Leadership Trend Barometer: Leadership Experiences a Renaissance in the Corona Crisis

During the Corona pandemic, corporate executives are once again in greater demand as leaders. In this context, the increased demand for leadership results primarily from two factors: the in some cases high level of uncertainty among employees and the fact that in many companies a large proportion of employees currently have to be managed remotely because they largely work from home offices. At least, this is the assumption suggested by the current Leadership Trend Barometer of the Institute for Managers in the Digital Age (IFIDZ), Frankfurt.

Leadership trend barometer identifies key challenges

In the online survey on which the trend barometer is based, IFIDZ wanted to know from the participating managers what they see as the greatest challenges in the area of employee management and communication in corona times. A maximum of three answers were possible. Among the top four items in the survey were two that, according to IFIDZ founder and director Barbara Liebermeister, are "closely related to the deep insecurity that many employees are currently feeling.

For example, nearly three-quarters of the 127 managers surveyed (73 percent) said a key challenge of theirs was "giving employees the guidance and support they need"; in addition, 55 percent cited "taking sufficient time for employees and their questions" as one of their biggest challenges. Also landing in the top 4 biggest challenges were two items closely related to the current increased need to manage employees at a distance. For example, nearly two-thirds of the executives surveyed (65 percent) cited "maintaining relationships with employees in the home office" as one of their biggest challenges at the moment, and more than half (51 percent) generally cited the task of "managing employees at a distance or remotely."

Maintain team spirit

At the same time, in addition to maintaining relationships with individual employees, managers also seem to have increasing problems maintaining team spirit under the current conditions. At the very least, 45 percent of them said one of their three biggest challenges was "maintaining the team spirit necessary for performance." All the other challenges mentioned in the survey seem to play a rather subordinate role compared to those mentioned above. It is noticeable, for example, that all challenges that are closely linked to the decision-making function of managers are rather rarely mentioned as a central "construction site." For example, only 18 percent emphasized that one of their greatest challenges was "adapting targets to the changed framework conditions".

"Classic" leadership experiences renaissance

In view of the survey results, Barbara Liebermeister says one can speak of a "renaissance of leadership" in the current crisis. Moreover, in retrospect, it seems almost absurd that until the outbreak of the pandemic, there was still lively discussion under such buzzwords as holocracy about the extent to which leadership and managers would still be necessary at all in the company of the future. In contrast, he said, IFIDZ has always emphasized that "leadership must change, but it is becoming increasingly important in the digital age." According to Liebermeister, the Corona pandemic, which is also accompanied by a surge in digitization, now makes it abundantly clear that this is true.

For more information on the results of the latest IFIDZ Leadership Trendbarometer, please visit the IFIDZ website (www.ifidz.de) in the studies section.