How to Lead in a Multi-generational Workplace Amidst of Covid-19 Pandemic

As one mentioned, leadership skill is tested in crises situations. In facing a crisis, a quality leader matters to solve problems and provide solutions or nothing. The Covid-19 pandemic has become the most distracted topic since it reportedly first appeared at the end of December 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 as a global pandemic after the Coronavirus spread massively throughout the world; as a result, Indonesia was one of the countries with the highest number of cases in the world. In the prevailing uncertain situation, the pandemic has placed enormous demands on leaders in various work sectors. The main challenge for leading practitioners is how to help the company's business survive in a good sense. This massive and rapid epidemic makes it difficult for leaders to survive and overcome it. On the scale of DKI Jakarta, more than 1 million workers are already working from home (Kadisnakertrans, 2020). So how do leaders deal with these conditions by remaining effective even though they are virtually remote?

When leaders become aware of a global pandemic, they will think and consider how to respond to it. In addition, the leader of an organization/company has undergone several changes. What leaders require is not a planned and structured approach but rather behaviour and mindset that can reduce the risk of future crises and challenges; thus, the urgency of an agile leadership approach is required.  An agile leader designs an organization to collect high-performance, goal-oriented, and adaptive teams needed to adapt (McKinsey, 2020). For example, Agile leader Jacinda Ardern has demonstrated agility in her performance. New Zealand's experience against the Covid-19 pandemic, it is essential to have leaders who have the capacity and can provide guarantees of protection and prosperity to all of its citizens. Seeing the leadership style and policies adopted by the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, is a crucial factor in the country's success in dealing with the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In terms of crisis, leaders need to dispel the notion that a top-down approach will bring stability. To deal with emergencies, leaders generally rely on a command-control structure to manage their operational activities well by implementing a planned response (Gemma D'Auria and Aaron De Smet, 2020). Therefore, what leaders need to lead in a multi-generational workplace with the Covid-19 pandemic crisis is a mindset that can prevent overreaction to the situation, and how the leader can convince his co-workers 'this too shall pass' by optimism to face the challenges ahead. According to Francis Fukuyama (2020) in The Pandemic and Political Order, there are three success factors in handling the virus: state capacity, social trust, and leadership. By focusing on the leadership approach, one thing for sure leaders must also encourage collaboration and transparency across team networks. One of them is by dividing the focus of work and consolidating decision-making authority.

They are emphasizing on how a leader can effectively lead in virtual circumstances. What we know is that working from home is an undesirable condition. This abrupt transition created a variety of obstacles for staff to face. One is WFH, which various firms introduce, which can cause numerous physical and mental health issues for employees that disrupt the balance between their job and their enthusiasm for the workforce. When a person becomes robbed of mind by beginning to escape his career, he can be burnout. It is possible that in this pandemic, it is challenging to set up an assistance network. Morale unit for staff is more difficult to establish during WFH because it continues to be challenging to achieve virtual ties between team members optimally. Furthermore, this is where the role of the leader comes in, knowledge of success containing terms and phrases, which collectively reinforce each other and foster empathy and self-interest between staff and leaders. Good 2-way contact will provide the desired working environment. Developing good connections to empower is more accessible when a team can offer and obtain valuable information.

Moreover, the leadership style implementation system, 'Team Management,' is very effective for leaders to lead a company/organization amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The implementation of this approach relies heavily on the fact that the team network is a constructive part of the organization and should now be prioritized (Robert Blake & Jane Mouton, 1964). Leaders encourage teamwork and commitment, involve them in decision making by considering the risks of everything, demonstrate respect, honesty, and mutual trust. Furthermore, accepting the current business culture is an obligation so that the new culture or work behaviour cannot influence it. Therefore, the organization will continue to achieve the desired target. However, other weaknesses, including staff willingness, technological limitations, and others, must also be considered.  In brief this solution hopes future work activity after the pandemic will flare-up.

In short, companies/organizations study how the covid-19 pandemic is systematic and structural. In addition, the ability to adapt to the future of work is needed; human resources will also affect the ability to go with urgency and agility. Quality human resources are required that provide access to a helicopter perspective, offer a holistic view, organize, engage and collaborate between roles. Since Williams (2020) stated that WFH results in 2 or 3 individuals being employed, an employee who wants to pay for their children's school homework during a pandemic, etc. Therefore, the Leader must carry out an evaluation assessment to deal with the difference between the current and the desired culture and take an active role in navigating the various variables that affect the job. In addition, a Leader must ensure that performance evaluations need to be carried out to maintain the quality of workers and work online if the employee feels happy working at home. Unless those who want to work in a safer workplace and no longer fear a pandemic because the workspace architecture is built nicely. The things I have mentioned have concluded, "Everyone can be a leader, but not everyone can do the task of a leader."