP - MID TERM EXAM

Name:------Sarah Magdy Mohamed Abd EL Hakim -------- Group: ----S6-------

APPLY MASLOW’S HIERARCHY THEORY IN PRE AND POST COVID – 19 STATE. Apply examples on
business field

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a psychological

theory suggests humans have five categories of
needs, arranged in a hierarchical manner. The
theory proposes that individuals are motivated to
satisfy their needs, starting from the most basic
physiological needs such as food and shelter, to
safety, love, esteem, and finally, self-actualization.

The most basic needs are focused on physical

survival and are the first thing that motivates our
behavior. Once basic needs are accomplished, we
move on to achieving Psychological needs and then focusing on Self-Fulfillment needs.

Pre-COVID many of our employees and candidates were secure in their basic needs and working
on their Psychological needs. Company managers (superiors) were working with businesses to
position their opportunities as a way to meet candidates’ professional potential and create a
higher-level engagement with the Employer Brand, which is equivalent to the belonging needs
in Maslow.

Then COVID-19 re-shuffled priorities for all and lowered everyone down the pyramid. The
Pandemic touched each zone of basic needs again.

For example, in the basic needs zone, Pre-COVID, most individuals aimed to satisfy their
physiological needs and safety, as they were concerned with basic survival. As a result,
businesses that catered to their basic necessities were thriving. For instance, during pre-COVID,
individuals primarily focused on purchasing groceries and satisfying their basic needs.

Post-COVID-19, the focus shifted, and individuals' as they felt a sense of security and comfort
was threatened. Business organizations need to prioritize their efforts on ensuring customers'
safety to establish a sense of comfort and wellbeing. For example, businesses started offering
sanitization procedures, face masks, and social distancing measures to make their customers
feel safe and cared for.

For the safety needs zone (still part of the basic needs ), Post-COVID-19, Jobs was secured with
the medical and social insurance , company insure work environment for each employee with all
necessary tools.

Also COVID 19 has been one of the top stressors on the Job security and safety for each
employee. Since lots of company can not achieve their profit target due to economic changes,
employee had anxiety about losing one’s job, which is coming in the way of engagement at work

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ARAB ACADEMY FOR SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY & MARITIME TRANSPORT

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADEMINSTRATION (MBA)

LEADERSHIP - MID TERM EXAM

Company’s in general has 2 options , one is to reduce the workforce and that was hazard to the
employee , other option was to secure the safety need by offering the flexibility tor work from
remote places to avoid communication during the COVID time instead of hasty firing.

Working online/remote was type of keep the work safety and security secured, but is has
impacted the belonging zone in MASLOW’S theory

Post COVID 19 , Employees feel a sense of belongingness when they are in a physical space, and
with their coworkers and colleagues. In the face of remote work post COIVD 19, employees
were feeling lost and crave a sense of belongingness. To combat this, organizations need to step
up their communication and facilitate virtual interaction along with some team meetings,
bonding activities and conversation sessions in order to get employee feedback and engorge
again the sense of belonging in the virtual communication.

Esteem Needs, Post COVID organizations recognize and acknowledge employees, the more they
feel motivated and engaged at work. However, Pre COVID the remote working criteria added
new ways of work put performance recognition. Top and average performing employees are
being treated on a similar level. Thus, there is a lack of incentive to perform and engage better
when there is no recognition and acknowledgement for the same in front of others.
Organizations deal with this challenge by offering digital incentives and recognition. For
example, company established weekly newsletter and shoot out e-mail to feature some of the
top performers in recognizing them.

Self Actualization Needs, The most forward looking organizations have even esteem needs in
control and are leaving no stone unturned to acknowledge the performance of their employees,
Post COVID, with everything else taking over and the lack of a conducive work environment,
employees find themselves unable to unleash their full potential, the quest for reaching
personal best or peak experiences in 2020 is delayed for many to attend to new basic needs
caused by the Pandemic.

In conclusion, Maslow's Hierarchy of

Needs is an important tool for
understanding and predicting emplyee
behavior in the business world.
Understanding the pre and post COVID-19
change in needs of employees helped
organizations stay updated and adjust to
new working environments.

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ARAB ACADEMY FOR SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY & MARITIME TRANSPORT

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADEMINSTRATION (MBA)

LEADERSHIP - MID TERM EXAM

Case Study 2:
1. How does trust and respect facilitate the virtual teams’ ability to operate? (5
marks)

Building trusting respectful work environment is central to success in virtual teams because
people who trust their colleges are more likely to demonstrate risk-taking behaviors that enable
team excellence.

Virtual meeting gives opportunities for flexible work arrangements and have emerged as an
important contributor to employee satisfaction, In order for virtual teams to reach peak
performance, trust and effective communication among team members must be developed.

One critical component is to ensure team members have a high level of team trust as the Team
members expect other members to follow through on commitments and interdependencies.
Along with willingness to be vulnerable when uncertainty arises.

The common issue in a virtual work environment which trust may not be developed in the
normal sequence and time because of the lack of face-to-face interaction and the absence of
non-verbal language reduces the richness of the communication between team members.

However, this virtual environment trust becomes more necessary, since it helps reduce the
psychological distance between team members and create a sense unity in the team

key success factor for a virtual team is leadership to overcome the challenge that managing a
virtual team poses as compared to managing a traditional team. virtual leader is someone that
must use IT tools such as collaborative software and online communication tools, to manage a
team of people who are geographically dispersed, to meet a specific objective. These leaders
must make a greater effort to coordinate the team’s tasks, build relationships among team
members and facilitate team processes.

2. What processes and procedures are important to making the teams work? (5
marks)

the processes and procedures are used to manage communication and coordinate work have
such an inordinate impact on team performance.

Below are some of them,

1. Get the team together physically early-on. If it is not aviavible then focus on doing some
virtual team building.
In the team forming stage, this may helps team members get to know each other better,
personally and professionally, as well to create a shared vision and a set of guiding
principles for how the team will work. Schedule the in-person meeting early on, and
reconnect regularly (semi-annually or annually) if possible.

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ARAB ACADEMY FOR SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY & MARITIME TRANSPORT

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADEMINSTRATION (MBA)

LEADERSHIP - MID TERM EXAM

2. Clarify tasks and processes, not just goals and roles. All leaders need to align their team
on goals, roles and responsibilities and coordinated together is the most challenge
because people are not co-located.
it’s important to focus more attention on the details of task design and the processes
that will be used to complete them. Simplify the work to the greatest extent possible,
ideally so tasks are assigned to sub-groups of two or three team members. make sure
that there is clarity about work process, with specifics about who does what and when.
Then periodically do “after-action reviews” to evaluate how things are going and identify
process adjustments and training needs.
3. Commit to a communication. Communication on virtual teams is often less frequent,
and always is less rich than face-to-face interaction, which provides more contextual
cues and information about emotional states — such as engagement or lack thereof.
This requires to be extremely clear and disciplined about how the team will
communicate. Create a charter that establishes norms of behavior when participating in
virtual meetings, such as limiting background noise and side conversations, talking
clearly and at a reasonable pace, listening attentively and not dominating the
conversation, and so on.
4. Select the best communication technologies. selecting the “best” technologies does not
necessarily mean going with the newest or most feature-laden. If the team has to
struggle to get connected or wastes time making elements of the collaboration suite
work, it undermines the whole endeavor.
5. Build a team with rhythm. having regular meetings, ideally same day and time each
week. also sharing meeting agenda in advance, having clear agreements on
communication protocols, and starting and finishing on time, conifer different time
zones.
6. Agree on a shared language and work culture. Virtual teams often also are cross-cultural
teams, and this magnifies the communication challenges — especially when members
think they are speaking the same language, but actually are not. Take the time to
explicitly negotiate agreement on shared interpretations of important words and
phrases, for example, when we say “yes,” we mean… and when we say “no” we mean…
and post this in the shared workspace.
7. Create a “virtual water cooler. start each meeting with a check-in, having each member
take a couple of minutes to discuss what they are doing, what’s going well and what’s
challenging. Regular virtual team-building exercises

Leaders performance management and coaching interactions with their team members are a
fundamental part of making any team work. Make these interactions a regular part of the virtual
team rhythm, using them not only to check status and provide feedback, but to keep members
connected to the vision and to highlight their part of “the story” of what you are doing together.

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ARAB ACADEMY FOR SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY & MARITIME TRANSPORT

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADEMINSTRATION (MBA)

LEADERSHIP - MID TERM EXAM

3. Why do you think Sheila is having trouble in her role on the new team? (5 marks)

Sheila is having trouble in her role on the new team because of the information silos that are
being created. For example,

 The on-site crew is supplying images and descriptions, but they are omitting the
precise part number that was harmed.
 The amount of time required to put together and seal the cases on damaged parts
might be reduced if the various organizational teams had a better system in place for
sharing all available information.
 Her ineffective leadership style is causing problems for her team.
 Instead of giving Sheila constructive criticism or words of support, her boss opted to
reprimand her in front of her peers. As a result, the atmosphere on the squad turns
hostile.

4. What factors should you consider when putting together a virtual team? (5
marks)

Virtual teams have been around for a while and there has been a lot of research as to how
effective virtual teams are versus the physical meetings

Researchers have found that there is no difference in terms of productivity, quality and
successful outcomes between physical teams and virtual teams provided

There are some factors that should be considered when putting a virtual team

 Team size matters whether or not co-located – smaller teams work better than larger
teams on various dimensions such as trust, productivity, and knowledge sharing.
 Team building , an understanding of virtual team dynamics is critical for leaders and
team members to be effective. the leader shall be listening hard to identify signs of low
trust in virtual environments. Successful leaders use strategies like regularly scheduled
celebrations, fun, and creative reconnecting activities as part of scheduled meetings.
 Management style– if teams are to be dispersed or virtual then you need to select team
members for their ability to build relationships over distance and for managing working
well alone. Leaders of virtual teams need to have the ability to build trust, respect and
empower others.
 Social and community spirit– whether dispersed or co-located teams that have a sense
of team identity, trust each other and get on well socially perform better than teams
without any one of these. In part this is factor is related to management style.
This may require you to check in more frequently with the team. not talking about work
reviews. But the casual conversations that you would have had in meetings, in the
corridors, at the coffee station or even the parking lot.
 Technology matters – where communication is facilitated through various forms of
technology – collaborative platforms, webchats, whastapp , etc then the virtual team
members must have excellent skills in using it and the technology needs to be effective

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ARAB ACADEMY FOR SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY & MARITIME TRANSPORT

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADEMINSTRATION (MBA)

LEADERSHIP - MID TERM EXAM

and reliable. Face to face is easiest for communication as you are picking up nuanced
non-verbal signals among other things.

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