Leadership: Pandemic Perspective

In this particular piece of my writing in the blog series*, ‘COVID Correlation – The Complex Collision’ I looked at a pandemic impact that is more in the context of an organization, its operation and leadership in general during this unprecedented time.

The workplace and culture has shifted. Now its Virtual Workplace regime and its predominant in almost all labour markets around the world. The long-term impact of this historic shift to virtual workplaces has yet to be realized, of course, but one real-time challenge facing almost every organization and business unit is being felt already: how to navigate the new realities of a virtual workplace. Obviously the answer lies in a set of inevitable skills that need to be earned and exercised to sail through this time.

As a leader one has to have a complete different look and perspective as to leading his/her team and it goes without saying that it has to be quite contextual. Let me throw a little light on a couple of issues a leader must keep in mind to charter and excel towards success during pandemic.

First of all, Empathy is a delicate but obvious factor in leadership at his point in time more than ever. It refers to the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Unfortunately, many leaders still see empathy as a soft skill that gets in the way of making tough decisions or leading a company through challenging times. But no matter how it is perceived, an unorthodox view of the entire issue regarding workplace and the people working here has to be in action. The reality is, the stress associated with Covid-19, along with the challenges of working from home are taking a significant toll on each families and household all across. Hence, approaching employees and coworkers from a place of understanding surrounding their current environments and stressors can not only reduce friction but increase communication and productivity across an organization. 

The next big thing will be restructuring decision-making and problem-solving. Having the confidence to move away from a top-down or centralized decision-making model is a challenging thing to master. But with decentralized workplaces comes an opportunity to disperse some non-critical decision-making to team leaders or even to individual team members. The result, if managed carefully, provides immediate and long-term benefits to most businesses. Businesses and individuals must realize that an unprecedented time requires unprecedented decision making practices and that unusual may and must become usual.

The last thing I would like to highlight would be the TRUST factor. Commonly coined as TRUSTWORTHINESS, this special trait will play a pivotal role in bringing and maintaining harmony in organizations and workplace. The best way to optimize trustworthiness within virtual workplace is to openly communicate that we trust our staffs to get the work done on time even while managing a quick run to the grocery store or mid-afternoon break to walk the dog. Acknowledging these challenges openly and giving them the autonomy to take care of their physical and emotional needs while staying productive is the ideal balance when navigating a virtual workplace. Working within a trusting culture allows people to feel productive and valuable professionally while caring for themselves and their families. 

Above all, we need to be more compassionate about people and proceedings to get through this tough time more easily and smoothly.

*Visit my blog https://www.taslimahmed.ca/blog/ for the rest of the articles