Making Leadership Development Effective: Lessons From COVID-19 Experiences

Making Leadership Development Effective: Lessons From COVID-19 Experiences

Okechukwu Ethelbert Amah
Copyright: © 2022 |Pages: 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-9840-5.ch012
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Abstract

The exploratory chapter discussed an important gap in the development of leaders. It identified the understanding of leadership and leadership mindset as hidden drivers of leadership behaviors rarely included in leadership development. The review identified four categories of leadership mindset that have varying effects on behavior: fixed/internal, fixed/external, growth/internal, and growth/external. The best mindset that drives positive leadership behaviors that lead to the creation of a positive work climate is the growth/external mindset. The chapter reviewed the role of values, understanding of human nature, the dignity of the human person, emotional intelligence, and leaders' core self-evaluation in the formation of the growth/external mindset. A future recommendation is the development of a scale for the mindsets and an empirical study aimed at establishing the differential effects of the mindsets on leadership behavior.
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Background

The response and actions of organizations during COVID revealed the quality of their leaders. Leadership behaviors create either a positive climate that enhances employee productivity or a hostile climate that hinders employee productivity. What happened in COVID-19 questioned the effectiveness of the leadership development implemented by organizations as leaders did not adhere to the recommendations in the light of the challenges that arose from COVID-19. Some leaders had no courage or willingness to adhere to what they had been taught and thus, defaulted to the leadership inherent in who they were and what they believed (Beer et al., 2016). These factors are the hidden drivers of leadership behavior. So far, leadership development has concentrated on how to run an organization and manage its resources but has paid little attention to the hidden drivers of leadership behaviors. This led to a recent comment by Lencioni (2020, p.46) thus:

Majority of the books I have written focus on how to be a leader: How to run a healthy organization, lead a cohesive team, manage a group of employees. However, over the years, I have come to the realization that some people will not embrace the instructions I provided because of why they wanted to become a leader in the first place.

Key Terms in this Chapter

SME: Small and medium enterprises.

Next Normal: Period after the coronavirus pandemic ends.

EI: Emotional intelligence.

COVID: Coronavirus disease.

CSE: Core self-evaluation.

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