Question

Please review and comment below case analysis.

Leadership and Crisis Management during Covid19 Pandemic

Joy works as a project leader in XYZ company and manages service delivery for his client. It is critical to ensure continuity of business operations, so he had proactively planned and established a primary and secondary delivery centers. If one of his delivery center is down due to natural or manmade disaster or event, he will be able to continue delivery from alternate site. Joy leads a team of 200 people, equally spread among primary and secondary delivery centers and each of the team members work on a desktop located in a fixed workstation.

Client has always been happy about Joy's performance for his competency at work, people management and leadership skills. One fine day, a COVID like situation evoked across the world and client gets into a force majeure situation like none of the delivery centers are functional and cities across the continents were locked down, at a very short notice.

Client approached Joy to find a solution and ensure continuity of critical services during this lock down situation. Joy immediately sets up a conference call with his managers and jolts down the limitations for setting the shop up and running.

City is locked down so, there are no transport facilities for employees to reach workplace. Employees have a fixed desktop and workstation so do not have an alternative solution. Government has declared paid holidays during this pandemic situation, so few employees are reluctant to continue work.

Generally, the government will have a big say in this. They are going to allow the relaxation of the lockdown in a phased manner. As a leader, Joy going to have to really go through a series of steps to ensure that complying with those government guidelines, but at the same time, ensuring that people are safe, and are able to be active as well, because at the end of the day, he need them to run a business.

He thoroughly brainstorms on the solutions for each of the above problem statements and approaches client to provide a remote desktop solution to enable team members work from home, he seeks client permissions and gets a non-disclosure agreement signed from his team members to achieve client confidence on data security.

As few of the resources are reluctant to work from home, he sets a very clear expectation with client and does not over commit on work deliverable. He approaches client stating that team will be able to delivery only 50% of the work given current challenges in the lock down situation, despite know the fact that all the team members have got a personal laptop.

In this time of crises, Joy communicate very clearly and transparently all the important business scenarios. Proactive communication within the team and with the clients help to reduce loss for the company and build brand reputation of its own. In Crisis each expense kept in check by the company. The XYZ company consider the minimum operating requirements in case of crisis. Company workforce should always be retained in such times. The impact of crisis may tend to continue hence multiple scenarios, all possible solution should be found out by the company.

He set up a daily meeting with his entire span of control with 200 people to keeps them motivated with performance incentives and keeps a check on their wellbeing. His people management and leadership skills have helped the entire teamwork from home in less than 24 hours. Client has appreciated Joy and team for dedicatedly supporting and ensure there is no impact on business operations.

As a leader Joy assure the people to be strong and don’t panic to the disease and fight against the infection. He able to explain and inform that he handles the issue if there is a support and encouragement from the people. He engages and make them follow the rules and regulations that are important to follow in this situation. The precautions and process steps to stay away from the infected need to be informed to avoid the spread of the disease. The control steps and actions that the Joy is taking to control the disease need to communicate to the people to make them understand what the company is doing to handle the situation. For instance, Joy communicate with his team weekly basis, to get know problem team facing work from home and arrangement for help or support in order to accomplish task as plan. Company XYZ has launched application of Temperature Recording & Health Declaration for all employee. Therefore, Joy encourage use this application to record body temperature twice daily. With this data, he manages keep track health condition of this people.

Precaution is better than cure is the only way we can control the infection of Corona virus. As there is no proper medicine and enough medical kits in most of the countries the social distance and lockdown are the only solution. Joy are the drivers to drive the people in a right way to stay at home and stay safe. Company management actively work to control the spread of rumors through social media which is more dangerous than the disease. Because panic brings fear in the people that is more dangerous than the disease. Thus, company send daily email referring to accurate data from Ministry of Health with current nationwide condition Covid19. The positive information through data collection released to understand what company is trying to control the pandemic. Also includes the actions that development of vaccination to control the infection. Joy work towards to make the necessary goods available to the people through leading them in a right way. Joy daily basis interact and communicate the valuable information and precaution measure steps to boost some confidence.

Answer 1

Answer:

REVIEW & COMMENT

LEADERSHIP STYLE OF JOY:

The leadership style of joy is a combination of the three following styles:

1. Strategic Leadership Style: Joy has a strategic leadership style as he planned and followed steps to deal with the pandemic situation, government guidelines, and meeting the expectations of the clients.

2. Coaching Leadership Style: because Joy motivates the team almost on daily basis, inspires the team members to contribute towards organizational goals in this panic situation, and encourages them to work along with taking care of their health.

3. Team Leadership Style: he manages the team and brings the team together at the same pace towards achieving the expectations of the client even while working from home.

THE PEOPLE’S LEADER: CARING AND INSPIRATIONAL

Joy is a caring and inspirational leader. He encourages his team members to stay strong in the pandemic situation and do not panic. He also keeps a track of their health by launching an application of Temperature Recording & Health Declaration and telling his team members to record their temperature twice a day.

GOOD THINGS ABOUT JOY:

• Motivating team: Joy motivates and inspires his team to work from home.
• Interaction and communication: Joy keeps interaction and communication with the employees, understands the challenges faced by them while working from home and providing solutions to their issues.
• Setting realistic targets: Joy sets a realistic target in the crisis situation which can be met by the team members.
• Communicating clearly to the client: Joy clearly communicates to the client about the targets which can be met at the pandemic situation as the team is not able to come to work due to lockdown.
• Care of the employees: To avoid any rumors which can create panic among the employees' joy provide them real data of Covid-19 condition on a regular basis.

IMPROVEMENT AREA FOR JOY:

Lack of innovation and out of the box thoughts: Joy is a good leader but the way he handled the situation being a Project Manager was as per the company standards. He should have thought out of more efficient plans to deliver the remaining 50% of the targets to the client.

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