The Leadership you need NOW

The Leadership you need NOW

The Leadership you need now

In these difficult times, Harvard papers are providing a lot of useful articles with insights that help us face the challenges brought by COVID 19. We want to share this valuable content with our readers, in the way to decisive action and honest communication. More than ever, good leadership is needed. These are the key insights we found from recent publications.

 

“When the situation is uncertain, human instinct and basic management training can cause leaders — out of fear of  taking the wrong steps and unnecessarily making people anxious — to delay action and to downplay the threat until the situation becomes clearer. But behaving in this manner means failing the coronavirus leadership test, because by the time the dimensions of the threat are clear, you’re badly behind in trying to control the crisis. Passing that test requires leaders to act in an urgent, honest, and iterative fashion, recognizing that mistakes are inevitable and correcting course — not assigning blame — is the way to deal with them when they occur”

Michaela J. Kerrissey and Amy C. Edmondson, Harvard Business Review Article

The Harvard Business Review Article “What Good Leadership Looks Like During This Pandemic” goes into the current situation, that afects at all levels, and gives the following lessons brought up from the cases of Silver and Arden, to draw the best path for leaders to take nowadays:  

1. Act with urgency.

“Against the natural tendency toward delay, acting with urgency means leaders jump into the fray without all the information they would dearly like. Both Ardern and Silver acted early, well before others in similar circumstances and well before the future was clear. It was what Ardern publicly described as an explicit choice to “go hard and go early”.

2. Communicate with transparency.

Communicating with transparency means providing honest and accurate descriptions of reality — being as clear as humanly possible about what you know, what you anticipate, and what it means for people”.

3. Respond productively to missteps.

“Problems will arise regardless of how well a leader acts. How leaders respond to the inevitable missteps and unexpected challenges is just as important as how they first address the crisis”.

4. Engage in constant updating.

“A leader’s advisory team in the face of an ambiguous threat may change over time because new information often means new problems have surfaced and the necessary expertise will shift accordingly. Finding and leveraging the right people for evolving problems is part of the updating challenges”.

“We believe that leadership is strengthened by continually referring to the big picture as an anchor for meaning, resisting the temptation to compartmentalize or to consider human life in statistics alone”

Post-Pandemic Business Guidelines

Post-Pandemic Business Guidelines

Post-Pandemic Guidelines

 

Harvard Business Review Article, written by Carsten Lund Pedersen and Thomas Ritter

“The management theorist Henry Mintzberg famously defined strategy as 5 Ps: plan, ploy, pattern, position, and perspective. We have adapted his framework to propose our own 5 Ps: position, plan, perspective, projects, and preparedness. The following questions can guide you as you work to bounce back from the crisis”.

It can be good to take a moment and start working on the following questions prepared by these two authors, in order to help us confront the world outside when the confinement is over and the market, business, and social life are slowly back again to real. This is a new scenario for all of us, but the goal here is simply to adapt the management tools to this new situation. Now, more than ever, we need to think big and get as many learnings as possible to strengthen our team and objectives. We hope these questions are useful in your way!

These two authors have also prepared a WORKSHEET to work better on your corona crisis strategy for your project or company. You can also download the PDF version here:

1. What position can you attain during and after the pandemic?

“To make smart strategic decisions, you must understand your organization’s position in your environment. Who are you in your market, what role do you play in your ecosystem, and who are your main competitors? You must also understand where you are headed. Can you shut down your operations and reopen unchanged after the pandemic? Can you regain lost ground? Will you be bankrupt, or can you emerge as a market leader fueled by developments during the lockdown?”

2. What is your plan for bouncing back?

“The lack of a plan only exacerbates disorientation in an already confusing situation. When drawing up the steps you intend to take, think broadly and deeply, and take a long view”.

3. How will your culture and identity change?

“It’s crucial to consider how your perspective might evolve. How prepared was your organization culturally to deal with the crisis? Will the ongoing situation bring your employees together or drive them apart? Will they see the organization differently when this is over? Your answers will inform what you can achieve when the pandemic ends”.

4. What new projects do you need to launch, run, and coordinate?

“The challenge is to prioritize and coordinate initiatives that will future-proof the organization”

5. How prepared are you to execute your plans and projects?

“The resources at hand, along with the speed and quality of decision-making processes, vary greatly, and the differences will determine who achieves and who falls short of success”

About the authors:

Carsten Lund Pedersen is an assistant professor at the Department of Marketing at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, where he researches B2B digitization strategies, employee autonomy, and market strategies in times of change.

Thomas Ritter is a professor of market strategy and business development at the Department of Strategy and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, where he researches business model innovation, market strategies, and market management.

This year, move your business forward

This year, move your business forward

This year, move your business forward 

RCC at HARVARD Executive Program  will allow you to learn from experienced and accomplished professors, discover the most recent trends in innovation, explore relevant business cases, and network with other business leaders. It is a perfect combination and a great learning experience. You can visit our Schedule for more information about the Program.

 

The participants also take part in other activities apart from the sessions, such as a guided tour of the Harvard Campus given by Jim Aisner, Director of Media Relations in Harvard, several individual formal meetings between participants and US-experts, or the networking dinner with American and US-based professionals. 

The program offers participants to have a closer look at one of the most prestigious Universities in the world, and gain access to some of its professors and professionals in the cities of Cambridge and Boston. It also allowes them to exchange knowledge and be ideas with like-minded professionals working in the global market. ­

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