Changing Perspectives of Leadership in the Pandemic Period

Case study
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INTRODUCTION
A leader is an individual who passionately guide, lead and encourage individuals towards
determined goals and objectives (Hennekens and et. al., 2020). A good leader is having different
qualities and characteristics through which they fulfil needs of company.
Leadership is defined as an art in which leaders motivates individual or group towards a
common goal. In this they direct colleagues and workers towards company vision. A successful
leader undertakes advantage of effective leadership practices to encourage behavioural conduct
of individuals.
Leadership theory allows leaders to successfully guide teams or individual towards
accomplishment of organisational goals (Grint, 2020). There are mainly five leadership theories
that are transformational, transitional, charismatic, contingency, behavioural, and situational and
trait leadership theories.
Present report has been conducted on Unilever which is operating their business functioning
as a multinational company and headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Entity was founded
in the year 1929. Company is operating their operations in many industries such as consumer
goods, manufacturing, food and beverages, agriculture and more.
Present report includes formative discussions upon changing perspectives of leadership in
political, economical and social context during pandemic period. Along with this challenges
faced by leaders in respective organisation during COVID-19 crisis is also being discussed in
this report. Lastly, various characteristics of responsible leadership and importance of
demonstrating responsible leadership in company in which business practices get changed due to
pandemic is also being discussed in this report.
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TASK 1
1. Assess changing perspectives of leadership in economic, social and political contexts during
the pandemic period in organisation.
During the pandemic period leadership perspectives in organisation undergoes with various
changes that affects their leadership behaviour as well as practices in multiple manner. In terms
with Unilever leadership practices it has been identified that leaders of company are subjected to
overcome the unpredictable challenges in order to respond effectively to this situation (Knowles,
Lynch and Dollens, 2020). Along with this leader are requires to formulate network of team in
order to collaborate individuals with transparency and collaboration. In the crisis situation
individuals are forced to perform their business operations from work from home, for this they
are undertake advantage of technology in order to ensure regular communication. Along with
this in order to deal with this crisis in social way, leaders demonstrate empathy and provide
personnel as well as professional support to their employees and assure that employees are
working under safe and secure workplace environment (Góez Becerra, 2020). Further it has been
evaluated that leaders of Unilever with their ability of deliberate calm and bounded optimism
display their leadership quality effectively.
2. Assess the challenges faced by leadership in the chosen organisation in current pandemic
period.
Due to the corona virus outbreak many companies are affected in different ways, especially
those organisations who are dealing in agriculture or consumer goods sector faced multiple
challenges. This crisis acts as a biggest test of leadership, it has been evaluated that leadership in
Unilever faced number of challenges in terms of behaviour and safety of employees, challenging
guidelines and more (Arslan and Tarakci, 2020). In addition to this it has been evaluated that
leadership within respective organisation also faced challenge associated to uncertainty and
fear. It has been underlined that employees are feared about their professional as well as personal
lives that affects entire organisation (Tourish, 2020). Along with this, rapidly changing and
evolving situation also acts as a major challenge that effect leadership in COVID-19 crisis.
Leaders within respective company also encountered with different level of fear among
employees such and anxiety which is obviously justified in this situation. Leaders are required to
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