Adaptive Managers as Emerging Leaders During the COVID-19 Crisis

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has taken the world by surprise and has impacted the lives of many, including the business sector and its stakeholders. Although studies investigating the impact of COVID-19 on the organizational structure, job design, and employee well-being have been on the rise, fewer studies examined the role of leadership and what it takes to be an effective leader during such times. This study integrates social cognitive theory and conservation of resources theory to argue for the importance of adaptive personality in the emergence of effective leaders during crisis times, utilizing the crisis of COVID-19 as the context for the study. We argue that managers with an adaptive personality tend to have increased self-efficacy levels to lead during a crisis, resulting in increased motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, managers with increased motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis are argued to have enhanced adaptive performance, thereby suggesting a serial mediation model where crisis leader self-efficacy and motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis act as explanatory mechanisms of the relationship between the adaptive personality and performance of the manager. In order to test our hypotheses, we collected data from 116 full-time managers in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 crisis and used hierarchical linear regression as the method of analysis. The findings support all of the hypotheses. A discussion of the results, contributions, limitations, and future directions is included.

Leading Innovative Work-Behavior in Times of COVID-19: Relationship Between Leadership Style, Innovative Work-Behavior, Work-Related Flow, and IT-Enabled Presence Awareness During the First and Second Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Our findings regarding the relationships of empowering and directive leadership with innovative behavior during the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic extend the leadership literature ( Lorinkova et al, 2013 ; Stoker et al, 2019 ; Contreras et al, 2020 ; Bajaba et al, 2021 ) by providing insights into how both leadership styles influence employees’ behavior during a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which required intensive remote homeworking. During the initial phases of a crisis, some leaders might have shown a proclivity to become more directive to reduce ambiguity ( Stoker et al, 2019 ).…”

“…First, while our cross-sectional research design sheds light on the relationships between our study’s core variables at two phases in the COVID-19 pandemic and changes herein, we did not investigate the causal relationships over time. While research on the long-term effects of leadership on innovative behavior during the pandemic is still ongoing ( Bajaba et al, 2021 ), based on the results of our study, we encourage scholars to adopt similar or longitudinal research designs.…”

“…Hence, it is important to consider the implications of leadership on innovative work-behavior over multiple moments in time ( Lorinkova et al, 2013 ; Lee A. et al, 2020 ). The demand for more sophisticated research designs becomes especially prominent in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, as influences of leadership choices in response to the crisis ( Stoker et al, 2019 ) are being unveiled at this very moment ( Bajaba et al, 2021 ). The benefits of empowering leadership and directive leadership for employee performance may especially become clear in the long-term, depending on the employees’ growth in their competencies and responsibility ( Lorinkova et al, 2013 ).…”

“…Not all leaders may have adapted similarly to the changing work conditions following the COVID-19 pandemic ( Bajaba et al, 2021 ). Some leaders may have seized the opportunity to allow their employees to raise ideas to find solutions for occurring problems and may have shifted decision-making power, autonomy, and accountability to their employees by embracing empowering leadership ( Ahearne et al, 2005 ).…”

“…The contributions of analyzing our moderated mediation model to the extant literature are multiple: First, we contribute to the conversation on the relationship between leadership and innovative work-behavior by investigating two leadership styles: empowering and directive leadership ( Lorinkova et al, 2013 ). Second, we examine the change in these relationships across time, which is especially interesting in times of the COVID-19 pandemic in which homeworking policies are constantly prolonged ( Bajaba et al, 2021 ). In view of this, we investigate the influence of empowering and directive leadership on individual employees’ innovative work-behavior at two moments in time ( Lee A. et al, 2020 ).…”