7 Leadership Lessons to Learn from The Coronavirus Crisis

The circumstances that are occurring in the present time have made some changes in the world of leadership. The whole world is going through a crisis and entrepreneurs have to remain calm and prepare their business to adapt to the situation and to be ready for any updates.

The spread of COVID-19 is imposing new lessons to leaders in how to run a business and how to cope with the surrounding circumstances.

1- Be There for Your Employees

As a leader and business owner, you have to put your employees into consideration; this situation is affecting them as much as it is affecting you. Your employees will look at you as their leader who knows how to manage and put a new process that will secure the business.

So, you have to be there for them, listen to their concerns, hold a meeting to explain the current situation and even listen to their suggestions on how to manage the business. You have to treat them as a family and that you are all in this together.

2- Your Employees’ Safety is a Priority

Your employees are the pillars of the company; they care about it and their jobs as much as you do. Given the necessary precautions, you have to care about their safety, so, you have to apply a new work process considering the circumstances of each one of them.

Since everyone is working from home, then you will have to apply the same process on your team. If you have some that their job prevents them to work from home, then you set a meeting and reach an agreement on the proper way to work and to make sure they will feel safe in the office.

3- Apply Flexibility to Your Business

Since we came across a crisis that changed the whole working process around the globe, you should put in mind to add new flexible rules regarding the work process and the business to enable your company to adapt and respond to any crisis that might befall you.

If your business has resilience then it is predicted to survive and might even flourish by the time the crisis is over. Maintaining your business and team’s health and success is the key to survive in any tough circumstances.

4- Always Have a Plan B

Facing a pandemic was the least of anyone’s expectations, but here lies the lesson; you have to be able to put up a back-up plan in case of any crisis you come across. You might have faced and thought of a variety of troubles that may occur and had plans for them, but now it’s time to come up with a new plan B on how to adapt to the situation and come out from it without major losses.

5- Build a Trusted Team of Managers

As a business owner, you include managers who are experienced enough to run the business alongside. In the time of crisis, you have to build a team that can handle new responsibilities and a team of decision-makers and crisis-response; they are the ones who will direct the company and with the crisis evolving, more will emerge and they will be able to unite the team behind a certain purpose that serves the business.

It is the right time to empower your team; you have to give them the authority to make decisions without approval and that they will be held accountable for them. This is why forming a trusted team who’s experienced enough is a must because you won’t be able to make it on your own.

6- Confidence Begets Optimism

Panicking won’t do you good in this situation as all businesses are at risk. You have to remain calm and think clearly of solutions to get through these hard days. Reaching solutions will give you confidence and optimism, which have to be transferred to your employees.

However, you have to differentiate between being confident despite the obvious situation and being confident of your company that it will survive the crisis, in other words, you’re putting faith in your business and employees, not the current situation. This will gain your team confidence and will make them optimistic about their work.

7- Pause, Think, Apply

There’s no room for irrational thinking and fast decisions; you have to take a pause and study the situation carefully to assess it. Slow down and take time to study the crisis from every possible angle to act accordingly.

Take the crisis as an opportunity to stop for a while to review the process you’ve been following in your business to update it. You have to put in mind that this crisis will bring many surprises that you have to be ready to face.

After pausing and studying the circumstances, it is time to act. You have to come up with a plan that will enable your business to survive when facing more obstacles. This should be frequent, even if you’re not facing a crisis; you should pause for a little, review and study the market and then act according to the updates.

Right now all businesses are at risk, and as a business owner, you are not the only going through all of this, but you might be the only one who can figure out how to benefit from these circumstances and improve yourself as a business owner and a leader.