Leading Through the Crisis: “Hands Off” or “Hands-On”?

Abstract

Leading organizations during a crisis as large as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) presents a formidable challenge. Recently, Rudolph et al. (2021) highlighted leadership as one of the 10 most relevant topics in the field of Industrial and Organizational Psychology that will likely be impacted by COVID-19. Indeed, this crisis has created opportunities for leadership to be demonstrated and tested in homes, workplaces, local communities, and countries alike (Van Bavel et al., 2020). We argue that leadership is not just one of 10 most relevant organizational topics to be impacted by COVID-19—we argue that it is the single most important topic to be studied at this time. Indeed, leaders have a huge role to play in the other nine topics identified by Rudolph et al. (2021). Specifically, leaders are the ones to design occupational health and safety rules and practices, they impact the work–family interface, they make decisions around telecommuting and virtual teamwork, they may evoke job insecurity and create precarious work, they design and implement human resources policies, make decisions around the aging workforce, and ultimately shape the careers of those employees who work under them. Organizational leadership is responsible for all these things! The current ongoing crisis presents a unique context in which leadership is enacted. Researchers have defined organizational crisis as an event or time period involving high levels of uncertainty, important issues, and time urgency (Pearson & Clair, 1998). Without question, the COVID-19 pandemic aligns with this definition. At the onset, it was uncertain how the virus was transmitted, how best to avoid infection, and how to treat those who had become infected. Uncertainty continued over the months that followed the outbreak, as leaders had to decide when to re-open workplaces, and how to assure the safety of employees and customers. Issues of importance are literally life and death, in addition to organizational survival in some industries. Time is of the of essence, since leaders had to make decisions and pivot organizations rapidly. This context has is a “landscape scale” crisis: An unexpected event or sequence of events of enormous scale and overwhelming speed, resulting in a high degree of uncertainty that gives rise to disorientation, a feeling of lost control, and strong emotional disturbance (Howitt & Leonard, 2007). Leaders are faced with the unprecedented challenge of keeping their organizations functioning and looking after their employees’ wellbeing and performance. Further, in many organizations, leadership is now being performed remotely via platforms such as Zoom (Newman & Ford, 2021). With working from home becoming normalized and likely to continue post-COVID-19 in some form (Stoker et al., 2021), this adaptation to how leadership is performed is likely to remain. Leaders must be able to lead in person, lead virtually, and perhaps most the challenging of all— lead using a hybrid approach. Clearly, the role of a leader has become a lot more complicated than it used to be. A report from McKinsey recommends that leaders demonstrate empathy and compassion for their followers during this crisis (D’Auria & De Smet, 2020); and indeed, some leaders have risen to the occasion by demonstrating these behaviors toward their employees (König et al., 2020). However, we must recognize that leaders are also dealing with the crisis themselves, and they need to manage their own emotional wellbeing at the same time. Leaders are not immune from suffering, and like most other individuals, the subjective well-being of leaders also declined in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (Zacher & Rudolph, 2021). Depending on what their personal situation is at home and the financial situation is at work, organizational leaders may have depleted cognitive and emotional resources (Krauter, 2020). Hence, their capacity to lead at this time may be impaired. As employees return to the workplace during the current ongoing crisis, how are organizational leaders coping and how is this impacting the way they are leading their