Abstract
Explores whether the changing context of COVID-19 requires new leadership skills in organizations and, perhaps even, a new context-specific leadership theory. Fourteen professional blogs and reports related to leadership skills and practices in response to COVID-19, published in the professional online literature during the height of the pandemic (March 16 - December 20, 2020) were reviewed in terms of suggested new leadership style dimensions and contrasted with the tenets of existing academic leadership theories. The proponents of an emerging leadership style advocate that in dealing with the pandemic, leaders must be able to manage their organizations in turbulent times, lead a distributed workforce of individuals and teams, and become a resilient leader themselves. Synthesis: The analysis suggests the leadership dimensions called for during the pandemic were already present in transformational leadership theories (e.g., authentic, shared feminine, servant and crisis leadership theories) but that the pandemic provided the structural break accelerating the existing transformational leadership paradigm. COVID-19 also confirmed leadership matters and the command-and-control leadership style—still prevalent in many of our top-down bureaucratic organizations—is outdated.
Highlights
COVID-19 is the impetus for people to argue that a new leadership paradigm is needed
Synthesis: The analysis suggests the leadership dimensions called for during the pandemic were already present in transformational leadership theories but that the pandemic provided the structural break accelerating the existing transformational leadership paradigm
The proponents of an emerging leadership theory due to COVID-19 advocate that to deal with the pandemic, leaders must be able to manage their organizations in turbulent times, lead a distributed workforce of individuals and teams, and become a resilient leader themselves (Table 1)
Summary
COVID-19 is the impetus for people to argue that a new leadership paradigm is needed. How do we redefine leadership practice in the changing context of COVID-19? The changing context due to COVID-19 provided the structural break that was the impetus for a significant management paradigm shift needed for the 4th industrial revolution. The coronavirus accelerated managing in a new world of work but made disruption a mainstream reality for all companies. Within a matter of weeks, companies around the world and their employees made a successful shift to the ‘dynamic open talent’ paradigm [2] including work from home that could have taken decades without the unpredicted precedent of a global pandemic
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