Anthony Nyberg (University of South Carolina)
Program
Date: May 30th, 2022
Time: 04:00pm - 05.30pm
Location: Room 026, Ludwigstr. 28 RG
Title: Modern Day Leadership: The Return of Machiavellianism or are we getting the Leaders that We Deserve? (a very personal rant)
Abstract
Disruptions in the workforce has highlighted the role of leaders making critical decisions in times of turmoil. To examine the role of leadership in such times, we collected data from senior leaders about how they were leading efforts to transform their organizations during COVID-19 crisis. Pulling from this unique proprietary data, we develop theoretical explanations for a crisis response learning cycle to help identify why some organizations were more successful than others during the early stages of the pandemic and to identify lessons that can be learned and applied to future workplace relationships. We then shared our findings with current and former CEOs and current members of boards of internationally renowned organizations to see how our conclusions matched with their sense of reality. The combination of learnings allows us to update a framework for thinking about how leaders can lead during crises to positively affect organizational performance for the long-term. The conclusions meaningfully inform our understanding of work and employment during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide lessons that are likely to endure long after the crisis.