Being a good leader during Covid-19: Identify critical issues, show empathy, take well-informed decisions

By Sahiba Singh

How do we prepare our leaders to lead organisations in an increasingly VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world? This has been the focus of much of the leadership development work and research over the last decade. Little did we know how much of that would be put to the test in the first quarter of 2020 alone.

As leaders face increasingly novel and complex business challenges, there is a realisation that past experiences may not always equip them adequately to navigate and lead through previously unencountered scenarios such as the global coronavirus pandemic successfully. In light of this, there has been increasing interest in identifying and developing the leadership fundamentals that enable adaptation and agility to face and overcome changing realities.


Spencer Stuart’s research has identified three sets of traits, collectively called Executive Intelligence™ — which include business intelligence, people intelligence and learning intelligence. These types of intelligence support and predict leaders’ ability to navigate unfamiliar or complex business challenges successfully.

Here is how we anticipate the best leaders will draw from them to navigate the Covid-19 crisis:

How Leaders Think
The current Covid-19 situation — described both as a pandemic as well as an 'infodemic' — requires leaders to cut through the noise to identify and address the most critical issues at each point. It also demands that they think ahead, and retain the sight of the bigger picture to avoid decisions that could have unintended adverse consequences, today as well as down the line. In addition to this business intelligence, the rapidly changing nature of this crisis necessitates agility in thought as well as action, where leaders need to evaluate and continually recalibrate the way forward as the situation evolves.

How Leaders Engage
Business and economic implications aside, Covid-19 is most fundamentally a human crisis that is impacting employees and societies in ways few recent events have done. In addition to ensuring the physical safety of their workforce, leaders need people intelligence to address employee anxieties with empathy and provide a sense of psychological security. Emotional intelligence or EQ in this new reality involves a delicate balance between preparing employees for the worst-case scenarios and maintaining morale and engagement. For those managing global teams, this requires additional consideration to the unique socio-cultural dynamics at play across different communities.

How Leaders Learn
Given the complexity and gravity of what we are dealing with, a leader would have to be superhuman to be able to handle it all alone. Learning intelligence, i.e., the ability to learn from and leverage others’ thinking and experiences becomes especially critical, allowing leaders to make well-informed decisions. In today’s situation, this means that they need to actively invite and objectively evaluate information and ideas — not only from within their organisations but also through ongoing dialogue with their peers in other organisations.

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, leaders need to work on their energy to be able to function at their best through this time. Focusing on their physical and mental well-being, spending time with their families and making efforts to recharge will all go a long way in building capacity to run what is increasingly appearing to be a gruelling marathon over a short sprint.

(The author leads the Leadership Advisory Services Practice for Spencer Stuart in India. Spencer Stuart is a global Executive Search and Leadership Advisory firm)