5 Key Elements of Leadership during Crisis

— By Prof. Mayank Kumar Pandey

Every person achieves something after his or her birth and he/she is successful as well as destitute. This success and failure depend on the person’s experience, attitudes, and expectations.

At present, the whole world is facing the crisis of the global pandemic of COVID-19. The success of any business organization in such a crisis depends on its top leadership. In this pandemic, all the enterprises which are working in coordination with all and are successful, the credit of success goes to the leadership of that enterprise.

Now is the time to understand what are the important elements of efficient leadership in this crisis. The following elements of leadership can be understood by looking at the leadership decisions of major Indian business organizations. Looking at it I listed following five key elements of leadership in crisis:

The first element is heartfulness, which is very clearly visible in the efficient leadership of this crisis. Fear may close the heart in odd circumstances, but courage comes out of heartfulness, out of releasing resistance. This is very clearly visible in the top leadership of leading business organizations.

The second element is diplomacy or behavioral efficiency, because of this element the leadership listened carefully to the all stakeholders and showed their high level of patience. Such leaders have ability to listen to the thoughts of all the parties involved in their decision and affected by decision.

The third element of crisis leadership showed detachedness. This element led to a lack of arrogance in the leadership of successful business organizations. In this global pandemic, renouncing the arrogance of being in a high position, it maintained a constant dialogue with its employees, thereby maintaining employee productivity.

The fourth important element fair mindedness was clearly reflected. Due to this element, there is lack of personal agenda under the top leadership of successful business organizations. They are actually doing something for the employees with lot of selflessness.

And the last element which I observed is reliability. Because of this element, the leadership of successful business organizations in crisis created an environment of personal integrity while ensuring the growth of the enterprise.There was no decrease in the productivity and customer satisfaction of such enterprise; they increased business and customers in spite of difficult circumstances.

If you are leading any business organization so you may work on these elements to increase trust among employees and stakeholders and if you want to be a business leader in the future so you may also work on these elements to deal with the crisis.