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Contemporary leaders face some of the most significant challenges in the history of managing organizations. A study conducted by the Center for Creative Leadership (2021), which involved 763 middle- and executive-level leaders in organizations from China, Hong Kong, Egypt, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Spain, and the United States, found that leaders face six constant challenges, which represent critical areas for organizational development worldwide (Center for Creative Leadership, 2021). These six challenges are: honing effectiveness, inspiring others, developing employees, leading a team, guiding change, and managing stakeholders (Center for Creative Leadership, 2021). Compounded by a pandemic, managing these challenges effectively is the difference between ending careers and achieving progress.
The swift move to remote work has brought on additional obstacles for leaders such as trust and transparency, the inability to merge internal and external stakeholders, engagement in virtual decision-making, and reconsidering how decision-making is distributed and managed (McLaughlin, 2020). In a COVID-19 world, not only was society thwarted by a health crisis, but by slow responses, overwhelming systems, and unprecedented disruption. This led to leadership tasks such as crisis preparation, narrowing the widening division among people, educating the uneducated, listening, managing workload, maintaining efficiency, fighting isolation, engagement, and rapid change (Riggio, 2021; Villanyi, 2020). Pressure and demand have been placed on leaders since the pandemic began, and many leaders are not competent to lead in unpredictable and uncertain times.
That the world was unprepared for the global pandemic is indisputable. Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clarke, highlighted several global leadership flaws as the slow response of China and public health organizations to the health crisis, a minority of countries heeded important information on the crisis, the World Health Organization (WHO) was slow in its declaration of a global health emergency and "pandemic" (Global Health Now, 2021). Hence, a lack of prioritization among world leaders could have led to prevention and protection (Kelland, 2020). Leaders failed in crisis management.
The year 2019 was reported as a year of scandal for business leaders worldwide. WeWork CEO Adam Neumann became bankrupt in mere weeks, and Martin Luther King's daughter criticized Mark Zuckerberg for reference to King as a reason for free speech on Facebook (Luke, 2021; Newcomb, 2019; Gilbert, 2020; Son, 2020). Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloane resigned after millions of fraudulent accounts were opened by bank employees without customers' consent, McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook resigned because of a consensual relationship with an employee, and Google's CEO Larry Page failed to address issues of sexual harassment and policies on China publicly, and eventually resigned (Luke, 2021; Newcomb, 2019; Gilbert, 2020; Son, 2020). Leaders failed in ensuring accountability.
In 2020, despite the focus on the pandemic, significant unethical company scandals ensued. Wirecard CEO Mark Braun resigned after inaccurately inflating the company's balance sheet by $2.3 billion, and Luckin Coffee CEOs Jenny Zhiya Qian and Jian Liu were fired after a scam where their reported sales and actual sales were drastically different (Barkho, 2019; Cohn, 2020; Luke, 2021). Zoom failed to use end-to-end encryption for video conferences that exposed millions of users' personal information, and the New York hedge fund Marble Ridge founder Daniel Kamensky faced charges of securities fraud, wire fraud, extortion and bribery, and obstruction of justice (Barkho, 2019; Cohn, 2020). Moreover, Beam Financial was accused of unfair and deceptive acts when customers' withdrawal requests could not be processed (Barkho, 2019; Cohn, 2020; Luke, 2021). Leaders failed to protect their customers, employees, and the public.
The Transparency International 2019 Global Perceptions index indicated that most countries failed to control corruption and more than two thirds of 180 countries analyzed, scored below 50 with an average score of 43 (Transparency International, 2019). In the last seven years, only twenty countries significantly improved their scores and 16 countries decreased their scores, indicating that many countries are highly corrupt, which is a significant threat to democracy and political freedom (Transparency International, 2019). When leaders mismanage their affairs, lives are at stake and society becomes broken.