Authentic Leadership in the Face of the COVID-19 Crisis

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................................3
OUTLINE THE KEY ISSUES THAT FACED BY ORGANIZATION FROM THE CURRENT
COVID-19 CRISIS..................................................................................................................................3
RESPONSE OF LEADER ON THE SITUATION.................................................................................5
RECOMMENDATION...........................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Authentic leadership can be defined as the leadership approach that focuses on building
the leader's legitimacy through healthy relationship with employees which values their input and
establishes on an ethical foundation. A authentic leader can create a company's climate of
commitment, job satisfaction, knowledge-sharing, high work engagement, higher performance as
well as productivity. There is a great example of Whitbread company. It is a British Leisure
Hospitality company which is headquartered in England. It offers its serves in India, China,
Dubai, Europe, Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom and Russia. Report is going to consist of
key issues which the industry has faced and as a leader of the organization Alison Jane Brittain
has taken after this situation which has taken place. The report is also going to consist of
recommendations as well which the organizations can take after Covid-19 has taken place
globally.
MAIN BODY
OUTLINE THE KEY ISSUES THAT FACED BY ORGANIZATION FROM THE CURRENT
COVID-19 CRISIS
Whitbread is a hospitality company that offers both hotel and restaurant services as product
to the people which is operated in multiple countries. The company has made a place for
themselves in leisure hospitality industry which was providing the organization with higher
income and the company was able to make a brand image very quickly. There is high
competition as well in this industry which needs to be analyzed and decisions have to be taken
accordingly so that there are going to be better results overall. However, these companies are
allowed to operate in their market. Almost all restaurants have instructed to keep limited
operations like to only take outs. But during Covid-19 crisis, it has to face various issues because
government at different countries decides to flatten the Covid-19 curve through some strategies
like community lock-down, stay at home order, community lock-down, travel and mobility
restrictions that resulted most of the hospitality companies like Whitbread temporary close their
businesses and also decline demands of businesses.

Governments across global have restricted to people for traveling and implemented orders to
stay home which has led sharp decline in hotel occupancies as well as revenues. As Whitbread is
also operates in hospitality industry so it also has to follow all rules and regulation which have
implemented by authorities at different companies. Due to this, company was facing huge
economical loss. However, reopening process has gradually started and authorities across
different countries like India, UK, etc. have begun to ease restrictions such as allows people to
dine in restaurants to reopen at a limited capacity along with highly strict rules i.e. social
distancing guidelines, slowly diminishes number of restrictions on global travel. But Whitbread
company unable to get positive outcomes because it unable to lead high productivity of workers
who can handle number of customers due to social distancing regulation. Another is that
people’s are also scaring to travel by public vehicle and stay in hotel due to Covid-19 as resulted
most of the room of hotel are empty. When authorities across global allows hospitality industry
to operate their businesses with strict guidelines like social distancing, 50% employee
availability, safety measures, emergency services etc. Such guidelines have increased difficulties
for the companies which operates in hospitality industry for example Whitbread company has to
face another key challenge like employee resistance, limited occupancy of hotel along with
safety measures etc. these challenges were not easy task for the Whitbread because it has to
spend money to lead safety precautions in the hotel. In addition, company have to face
economical issue such as around 35,514 employees are offered their services in the Whitbread
which is located in multiple locations across the world. So, it has to cut down salary of all staff
that has led dissatisfaction in them for the job. According to government order, Whitbread
reopen their company in it’s sector, in that sate the big challenge for the company is to negotiate
workers to come in company and offers their services because most of the workers and their
families were denying to come in hotel and offers their services. When few employees were
negotiated with senior authorities to come in company and perform their job role in that situation
company have to take all safety precautions like regular monitoring of temperature of each
employee and worker in the workplace, instructs them to maintain their social distancing and use
masks regular basis and allows only local employees and workers who posses own private
vehicles.
Apart from this, it has faced other issues after post-lock-down such as most of the hospitality
companies are leading advanced change in their working performance so that they can ensure