Effective leadership is crucial in creating and sustaining a high-performing organization. The business environment is highly competitive, and employees need to perform their tasks effectively for the organization to gain a competitive advantage (Grant, 2019). Performance and motivation decline like that of Dr. Hassan, Kareem, and Amal after the Covid-19 pandemic can severely impact an organization. Dr. Hassan was one of the most engaged and motivated employees, but after Covid-19, his motivation has declined, and his absenteeism rate has increased. Kareem had a good relationship with his employees before, but now he blames them for everything. Finally, Amal was kind to her employees, but now she is irritable and moody. The Covid-19 pandemic was challenging for everyone, and the organization requires effective leadership to help the three employees improve their motivation and performance. According to Bright et al. (2019), there is no one ideal leadership style of effectively leading an organization. Therefore the appropriate leadership approach is situational leadership because it involves adjusting one’s leadership style to the situation. This paper will discuss how situational leadership can change behaviors and enhance performance, potential reasons for the three employees’ behaviors, and how their behavior can affect workplace culture and leadership styles that one can use to address one employee’s behavior.
Situational Leadership
Situational leadership involves applying different leadership styles in different situations. According to Ghazzawi et al. (2017), situational leadership appeared as a reaction to trait-based leadership. Social scientists back in the day believed that the result of time intervention made a leader, which suggested that leaders should handle different situations in different manners. Studies have shown that for the situational leadership style to be successful, it must mix work commitment, task behavior, and relation behavior. Situational leadership merges directive and supportive behavior. Directive behavior refers to the extent to which a leader tells their employees what they need to be done, how they need to do it, and what they need to complete the task. On the other hand, supportive behavior refers to the extent to which the leader communicates to the employees, actively listens to them, and recognizes the progress in their tasks (Ridlwan et al., 2021). Situational leadership has four styles, which include directing, coaching, supporting, delegating. The directive behavior is high, and the situational behavior is low in directing the situational leadership style. The leadership style is more efficient for employees who need close supervision for various reasons, such as being new to the job. In the coaching situational leadership style, the directive and supportive behaviors are high and effective for new enthusiastic employees. Supporting situational leadership style has low directive behavior and high supportive behavior, and it is more efficient for a skilled employee with no motivation (Ridlwan et al., 2021). Finally, the directive and supportive behaviors are low in delegating situational leadership style. The style is more effective for employees who are self-reliant achievers.
How Situational Leadership can Change the Behaviors of the Three Employees and Enhance their Performance
In different ways, Dr. Hassan, Kareem, and Amal have shown a decline in motivation and performance of their task after the Covid-19 pandemic. Dr. Hassan has started being absent from work regularly, Kareem blames his team members for every wrong that happens, and Amal is irritable and moody. The leader can use situational leadership to change their behaviors and enhance their performance by incorporating different leadership styles for every situation. For example, in the case of Dr. Hassan, he has been working for the hospital for twenty years and has the required skills but lacks the motivation. Therefore, a situational leader should ask the doctor what problems he is experiencing that distract him or lower his motivation. After listening to the issues, the two can find a solution, which will result in the change of Dr. Hassan’s behavior and improvement in his performance. The leaders can do the same for Kareem and Amal to change their behaviors and enhance performance. Employees’ motivation increases once they feel that the organization cares about their wellbeing.
Behaviors Explained and the Impact of the Behaviors
The emergence of Covid-19 at the end of 2019 in China disrupted the economic, social, and healthcare structures worldwide. These disruptions have affected their work performance after the Covid-19. First, hospital staff had extremely demanding workloads because the number of people who would visit the hospital in a day was exceptionally high (Rose et al., 2019). Therefore, the hospital staff had to work for long hours to take care of all patients. The workload also increased when some doctors and nurses succumbed to the illness, and the remaining doctors had to take over. The increased workload and the psychological trauma have led to depression and anxiety that have changed hospital staff’s behaviors and reduced their performance. Secondly, Covid-19 was a new illness, and nobody knew how to treat it, which made doctors feel inadequate as they watched high numbers of patients die (Rose et al., 2019). This may be a factor that led to Dr. Hassan’s changed behavior because of the decline in his confidence to handle various illnesses over twenty years. Finally, hospital staff had to observe stricter social distance because of their high risk of infection (Rose et al., 2019). Some preferred to seek alternative accommodation places so that they could not infect their family members, which could have been why some of them became distant after Covid-19. Some also did not get an increase in their salary or supplemental funds, and when they got sick, they had to cater for their bills, which decreased their motivation. Unfortunately, the behavior change of three employees can negatively impact the workplace culture.
Dr. Hassan’s Behavior and its Impact
Every employee can impact a firm positively or negatively (Grant, 2019). Dr. Hassan has been working at the hospital for twenty years, and before Covid-19, he would come to work early and leave late and was attentive. However, today, he misses work at least twice a week and has become distant. Dr. Hassan must be in a leadership position, having worked in that hospital for 20 years. Therefore his lack of enthusiasm to go to work will affect the morale of his team members. The employees will start missing work and will also find it difficult to approach him for instructions and suggestions, which will affect their performance.
Kareem’s Behavior and its Impact
Kareem is a finance director and has worked in the hospital for five years. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Kareem would encourage the employees to become better, but after the Covid-19 pandemic, Kareem has become hostile and blames employees in the nursing department for the excessive expenses. The change in Kareem’s behavior may lead to rebellion among the nurses, and they may misuse supplies due to the hostility. The employees may not be able to approach Kareem to suggest areas that the hospital can look into to reduce expenses.
Amal’s Behavior and its Impact
Amal is the nursing department’s director and has worked at the hospital for three years. Before, she was kind and helpful to her employees, but recently she has become moody and irritable. She has become distant with the employees and avoids them, and when she has to face them, she mistreats them and blames them for mistreating her. Amal’s change in behavior will demotivate her team members because she no longer helps them achieve and improve their skills. They will also stop providing opinions or asking questions due to her moody and irritable behavior.
Addressing Employee Behavior
As explained earlier, Amal has become moody, irritable, and distant with her team members. Her behavior change can negatively impact the employee’s motivation and performance. Therefore, the leader should use the supporting situational leadership style to establish the issue resulting in the current behavior and find a solution. The leader can also combine it with transformational leadership. According to Buil et al. (2019), transformational leadership improves morale, motivation, and performance of employees through a variety of ways, such as being role models to inspire employees, challenging employees to take more ownership for their tasks, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of employees to help align their duties to maximize performance.
Conclusion
High employee performance is key to the success of an organization. Therefore, a leader should ensure high performance by using different leadership styles for different situations. Dr.Hassan, Kareem, and Amal have changed their behaviors after Covid-19, and that change can have negative impacts on the workplace culture. The Covid-19 pandemic period was challenging, and hospital staff experienced a high workload and stressors that might have been the reason for the change in behaviors of the three employees. The leader can combine situational leadership and transformational leadership to inspire and motivate the employees, which will improve their performance.
References
Bright, D. S., Cortes, A. H., Hartmann, E., Parboteeah, K. P., Pierce, J. L., Reece, M., … & O’Rourke, J. S. (2019). Principles of management. OpenStax.
Buil, I., Martínez, E., & Matute, J. (2019). Transformational leadership and employee performance: The role of identification, engagement and proactive personality. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 77, 64-75.
Ghazzawi, K., Shoughari, R. E., & Osta, B. E. (2017). Situational leadership and its effectiveness in rising employee productivity: A study on north Lebanon organization. Human Resource Management Research, 7(3), 102-110.
Grant, R. M. (2021). Contemporary strategy analysis. John Wiley & Sons.
Ridlwan, M., Purwandari, D. A., & Syah, T. Y. R. (2021). The effect of situational leadership and organizational culture on employee performance through job satisfaction. International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding, 8(3), 73-87.
Rose, S., Hartnett, J., & Pillai, S. (2021). Healthcare worker’s emotions, perceived stressors, and coping mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Plos one, 16(7), e0254252.
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