Twitter Mediated Sociopolitical Communication During the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis in India

While Twitter has grown popular among political leaders as a means of computer-mediated mass media communication alternative, the COVID-19 pandemic required new strategies for socio-political communication to handle such a crisis. Using the case of India, which was one of the worst-hit countries and is also the world’s largest democracy, this research explicates how political leaders responded to the COVID-19 crisis on Twitter during the first wave as it was the first time such a crisis occurred. Theoretical frameworks of discursive leadership and situational crisis communication theory have been used to analyze interactions based on the usage patterns, the content of communication, the extent of usage in relation to the severity of the crisis, and the possible role of leaders’ position along with the status of their political party. The sample consisted of tweets posted by six prominent political leaders in India across the four consecutive lockdown periods from 25th March to 31st May 2020. A total of 4,158 tweets were scrapped and after filtering for retweets, the final dataset consisted of 2,809 original tweets. Exploratory data analysis, sentiment analysis, and content analysis were conducted. It was found that the tweets had an overall positive sentiment, an important crisis management strategy. Four main themes emerged: crisis management information, strengthening followers’ resilience and trust, reputation management, and leaders’ proactiveness. By focusing on such discursive aspects of crisis management, the study comprehensively highlights how political interactions on twitter integrated with politics and governance to handle COVID-19 in India. The study has implications for the fields of digital media interaction, political communication, public relations, and crisis leadership.

Coping, Not Choking, Under the Pressure of a Terrorist Attack: A Crisis Leadership Coping Model

Organizational crises, especially those of an extreme nature that include threats to survival and mass casualties, are deeply psychologically challenging for leaders. Previous research has focused on the effectiveness of leaders’ crisis management without much consideration for how leaders manage their own crisis reactions. This study was carried out in the crisis management facilities at the headquarters of a multinational energy corporation while a terrorist attack was ongoing in one of its subsidiaries. The unique access and data provide insights into how leaders react to crises and seek support by using different coping strategies. We develop a three-phase model (acceptance, psychological flexibility, and commitment) that illustrates the in-situ creation of a holding environment to support leaders in coping, not choking, under the pressure of a life-threatening crisis.

School Principals’ Stress Profiles During COVID-19, Demands, and Resources

The present study examined latent profiles of school principals’ stress concerning students’, teachers’, parents’, and principals’ own ability to cope during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the role of job demands (workload, remote work stress, difficulty to detach from work, COVID-19 crisis, COVID-19 infections at school, impact of COVID-19 on future teaching), resources (buoyancy, effective crisis leadership, social appreciation, successful transition to remote teaching), and occupational well-being (measured as job burnout and engagement) in predicting the latent profiles of stress sources was examined. The participants were 535 (59% women) school principals across Finland, who answered to a questionnaire concerning their sources of stress and occupational well-being during spring 2020. Three latent profiles were identified according to principals’ level of stress: high stress (41.4% of the school principals), altered stress (35.9%), and low stress (22.7%) profiles. Work burnout, workload, COVID-19 related concerns, and difficulty to detach from work increased the probability of principals belonging to the high or altered stress profile rather than to the low stress profile. Work engagement, buoyancy, and social appreciation increased the probability of principals belonging to the low rather than to the high or altered stress profile.

The Meta-Leadership Model for Crisis Leadership

Meta-leadership is a framework and practice method for broad, overarching leadership that meets the demands of modern organizations that have evolved beyond purely hierarchical structures and face complex crisis situations. The meta-leadership framework consists of three dimensions: the Person, or the characteristics and behaviors of the leader; the Situation, or the context in which the leader operates with its inherent challenges and contingencies; and Connectivity, the relationships and interconnections among the full range of stakeholders. Such an overarching model guides self-assessment by the leader, multidimensional analysis of the problem, and collective action to achieve a shared goal. It assists the leader in navigating complexity, understanding diverging perspectives, and recognizing opportunities to leverage overlapping interests as well as distinct capacities and capabilities among stakeholders in order to generate benefits for all. Using the dimensions as lenses for thinking and levers of action, the leader envisages and encourages cohesive efforts within the organization and encourages buy-in from potential external collaborators. Meta-leaders take a systemic view, exercising formal authority as well as influence well beyond that authority, leading “down” to subordinates; “up” to superiors; “across” to peers; and “beyond” to entities outside of the organization. Encompassed within each dimension are leadership techniques and tools for navigating the difficulties of competing interests, framing solution sets to influence the trajectory of events, and maintaining order amidst seeming chaos. The desired outcome is a “swarm,” where autonomous entities operate in swift synchrony to address threats and seize opportunities, overcoming the limitations and confounds of a “command-and-control” approach amidst the confusion of crises. This evidence-based framework has been envisioned and refined by both interdisciplinary research and the pragmatic experience of crisis leaders and organizational executives. While well suited to the intense environment of crises, meta-leadership has also proven useful in everyday leadership in situations involving diverse stakeholders facing a shared challenge.

CRISIS AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN ORGANIZATIONS, THE IMPORTANCE OF CRISIS AND CRISIS LEADERSHIP, THE EFFECTS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC CRISIS PROCESS ON THE TURKISH ECONOMY

Crisis (crisis) are difficult situations that threaten the high-level goals and business methods of an organization, or put the organization's existence in a dangerous situation, require quick decisions, and neutralize problem prevention systems. In other words, crisis can be defined as an unexpected situation or events that have an unexpected outcome (Sikich, 2002). Crises are a turning point for businesses by enabling organizations to gain new experiences and acquire new knowledge, and to turn this situation into an opportunity (Demirtaş, 2000). The ability of organizations to achieve their goals and to maintain their existence depends on their ability to adapt to their environment and to regulate their business skills depending on the expectations of the environment. The constantly changing environment creates major problems for businesses that cannot adapt to these changes and cannot balance. The success of organizations depends to a large extent on their ability to recognize and assess these dangers beforehand. Organizations can face many threats that can come from within the business or from the business environment. Because of its negative effects, organization managers' ability to cope with these threats is of great importance for businesses (Can, 2002). Organization managers' leadership, experience, knowledge and skills are most needed in times of crisis. Because the most important responsibility of a leader manager is to successfully prevent the crisis that occurs in the organization. Managers exist to manage unexpected conditions and solve problems in organizations. For this reason, administratorship is the problem management process in organizations. The manager is the person who prevents this problem. Therefore, leading managers appear and show themselves especially in times of crisis (Peker & Ayturk, 2000). In this study, the characteristics of the crisis in organizations, the reasons for the emergence of the crisis and the crisis management processes in organizations are mentioned. Crisis management processes of organizations in potential crisis situations are examined.

Public Health and Health Sector Crisis Leadership During Pandemics: A Review of the Medical and Business Literature

The global scale and unpredictable nature of the current COVID-19 pandemic have put a significant burden on health care and public health leaders, for whom preparedness plans and evidence-based guidelines have proven insufficient to guide actions. This article presents a review of empirical articles on the topics of “crisis leadership” and “pandemic” across medical and business databases between 2003 (since SARS) and—December 2020 and has identified 35 articles for detailed analyses. We use the articles’ evidence on leadership behaviors and skills that have been key to pandemic responses to characterize the types of leadership competencies commonly exhibited in a pandemic context. Task-oriented competencies, including preparing and planning, establishing collaborations, and conducting crisis communication, received the most attention. However, people-oriented and adaptive-oriented competencies were as fundamental in overcoming the structural, political, and cultural contexts unique to pandemics.