A Guide to Resilient Leadership

IN THE FACE of pandemic-related challenges and risks, business leaders are rightly concerned about how their companies will be affected and what to do next. We have pooled the insights of Deloitte thought leaders around the world to provide practical insights for leadership teams in taking appropriate action.

We believe that five fundamental qualities define resilient leadership — and that they will distinguish successful leaders as they guide their enterprises through the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath.

1. Design From the Head and the Heart

In times of crisis, it is essential to recognize the impact that uncertainty is having on the people that drive an organization. At such times, emotional intelligence is critical. In everything they do during a crisis, resilient leaders express empathy and compassion for the human side of the upheaval — for example, acknowledging how radically their employees’ personal priorities have shifted away from work to being concerned about family health, accommodating school closures and absorbing the human angst of life-threatening uncertainty. Resilient leaders also encourage their people to adopt a calm and methodical approach to whatever happens next.

The first priority should be safeguarding workers, ensuring their immediate health and safety, followed by their economic well-being. A survey of human capital policies and practices in China at the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, conducted by Deloitte China in January 2020, revealed the following steps companies and not-for-profit organizations were considering in response:

• Ninety per cent said that it was an urgent requirement to provide their employees with remote and flexible work options.• Companies in industries facing the biggest constraints on providing flexible and remote working options — such as energy, resources and industrials — were focusing on providing stronger physical protection in the form of cleaner and safer work• More than half of government and public service entities were focusing on addressing employees’ psychological stress.