The current economic climate is undoubtedly a very challenging one – not only for new managers, but for experienced and veteran managers in almost every industry. As a result of ‘the Great Lockdown,’ a Covid-19 recession began in February 2020 and has been touted as the worst global financial crises since the Great Depression. This was characterised by the contraction of the global economy by 3.5% and resulted in high inflations, high unemployment rates, depreciation of major as well as minor currencies, low GDPs and per capita incomes all over the world. The downturn impact of this, evidently brought trying moments for virtually all industries around the world particularly with the onset of the stock market crash.
The exigencies of the time implied that the strongest of managerial skills was required for organizations to maintain economic activity and navigate the doldrums of the pandemic. The finest of business acumen is a necessity although daunting for managers. Despite the challenges in almost every industry of all economies, there are several opportunities that managers can capitalise on to overcome these challenges and significantly improve their managerial competencies.
Demonstrating leadership through effective use of power and influence, is necessary during the recession. The scale of the pandemic and unpredictability remains challenging as managers deal with disrupted business models and managing the psychological impact of the pandemic on employees. The first fundamental principle for a manager to be successful is for him or her to assume that leadership position rather than just see himself or herself as a manager. As author John Maxwell states, the main difference between the two is that leadership is about influencing people to follow, while management focuses on maintaining systems and processes. Managers must therefore rely on their influence to re-organise the work processes and policies for a positive work environment. One of such qualities is ‘compassion leadership’, which encourages staff to regard a manager as reliable and keeps them focused on productivity rather than speculation and anxiety which are detrimental to productivity under challenging circumstances.
Managers have also been saddled with the burden of making tough decision such as protecting employee health and safety, re-structuring policies or work processes, re-delegating tasks and even for worst hit industries, laying off employees or reducing salaries to keep businesses afloat and maintain productivity. The absence from work by highly skilled staff due to infections and identifying temporary replacements were inevitable. This was more aggravated in situations where managers were also prone to infections which meant that their roles may have also required interim support. Instead of making data-driven decisions, managers had to make unplanned – but reasonable – decisions. This required strategy and innovation; most of which challenged the status quo to sustain businesses. Apple for instance, was among the first large retailers to close most of its stores globally in response to the pandemic. Such a decision was critical to controlling the spread of the virus although not part of the company’s initial strategies for the business. Most organisations were compelled to adopt a more digital approach to their business processes, thus such decisions saw them cut their future digitalisation plans from taking years to weeks.
As the current economic environment is not favourable for businesses, another challenge for new mangers is addressing the skills gap by upskilling themselves and subordinates to develop skills and competencies necessary to keep them effective, re-organise their business models and improve on performance. Even before the current crisis, changing technologies and new ways of working were disrupting jobs and the skills employees needed to do them. As most businesses switched to online, this implied an investment in people, technologies and systems to enable employees develop the required skill for managing e-commerce businesses. According to a report by McKinsey & Co., the focus of CFOs has shifted toward crisis management and away from longer-term responsibilities such as strategic leadership, organizational change, and finance capabilities. High display of competence was therefore required in performance, to keep up with the keen competition in the market. As Linda A Hill stated in her book: Becoming a Manager: How New Managers Master the Challenges of Leadership “new managers find it challenging to develop the myriad of technical, human and conceptual competences necessary to be effective managers. But the vast majority are more surprised and unnerved by the unexpected necessity of developing new attitudes, mind-set, and values consistent with their new positions.”
The urgency of lockdowns compelled managers to implement short-term ideas under challenging circumstances. Despite all these challenges and more in an economic trying moment like we have, there are many opportunities out there for new managers in all industries. The paradigm shift from the traditional ways of doing things, to a new, more innovative, and highly advanced way of working presents new managers with great opportunities in their industries of operation. The global economy is poised for a post-recession recovery, and it is appropriate to re-structure business models for the medium to long term. For managers, the necessity for reinforcement of concrete business continuity plans cannot be over-emphasised. The practical experience learned from the impact of the pandemic, should be a learning curve toward implementing feasible strategies to mitigate the impact of uncontrollable threats such as a pandemic to a businesses’ operations.
Embracing e-commerce and e-purchasing are also great opportunities available to new managers in most industries. Through trade liberalization and globalization, managers can take their businesses outside of the geographical boundaries. E-commerce and the recently added M-commerce are important opportunities available to managers to facilitate trades of such nature. Instead of the traditional hustle of carrying products around the world to advertise, new managers can now reach bigger target groups while stationed in one geographical area.
The economic climate might not be the very best now. But what new managers must realise is that the confrontation of challenges in any industry is inevitable. However, these challenges if addressed comprehensively, can become opportunities to derive competitive edge over other managers and help their businesses to thrive in industry.
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