Abstract
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on industry have also tested leaders and their organizations to explore the potentials of sustainability amidst such impacting conditions. Amidst this flurry of responsivity, a focus on protecting human capital and building resilience has emerged as a primary linchpin for continuity. Exploring the dynamics of authentic leaders and their processes for team development, alongside the pivotal role of teams in “knowledge organizations,” current effective business practices may provide insight into resilience-building for many more organizations. The focus of this contributive chapter is to examine organizational leadership and its important role in defining enhanced employee resilience practices during a turbulent era, with a closer look at the “cohesive factors” of durability and resilience as determinants of high-functioning teams and organizations.
TopIntroduction
Dynamics of the 21st century
The world has witnessed unprecedented times, not the least of which was the COVID-19 pandemic which hit the world at the beginning of 2020. The business community, like other sectors of the world was not spared the depressing challenges of the pandemic. The appeal for increased research in entrepreneurship and organizational resilience could not have been more compelling than what has been witnessed as of late. The pandemic itself has, in many ways, altered the way organizations engage with their consumer communities. The adverse effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to live with organizations for some years to come. The need for supporting organizational structure, however, is imminently upon the world. This is especially true for the value that functional work teams bring to the endurance of a work culture. Exploring team development and the role of teams in knowledge organizations could provide some insight into resilience building. The very culture of the use of teams in project execution could prepare an organization for future challenges. The economic dynamics of the 21st century is dictated by knowledge organizations comprising knowledgeable employees and their productivity (Bratianu et al., 2021).
The application of knowledge for the creation of tangible and intangible products plays an important role in contemporary knowledge economies. These economies thrive on the concept of knowledge, which represents the production, use, and circulation of all the relevant economic activities. Within the modern economies, knowledge organizations refer to the agents which provide the critical infrastructure and processes that feeds the knowledge market (el Geneidy et al., 2021).
The key advantages of engaging the potential of a team-developed process include the aggregation of various individual competencies, individual productive behaviors, and employee-unique experiences (Albon et al., 2014). These assets can be deployed to develop competitive advantages and resilience for an organization. Interestingly, Tan et al. (2008) reiterated the preponderance and indispensability of work teams in modern business organizations. The appeal for work teams is the heightened demand for a team-based approach to project management in the knowledge organizations and firms planning to remain competitive in increasingly challenging business environments (More, 2021). The facets of understanding the complementary possibilities of teams, especially during unprecedented times, stands to be a pivotal component to the success and sustainability of those organizations wishing to remain viable and productive for the future.
This contributive chapter to entrepreneurship and resilience looks to examine both resilience and motivation as the two primary cohesive factors of durability within teams, and the dynamic advantages of knowledge-brokering environments that foster and engender resilient workers. The opportunity to envision greater resilience through cohesive teams alongside authentic leadership amidst the durative aspects of a phenomenon such as COVID-19 are observed as potentiating variables that offer hope to businesses seeking to strengthen their human capital.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Transformational Leadership: A leadership approach responsible for positive change in organizations by acting on morale, motivation, and the performance of followers.
Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory: Based on the work of psychologist Fredrick Hertzberg, the theory seeks to understand employee satisfaction based on attitude of motivation and regards job satisfaction existing on two varying continua.
Operant Conditioning: The method of learning that examines rewards and punishment as variants to controlling behavior.
Dynamism: The general name for a varied group of philosophical views relative to various phenomena.
Social Loafing: The idea that people are susceptible to exerting less effort when in the presence of a group or team.
Attachment Theory: The theory focuses on the relationship and bond between people. Often referring to Bowlby as the first attachment theorist.
Authentic Leadership: From the book by Bill George, the theory rests on the prospect that leaders can be seen as genuine and “real.”
Management by Exception (MBE): The term refers to a style of business management that looks more closely at attempting to identify issues that tend to be more atypical, and thus require more care when reconciling.
Immediacy Gap: Describes the idea that the brain’s inherent functions make people more susceptible to instant rewards over the attainment of things that have more future value.
Dynamic Team Diversity Theory: A theory that attempts to explain the effects of change in team diversity on team functioning and performance relative to team composition characteristics.
Social Impact Theory: Created by theorist Latane, based on the premise of four rules regarding how people can be targets of social influence and social forces.
Eupsychian Management: A term based on Maslow’s ideas on workplaces that consists of creativity, synergy and continuous learning.
Myers Briggs: Based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is an introspective personality assessment which indicates psychological preferences regarding how people tend to perceive the world around them, and how they render decisions in turn.
Dilution Effect: Refers to a reduction in equity positions to the influx of new variables.