Leadership Lessons of a Company that Boomed during the Pandemic: Assessment Answer

Introduction

On one hand, the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the supply chain and business of many firms. On the other hand, it also provides opportunities for some firms to increase their business and sales (Orlando et al., 2022). One such firm is VideoMeet, which offers video technology for internet-based video conferencing. The disruptions caused by the pandemic increased the usage of VideoMeet’s services for the purpose of business, teaching and casual communication. The present report discusses the leadership and management strategies that can be used to support the operations of VideoMeet through rapid growth during the pandemic. The report analyses two leadership lessons put forward by the founder and CEO during changing times. Moreover, the report discusses the two lessons on the basis of organisational and leadership theories. Lastly, the report provides recommendations to the organisation to effectively manage rapid growth and change through the pandemic.

Analysis

The two selected leadership lessons are:-

You Should Always Be Evolving as a Leader

Leadership is a crucial aspect of management in an organisation. Effective leadership provides guidance, inspiration as well as motivation to the employees to achieve the organisational objectives (Ayub et al., 2014). The current leadership gives preference to evolving leaders in the dynamic environment to manage the evolving and growing business. As a result, there is growing expectation of the stakeholders as well as business demand that requires the leaders to effectively manage change through growth. Moreover, there is also an expectation from the management of the firm to support the leadership to solve and facilitate positive change and growth-related issues.

Create a Customer Care Culture for Success

Customers are important stakeholders for any business. As a result, customer service and satisfaction can enable clients to make repeated purchases from a firm. Thus, an organisational culture that supports superior customer care is beneficial for the success of the firm in the market (Warrick, 2017). The current leadership gives preference to developing a customer care culture to ensure the long-term success of the firm. Thus, the leadership and the management are expected to regularly discuss the relevance of customer care. Moreover, they are also required to motivate the workforce to develop ideas for continually improving customer service. 

Discussion

You Should Always Be Evolving as a Leader

The firm is facing rapid growth through the pandemic. These changes can lead to uncertain situations for the firm in the market. These uncertain situations can cause the leadership to feel anxious and out of control, which can result in a directive style of management and subsequently micromanagement. However, this is not a suitable approach and may lead to negative consequences for the organisational culture of the firm (Follin, 2019).

One of the crucial aspects for the firm to manage change through rapid growth is evolving leadership. In order to facilitate the success of the firm through rapid growth, the leaders need to adapt their approach to managing the change happening within the firm (Kramer et al., 2019). The need for evolving leadership can be understood with the help of situational leadership theory. As per this theory, there is no ideal leadership style and the effectiveness of the leaders depends on their ability to adopt a leadership approach that suits the internal and external situation at hand. Thus, this theory states that effective leaders change their leadership approach to successfully manage the firm based on the need of the situation (Francisco & Nuqui, 2020). Moreover, this theory also focuses on the adaptability of leaders to evaluate the situation and identify the expertise of the employees to determine the methods that can effectively deal with any situation. As a result, this theory gives broader consideration to finding solutions to complex and dynamic external situations, like managing rapid growth through a disrupted work environment during the COVID-19 pandemic (Wuryani et al., 2021). 

One of the beneficial traits of situational leadership is to focus on people working within the firm as a competitive advantage. Thus, with this focus, they help in the development of an organisational culture that puts emphasis on supporting and empowering the employees. This, in turn, helps in the development of an environment of trust and transparency within the firm (Wuryani et al., 2021). Moreover, this approach also facilitates receptivity of feedback and new ideas, which can help the firm to innovate and successfully manage through changing needs of the market. Furthermore, an ethical aspect supported by this approach is that it facilitates the promotion of the individual best suited for a job in terms of skills, with no room for bias or personal conflict (Wuryani et al., 2021).

In addition, situational leaders can use effective communication to facilitate the performance management of employees. These leaders support the growth of the employees in the form of personal and professional development to increase employee engagement. Situational leaders use personalised coaching that is tailored to develop the skills of the employees based on the situation (Lee, 2020). For example, in order to facilitate the increased usage of technology during the work-from-home mode, the employees can be trained in managing software systems for customer service. This skill development increases the speed and proficiency of the employees to perform their tasks. Thus, situational leaders enable employee engagement and development to facilitate the success of the organisation through rapid growth and change (Lee, 2020).

However, a limitation of this approach is that it focuses on short-term goals to deal with the given situation while neglecting long-term planning for the firm. But this approach can be beneficial for a firm during an uncertain situation like the pandemic. Thus, focusing on short-term goals during uncertain situations can facilitate effective management and achievement of objectives and thereby, ensure the progress and motivation of the employees (Fielding, 2022). Therefore, situational leaders can effectively manage the firm to sustain rapid growth during the pandemic.

Create a Customer Care Culture for Success

Customer care is an integral aspect of contemporary organisations. Customer care increases customer retention, which decreases the customer acquisition cost and improves the profitability of the firm, with 73% of the firms who improved their customer service reporting an increase in their revenue and 60% an increase in their profitability (Morgan, 2019). Thus, focusing on customer care can provide a means for the competitive advantage of the firm to facilitate long-term growth.

The transformational leadership approach is effective in developing a customer care culture within the organisation. The transformational leadership theory states that the interaction between managers and staff members can benefit the organisation through motivation and guidance. This leadership approach enables the leaders to inspire and boost the morale of the employees, which improves their productivity at work (Lasrado & Kassem, 2021). Moreover, transformational leadership believes in setting a positive example through their actions to encourage the workforce. Furthermore, this approach also facilitates ethical behaviour by enabling a culture that supports honest communication and treating everyone with respect (Lasrado & Kassem, 2021). 

Transformational leadership can bring about favourable changes in their surroundings to develop an organisational culture that focuses on customer care. Thus, transformational leaders can develop a collective vision for the firm to provide superior customer service as a means to achieve long-term competitive advantage. Moreover, transformational leaders identify the needs and motivations of the employees and provide individualised motivation to achieve better productivity and team morale. Furthermore, this approach allows the leaders to encourage the teams to be creative and innovative, which can bring about positive changes for the firm (Clarinval, 2018). For example, transformational leaders can encourage employees to give ideas for increasing the number of customer care calls reverted in a particular time period. On the contrary, the requirements of this approach mean that it could lead to employee burnout, which may decrease overall productivity (Akdere & Egan, 2020). However, transformational leaders prevent this with the help of efficient scheduling and employee assistance and wellness programs (Gabriel & Aguinis, 2022).

Actions/Recommendations

The aforementioned discussion can be used to effectively provide recommendations to the organisation to take appropriate actions to manage rapid growth and change through the pandemic:-

• Name of the organisation: VideoMeet
• Mission Statement: We enable teams to communicate with each other through our interactive platform while developing a culture of respect among our workforce, and providing superior customer service through innovative solutions.
• Key stakeholders: With the focus of the leadership and management to develop a culture of customer care with a focus on employee engagement (Lee, 2020), the key stakeholders are senior management, employees and customers.
• Organisational structure: Situational leadership focuses on developing the employees on the basis of the functional requirements of the situation at hand (Francisco & Nuqui, 2020), therefore, the organisational structure for VideoMeet should be a functional structure. Transformational leadership can further motivate the various functional teams to carry out their tasks with a focus on superior customer service (Lasrado & Kassem, 2021). For example, the customer service team can reduce the wait time to answer the queries of customers.
• The current leadership should remain the same with the existing CEO and directors. Moreover, senior management should be trained in developing skills for situational and transformational leadership approaches.
• Training programs should be developed to improve the skills of the workforce so that they can effectively carry out their tasks while maintaining productivity (Lee, 2020). These should be on the basis of the functional requirements of the different teams.
• VideoMeet should develop employee assistance and wellness programs. Moreover, they should also be provided with employee benefits and a compensation scheme to keep them motivated through the demanding work requirements with an increase in the business of the firm (Gabriel & Aguinis, 2022).

References

Akdere, M., & Egan, T. (2020). Transformational leadership and human resource development: Linking employee learning, job satisfaction, and organizational performance. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 31(4), 393-421. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21404

Ayub, S. H., Abd Manaf, N., & Hamzah, M. R. (2014). Leadership: Communicating strategically in the 21st century. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 155, 502-506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.10.330\

Clarinval, P. (2021, May 18). Influence Your Organizational Culture Through Transformational Leadership. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2021/05/18/influence-your-organizational-culture-through-transformational-leadership/?sh=1acfe8b27977

Fielding, S. (2022, March 10). As the Pandemic Continues, People Are Shifting To Short-Term Goals. Very Well Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/people-are-shifting-to-short-term-goals-in-the-pandemic-5216379

Follin, J. (2019, February 26). Evolving Leadership: Why It Might Be Time To Try An Empathetic Approach. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/02/26/evolving-leadership-why-it-might-be-time-to-try-an-empathetic-approach/?sh=e206d72a31ff

Francisco, C. D., & Nuqui, A. V. (2020). Emergence of a Situational Leadership during COVID-19 Pandemic Called New Normal Leadership. Online Submission, 4(10), 15-19. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED608560.pdf

Gabriel, K. P., & Aguinis, H. (2022). How to prevent and combat employee burnout and create healthier workplaces during crises and beyond. Business Horizons, 65(2), 183-192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2021.02.037

Kramer, M., Page, L., & Klemic, G. (2019). Evolving leadership: New clues and cues toward environment and context. Journal of Leadership Studies, 12(4), 82-85. https://doi.org/10.1002/jls.21618

Lasrado, F., & Kassem, R. (2021). Let's get everyone involved! The effects of transformational leadership and organizational culture on organizational excellence. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 38(1), 169-194. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJQRM-11-2019-0349

Lee, Y. (2020). A situational perspective on employee communicative behaviors in a crisis: The role of relationship and symmetrical communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 14(2), 89-104. https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2020.1720691

Morgan, B. (2019, September 24).50 Stats That Prove The Value Of Customer Experience. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/09/24/50-stats-that-prove-the-value-of-customer-experience/?sh=56769d694ef2

Orlando, B., Tortora, D., Pezzi, A., & Bitbol-Saba, N. (2022). The disruption of the international supply chain: Firm resilience and knowledge preparedness to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak. Journal of International Management, 28(1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intman.2021.100876

Warrick, D. D. (2017). What leaders need to know about organisational culture. Business Horizons, 60(3), 395-404. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2017.01.011

Wuryani, E., Rodlib, A., Sutarsib, S., Dewib, N., & Arifb, D. (2021). Analysis of decision support system on situational leadership styles on work motivation and employee performance. Management Science Letters, 11(2), 365-372. http://dx.doi.org/10.5267/j.msl.2020.9.033

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