While this article is being written, India is going through a horrific wave of a fatal pandemic, killing thousands of people, infecting millions and affecting the whole nation, leaving people from each strata of the society in a quagmire of uncertainty. Fear looms large on all; fear that is unprecedented; fear that knows no limit; fear that leaves all in cold shudders. Loss of lives, loss of health, and loss of livelihood have pushed an entire nation in the jaws of all-permeating depression. More than ever, the people are feeling the need and importance of a guardian figure that they would look up to, who would extend a helping hand and would lend a shoulder to cry on. And it is exactly in these times of abysmal hopelessness, the business leaders are assuming the role of the messiah and are emerging to be the guarding angels one would fall back upon. It is through their unwavering support, astute decision-making skills to adapt themselves and the companies to the changed scenario and staunch leadership qualities, they are proving themselves to be strong buttresses who can egg on others to hold each other tight in the raging storm and rendering them hope that there will be an end to a nightmare and we all will wake up in a new dawn, crooning to the tunes of positivity on the other side of the rainbow.
In this article we would try to recount a few lines of work that the company leaders are doing and must do to keep the businesses adrift at a time when they have to deal with a financial slowdown, changed customer behaviour and employees who are weary of the dance of death are cooped up in homes, helpless and bereft of the warmth that any social animals need. It is a time full of twofold challenges; personal and professional. To deal with one’s own distresses while thousand others are looking up to you with waning morale is a daunting task. On top of that, apart from preserving, protecting and upholding the rights of all the stakeholders, one needs to consistently learn and un-learn so as to evolve, for the benefit of the individual, for the benefit of the institution. Hence, it can be securely said that these are times when the true worth of a business leader will go through an arduous litmus test.
The pandemic has pushed the business leaders in an arch light where they are not seen as other-worldly entities with halos emitting from them, but usual human beings who have their own set of fears, vulnerabilities, responsibilities and foibles. Remote form of work is the norm and office space has intruded into the homespun life of all and sundry. We all have ended up becoming tiny figures on the screen of the conference calls. Therefore, it is time to be humane. Let the officious formality take a small detour for a while. The very first thing that the business leaders are doing is showing the other side of their faces; the less-formal, more-relatable family persons who too are fighters and survivors in the catastrophe. Taking out time to ask the well-being of the employees, their family members and setting up a crises management team to look after the aids that the employees may need not only solidifies the trust that employees have for their employers but also earns the leaders respect by bringing them a few steps closer. Thus, the long-forgotten, oft-ignored values of empathy and commiseration have made a welcome inroad in the tightly clasped world of professionalism.
The pace and degree in which the corporate world has changed is baffling even for the most progressive minds. Office spaces are mostly deserted and the way service sector used to function has undergone such a seismic change that it is practically unimaginable to think of a business life beyond this. Companies too had to adapt themselves to these changes, train their stuff to embrace a world that never was and transform themselves in all forms of policy, goals and operation and that too in an unthinkably swift way. The magnanimous aspect of leadership comes into being in this very case that while employees are constantly working under grueling circumstances, without a handy help, trying to strike a balance amongst work, health and life and walking the line of fire daily, it is imperative that the leaders are allowing them to take time off, reflect, rejuvenate, sort the thorns of life out and be instrumental in collaborating and bringing about positive changes while situations pull them back.
A good leader always challenges and motivates his subordinates to learn and grow while he himself leads and paves the way. What sets a great leader apart from the other run-of-the-mill executives is his inherent capacity in taking risks. Business, which always sits of the tenterhooks of risk, can only augment if risks are taken at the level of goal setting. We all have seen that all of the giants who stride and bolster in the firmament of finances took baby steps because somebody crazed with the idea of change and novelty had dared to dream and had gambled with life to make the change happen. They stood firm even when the ship had hit rocky terrains, withstood all that came with boldness of mind and steadiness of heart and finally fortune beamed upon them, rewarding them for their resilience. Covid, despite its all-pervading negativity has unleashed an array of possibilities for the businesses. In order to resist redundancy in the current volatile and changed business world, one has to take risks, have a solid vision for a long-term and encourage others to follow suit. Otherwise, success will stay elusive and stagnation will lead to obsolescence. Hence, the leaders must contemplate over the issue of their contribution to the world in the midst of a dreaded pandemic. They must muse and let others muse over the changes companies must make in order to stay adrift. They must learn and let others learn ways in which their dreams may come to fruition.
Pandemic has taught us the importance of having human-like traits more than ever. It has made us comprehend that neither can we live in our imaginary ivory towers nor can we stay in silos. In this world where we are engaged in a collective strife to stay alive, inter-connectedness is the key to survival. Hence, the business leaders have shown the need of having a platform wherein they would share their learning, their plights and would help each other by challenging and motivating each other to learn and grow together. It is only through a curetted repertoire of shared knowledge that leaders can keep abreast with the best practices doing rounds. Furthermore, the need for sparing thoughts for leaving ecological footprints, being conducive to the society beyond the organisational corpus and managing the conflicting demands and dimensions of the multiple stakeholders of a business tests the acumen of the leaders. This has been felt practically in these days when the frontline workers, employees whose functionality has been affected due to the pandemic had to be kept secured. Lay off is not an option. It propels individuals and families into bottomless pits of adversity. It is those leaders who tend to care for the footprints, who secure that the hearth of their employees never get frozen, who are adroit and thoughtful, whose companies are trusted widely across the myriad lines of collaborators.
The roles of the business leaders are complex and variegated even in the regular milieu. And with the sweeping bout of change that is there in the air, the leaders have now donned additional garbs of guardians and change-makers apart from being mentors, policy-makers, decision-makers and employers. Therefore, the seminal place that they have in the pandemic-stricken financial sphere is undeniable and is ever-burgeoning. Their impact is to be felt not only in the power corridors of corporate but also in the homespun life, giving them a tinge of human-like colours.