Leadership style that is effective amidst a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Crisis is a feature of human life and will pose difficulties for businesses and countries especially if they are unprepared. Covid-19 pandemic is one of such crises to have severe impact in recent times on economies and business and has thrown up leadership challenges. The objective of this article is to evaluate the leadership style that is effective amidst a crisis such as the covid-19 pandemic. The paper examined different leadership definitions, leadership theories and styles of leadership and explored the leadership style that is best for crisis situations. The best leadership in a crisis must be one that this is transformational, effective, and authentic. In uncertainty, there is a lack or shortage of knowledge and information concerning probabilities of future events that could affect a business organization. This paper has reviewed what a leader is, the different theories and styles of leadership, the path-goal, and examined the best leadership style and qualities of a leader that is best suited for crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important that countries and organizations conduct more sensitization and training on the management of crisis and groom leaders that can manage crisis with the most effective style and method.

Organizational adaptation to working from home in a crisis situation (COVID-19): the interaction between leaders’ openness and followers’ voice

“…Several authors suggest that leaders, indeed, change their leading style during crisis (e.g. : Nangia and Arora, 2021 ; Ajemba, 2022 ; Saleem et al, 2022 ). According to Stoker et al (2022) managers perceived a decrease in the degree of exercising control and employees also perceived that managers significantly decreased their control during COVID 19.…”