Perspective on COVID-19 Pandemic Factors Impacting Organizational Leadership

Abstract

Employees are important assets of an organization. Therefore, the employee engagement in teamwork is extremely vital for long-term organizational development. Good managers need excellent leadership skills. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly spreads around the world, many countries implemented strategies to avoid infection, such as working from home, isolation of infected people from others, and 14 days of self-quarantine. These strategies impact the trust, communal relationships, and social exchange relationships among organizational employees. However, communal and social exchange relationships are necessary for organizational leadership, and they are considered as the basis of social networks. The trust, communal relationships, social exchange relationships, and leadership in an organization are an interesting issue, particularly in the COVID-19 time, since the role of leaders is very crucial for maintaining organizational sustainability. The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on leadership in organizations based on trust, communal relationships, and social exchange relationships. The study employed correlation analysis to explore the interrelationships between variables. The 220 samples collected consisted of basic, middle, and high managers of organizations. The findings show that COVID-19 impacted organizational leadership. COVID-19 (F1) and (F2) factors integrated with each variable: (1) trust, (2) communal relationships, and (3) social exchange relationships created a stronger relationship between trust and leadership, communal relationships and leadership, and also social exchange relationship and leadership in organizations. On the contrary, Covid-19 (F3) factors integrated with each variable: (1) trust, (2) communal relationships, and (3) social exchange relationships decreased a relationship between trust and leadership, communal relationships and leadership, and also social exchange relationships and leadership in organizations. These results can help CEOs in organizations to perceive what factors have a positive impact or a negative impact on leadership in organizations in order to improve their leadership skills, even post COVID-19. The managerial implications are that (1) leaders need good communication skills to share true information with empathy and optimism and (2) leaders need to be thoughtful and capable to handle change in uncertain situations ethically.