Shock Leadership

Abstract

Global crises that jolt entire systems, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can place groups, organizations, and communities in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments that affect all sectors of society, having potentially disastrous effects including high morbidity and mortality rates, political upheaval, and extensive disruption of entire economic systems, causing damage that can last for months or even years. Effective leadership is a pivotal organizational commodity in times of normalcy, and it becomes increasingly critical during crises and the subsequent environments of discontinuous change. There has been a consistent level of international criticism regarding national, state, local, and corporate leadership during the COVID-19 crisis. This chapter explores the leadership challenges associated with highly chaotic environments and introduces an advanced model of leadership—shock leadership—and leadership development framework necessary for higher leader reliability and effectiveness in disasters and other crises.

Organizational Dynamics of the Rise of Telework as an Adaptive Response to a Global Pandemic

“…Virtual work or telework can work from home or a remote office location (Shaver, 2003). Additionally, virtual meeting platforms have been increasingly used by organizations to advance telepresence, which is the ability of people at remote locations to appear present to one another during communication (Shufutinsky et al, 2018). Expertise and experience are needed in managing remote teams (Burrell, 2020).…”

“…This variance can include them being co-located, geographically dispersed, or combined, including routinely mobile members (Burrell, 2020). These conditions provide different avenues of meetings, communication, and work, including distance communication via e-mail, voicemail, or other communication technologies, co-located face-to-face meetings, or a combination, depending on the distribution of employees and business units (Martin, 2018;Quisenberry, 2018;Shufutinsky et al, 2018). Managing teams is challenging, yet the potential for problems and team conflicts can increase when managing virtual teams (Quisenberry, 2018).…”

“…The term telework has also been used to describe a type of virtual remote business workplace ecosystem. This type of negotiated work environment has continued to grow with the increase of globalization, paired with emerging and advancing technological power, capability, and capacity, particularly in large corporate or government enterprises (Shufutinsky et al, 2018). With limited options available to corporations, governments, and nonprofits, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the rapid implementation of this workplace dynamic across industries, nations, and organization types, driving potential for a post-pandemic semi-permanent telepresence work environment (Burrell, 2020).…”

Teaching business leadership skills to professionals in healthcare cybersecurity, biodefense and biotechnology through experiential learning methods

“…The Volatile Organizational Environment: The post-COVID-19 world is marked by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Organizations must be agile and responsive in such an environment, requiring leaders who can navigate uncertainty and make strategic decisions beyond their technical expertise (Shufutinsky et al, 2021).…”

Who Makes Your Heart Beat? What Makes You Sweat? Social Conflict in Virtual Reality for Educators

“…Though virtual reality (VR) has been heralded as a promising avenue for analyzing and mediating conflicts (Shufutinsky et al, 2018), VR conflict management research is scarce. A few examples are for conflicts that arise in surgeries (Robb et al, 2015), police training (Bruijnes et al, 2015), or inter-group tension (Hasler et al, 2014).…”