Authentic Leadership: Lessons from the Current COVID-19 Crisis

Authentic leadership

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM CURRENT COVID - 19 CRISIS............................................3
Issues due to Covid - 19 ..............................................................................................................3
Role of leadership........................................................................................................................4
Authentic leadership and female leadership................................................................................6
Lessons to the leadership.............................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Leadership styles chosen by the company will affect the organisational culture and
working performance of its employees. Leaders are important to look after the needs and
requirements of the team and their preferences based on their strengths and weakness. Authentic
leadership is is where the leaders have to practice genuine and easy behaviour in order to built
relations in the workplace and create the environment of trust. Apple is an American
multinational company which specialises in technology (Gardner, and et.al., 2021). It sells
consumer electronics, software and other online based services to its customers. Apple is
considered to be the most largest company when defined by revenue and thus, it is the most
valuable company. The current CEO of the company is Tim Cook. He is known for his great
leadership within the organisation which has lead the company remain in the positions of top.
This current pandemic has set bars for creating the new normal trend. The changes in the
organisation has developed different roles and responsibilities on leaders.
LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM CURRENT COVID - 19 CRISIS
Issues due to Covid - 19
The current pandemic has created some extra ordinary demands for leaders in the
organisation. It has created the feeling of fear in the employees and even the stakeholders of the
company. This massive outbreak of the virus has made things unpredictable and challenged the
traditional working methods. This crisis has lead to some sequence of events with the
overwhelming speed resulting in high degree of uncertainty (Alvesson, and Einola, 2019). This
uncertainty has given rise to disorientation and feeling of losing the control with a strong
emotional disturbance. Many organisations are diverting their way towards the new delivery
channels, creating new products and services and trying to find ways to adjust and survive this
pandemic. organisation had their employees to work remotely in order to keep them safe from
exposing to the virus and following the Covid norms. This rapid shift of work from home has
created many challenges in the organisation especially for leaders. The working of the
organisation become more virtual where t is easy for the employees to become more invisible not
giving their best performance. In such situation it became difficult to reward and recognise the
best performing individual or team and also to deal with the challenges coming in the way of
performance.

The need for the leaders to be more attuned increased from more than ever. They had to
mange their own stress due to covid and the business and its people which has all increased
during the time of Covid. Organisations were working with the videoconferencing and following
the remote working arrangements have now become important and very useful in the recent
years. However, the sensitive conversations and relations of the business are supposed to be
handled better in person. Having more transparency and building more trust are very important
for developing effective forms of communications within the workplace as well as sharing the
information and building up commitments are more welcomed when the relation is maintained
face to face (Novitasari, and et.al., 2020). The inability to bring the stakeholders together in
person to show them the future of the company makes it more difficult for the leaders to make
the decisions and increase the potential related to the conflict. The main challenge in the
organisation is the engagement of leaders in the decision making process in the teams in such a
way that will help in enhancing trust and increasing team work.
Organisational leaders of each industry has to come up with different ways of learn,
unlearn and even relearn the new and adaptive ways to the new normal made brutally from the
current pandemic. Leaders are expected to manage the threats well and leverage the opportunities
coming from this crisis. It is important for them to manage the change in individuals at the
organisational level which can survive in the flexible situations and improving future. Leadership
in human resource is to manage the crisis and input critical efforts to the increase in
organisational learning and restructuring system. During the pandemic, the leader of Apple,
Cook called the situation uncertain and stressful moment but handled it in a confident way which
lead the company emerge strongly from the crisis. Apple is not immune to the changes in
economic trends and covid has changed the balance sheet creating stress which company has to
invest in a significant way in order to develop and put in the future products. The company is
still not sure when the employees will be back to working from offices and this will happen
while following the safety norms such as social distancing and temperature checks. Apple started
the online training systems and virtual meetings for important and everyday matters.
Role of leadership
The role of leaders in the traditional methods was to maximise the value for shareholders.
They played the role being a planner which includes developing strategy and translating the plan.