LEADERSHIP STYLE DURING AND POST COVID19 IN CORPORATE: A STUDY OF HUMANITY APPROACH WITH EMPLOYEES

Leadership Style during and post Covid19 in Corporate: a Study of Humanity Approach with Employees

Dr. Suyog A. Amrutrao ¹

¹Department of Management Science, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Sub Campus, Osmanabad (MS), India

		ABSTRACT
		The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world's mind set towards people, systems, food, and society. Nature's ultimate power has always been remarked by its own. The government takes steps to raise public awareness of any problem, but we found very little response from the general public. Consider a drought situation in which an awareness programme is carried out to encourage people to use water sparingly. If a draught situation persists for a long time, ultimately, people respond very well. It concludes that nature always shows its presence. After globalization, the world becomes a single village. Technology and trends affect each other very quickly, and the same happens with problems like COVID-19. It reaches the worlds every part very quickly. It also forces people to change their minds and souls. Human resources are a powerful source for various organizations. Prior to the pandemic, leadership expected high performance from all human resources within limited resources. Effective leaders are those, who lead their followers by example Sharma and Nair (2020) In many cases, the human aspects of the employees were neglected. Leadership is one of the most important topics in the Human sciences Hughes et al. (1993) The words like deadline, work completion, agreement, order, performance, and act are used regularly during work hours. During the pandemic employees, company locations, and leaders were split, and it was very difficult to reconnect everything. Achieving organizational goals in that tough situation was an out of box idea for many companies. Most of them found a way to get out of it. It has been observed that people who have held positions of leadership in an organization change their leadership style for a variety of reasons. The style of leadership used in the pandemic has now been carried out in the different fashion.
Received 15 May 2022 Accepted 26 June 2022 Published 09 July 2022 Corresponding Author Dr. Suyog A. Amrutrao, suyogmba@yahoo.com DOI 10.29121/ijetmr.v9.i7.2022.1189 Funding: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. With the license CC-BY, authors retain the copyright, allowing anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute, and/or copy their contribution. The work must be properly attributed to its author.
		Keywords: Leadership, Covid19, Corporate, Employees and Humanity

1. INTRODUCTION AND Methodology

This study is an attempt to find changes taken place in leadership during and post covid19 in corporate. The special aspect of study is Humanity in Leadership. The study has done with the help of interview and discussion with the corporate Manager and Employee. Various Management and business-related articles are refereed during study. The focus of study is to get what initiative was taken by corporate on humanities ground towards employee? What are problems faced by employers and employee during and post covid19? This study will be useful to the people who study Management and Humanity. It will be useful to Manager and Employee as well.

2. EMPLOYEES’ PROBLEMS DURING THE PANDEMIC

2.1. TECHNICAL ISSUES

The infrastructural facilities of any company given to the employees help to complete the task within limited resources. The infrastructure plays a vital role in the mental stability of employees. Technological use in work has become a common practise for employees. ICT facilities like computers, the internet, software, and machines are useful tools. When the employee is in the company location, it is easy to get everything at his place. E-Leadership was developed due to requirement of time Contreras et al. (2020) During COVID, working from home has allowed employees to work with limited technical resources. An individual has a limitation to bring necessary resources compared to the system of a company. Even though the employee is able to manage the primary technical resources, they still face challenges like network issues, maintenance, and hardware concerns. ICT was also used for the training purposes Marom and Lussier (2020)

2.2. COMMUNICATION GAP

Transferring information to the right person through the right medium is a prime task in communication. You also need to give feedback to the sender. In general, team meetings and one-on-one interaction with team members and leaders in physical mode are big sources of energy. You can interact with super gravity and intensity with the front person in physical mode. The media of communication between the COVIDs are email, online meetings, and telephone conversation. Everything said on these media is recorded, which creates authentication for the communication. However, in managing team processes, the leader must also discuss various informal aspects of employees, which were absent, resulting in an employee field communication gap.

2.3. ISOLATION

Humans are social animals. If he is kept out of society for a long time, it becomes very difficult for him to survive and live his life. Isolation creates the nervousness amongst the people that leads to the behavioural changes. A pandemic forces people to be in isolation and creates various challenges for a person to change their daily routine life. New ideas are limited due to a person's isolation, but the employee manages to work well in isolation.

2.4. WORK AND HOME BALANCE

Reallocation of resources became key to ensuring sustainable economic performance Alsharif et al. (2021) Working from home initially appears to be a good opportunity to spend time with your family while also doing work. After some days, it becomes apparent that it is difficult to manage by them at home. Working from home gets various disturbances and interruptions of family concerns during work, so personal and professional life get mixed. Family helps in crisis time Alsharif et al. (2021) Working for a day outside the home and coming back to it is a big relief for working people and that was missed during the period.

2.5. STRESS

A healthy environment is required for productive work, but during the pandemic, it was discovered that medical emergencies and the lack of health infrastructure create huge problems for many of us. Being too far from the problem was the only solution. I should not be affected by COVID, and if I am, what are the consequences for me and my family? That was a major source of stress for all of us. It found that it was a stressful scenario everywhere.

3. EMPLOYER’S PROBLEMS DURING PANDEMIC

3.1. ADHERENCE TO THE LAW

During the lock down, it has been observed that the government and WHO were giving various instructions and were changing the rules and regulations for the public movement. WHO plays vital role in providing scientific rules Rameshan (2021) New business regulations, such as work-from-home restrictions, transportation restrictions, and so on, pose a challenge to business owners? During the interim, it is difficult to coordinate with employees and the government on new rules and regulations. Excessive information was also making it difficult to take an exact decision. It was challenge to employer. Erin (2020)

3.2. EDUCATING A POSITIVE MIND-SET

Whenever there is a situation that is out of control for humans, most people get stressed. This type of situation forces one to make a wrong decision, and a single wrong decision taken by the company can cause a huge loss to the company and employee. Entrepreneurs’ role in satisfying and developing the employees and a team is very important Karadakal et al. (2015) in this panic situation, keeping a positive mind set was very much necessary and many companies have initiated to keep employees positive by reducing work and adjusting the employees' concerns towards work. Companies have changed the schedule of work and allow employees to work from home. Many companies organize motivational speakers and COVID awareness programmes to keep employees aware of the situation. Changing pattern of working was big problem for employer. Leadership can be categorized based on the level of involving team members and participating in the decision-making process Alex (2019)

3.3. HUGE INFORMATION GATHERING

Everything in balance is beneficial to everyone, but anything in excess is harmful to everyone in the world. Throughout the pandemic, useful information was obtained from a variety of sources. This excess of information confuses decision-makers. Companies have taken information, which is necessary and, if there is excess information, they take only meaningful and useful information which they share with employees. This was challenge to employer. Academic leadership also works during the period to bring meaningful information Banker et al. (2020)

3.4. TO BEING CONTINUE

Acknowledging current challenge of employee is out prime task Punit (2020) When everything is stopped in the world and you do not understand what to do and what to not, it is better to keep doing small, small things which can contribute towards the result. Giving up on the situation is not a solution for companies and employees. Keep doing the necessary things which will help to keep a positive environment and that was asked to be done by the companies to their employees. Productivity was reduced during the period and that affect the company and employer too.

3.5. SELECTION OF CORRECT DIRECTION

Different leadership styles may affect organizational effectiveness or performance Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy (2014) People who are working in the company are the cream of society. Their single activity can become a track for the remaining people. Big companies also have the same problem, like if they take any decision and many companies follow them, it is expected to be on the right track. When there is no direction and multiple options, it is difficult to take a decision, so taking the right decision in regard to health and business was done by the companies during the pandemic.

4. LEADERSHIP APPROACHES SHOWN DURING AND POST COVID19

Table 1

Table 1
Leadership approaches	Regular Working	During and post Covid19 Working
Transformational	Excess Use	Normal Use
Charismatic	Excess Use	Normal Use
Authentic	Normal Use	Excess Use
Servant	Normal Use	Excess Use
Dynamical	Normal Use	Excess Use
Adaptive	Normal Use	Excess Use
Strategic	Excess Use	Excess Use
Source (Survey)

5. HUMANITY APPROACH SHOWN BY CORPORATE INITIATIVE DURING PANDEMIC

5.1. EMERGENCY TEAM

To ensure business continuity, companies must act quickly to mitigate any negative impact while also preparing for future developments that may arise as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Institutions may wish to form a core crisis team to coordinate response efforts and programme objectives in order to consolidate all efforts. The above team may also be in charge of reviewing crisis and business continuity plans, constructing various scenarios, and checking them to prepare for unknown pandemic variables. All through the crisis, this team will serve as the point of contact for all departments. PricewaterhouseCoopers and Claudine (n.d.)

5.2. ENSURE SAFETY OF EMPLOYEES

During this difficult time, the safety of our employees is critical. Employees may be exposed to a variety of health risks depending on the nature of job, its location of their workplace, and their own health status. Organizations struggle in supporting diverse worker populations while also ensuring workforce equality. Companies are encouraged to monitor the health of their employees who must report to work physically. One example is to test employees for symptoms such as fever before they report to work. Keeping a safe distance, practising good hygiene, and wearing protective clothing are all precautions to take. Furthermore, all critical contact information for all employees, including emergency contact information, must be available at the moment. TMT (Top Management Team) leads the function to sustain the work Strand (2014)

5.3. CONTINGENCY PLANS FOR CRITICAL ROLES

Only with possibility of employees becoming ill or unable to perform their duties due to a variety of factors, it is critical to implement contingency plans for all critical roles. Organizations must first identify these roles, as well as the abilities required to fill these positions and who can replace these key people. Users should identify any skill gaps, accelerate candidate training, and/or search externally for suitable replacement candidates to compensate the loss of any vital positions. Users may also need to identify areas in which ability can be spared and skills reassigned.

5.4. SPLIT TEAM ARRANGEMENTS

One method for preventing virus spread and ensuring business continuity is to divide teams. If one member of a team becomes infected, the rest will most likely be quarantined, unable to work. A physical division of teams, such as splitting call centre employees into two locations, could help to avoid this. Another example is having different day shifts for teams. This could apply to warehouse employees or maintenance workers on the same job site.

5.5. FLEXIBLE WORK ARRANGEMENTS

Working conditions should be considered to ensure that employees have as little contact as possible with one another, including with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Co-workers who are not required to work in the office should be able to do so. If it is not possible soon, as stated previously, we recommend splitting teams to avoid mass spread. This measure not only prevents unnecessary onsite personnel from communicating with one another, but also alleviates the difficulties faced by working parents as a result of the year's school closures. Take into account a shorter work week, fewer hours per day, or a compressed work schedule as additional ways to support employees.

6. CONCLUSION

The world has experienced a tough time with life sustainability. Running a business and a home at the same time was a major responsibility for corporate leaders. They have changed themselves for companies and employees, which helps everyone to face the time and run their work. The human aspect is also shown by leaders, corporate and employees also. Employees also received a good response from corporate. In difficult times, Indian culture lends itself well to cooperation. Various leadership approaches come out during pandemic Wolinski (2010) There are various styles of leadership which can be shown in different situations. The COVID-19 pandemic instils humanity and dynamism in corporate leaders. Business, human life, society, and environmental protection can all be done concurrently to ensure a high standard of living for every citizen of a country.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS

None.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

None.

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