Thursday 26 / June / 2025
Muscat: Heads of private companies need to learn from the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and use them to minimise the impact on their employees and businesses, corporate coaches and HR advisors in Oman and the Middle East have said.
Aisha Al Wardi, a leadership coach and trainer in the Sultanate, said now is when leaders need to show responsibility for the duties they are required to carry out in their positions.
“Responsibility requires a readjustment and then increased clarity and purpose,” she said. “From an organisational perspective, this is exactly the time where leaders must show their people how much they value them and their contributions to the organisation. Everything has changed and yet people have stepped up.
“They were forced out of their comfort zones, and managed to stay afloat despite having to go through one unpredictable change after another,” added Al Wardi. “The lockdown made things difficult, but it put things into perspective and became an opportunity for innovation and creativity.”
She pointed to the manner in which entrepreneurs and SMEs in the country had adapted to the pandemic to create products and services that people require during these tough times, as well as the steps taken by educational institutions to continue to teach students despite the lack of physical classes, as examples of how people learned from the challenges faced.
Adding to this, Mimi Nicklin, the author of Softening the Edge, a leadership book on empathy and emotional intelligence, said leaders needed to take decisions that positively affected their employees on an emotional and psychological level, as compared to those taken from a purely rational or financial standpoint.
It was also important, she said, for company bosses to take into consideration the circumstances affecting their employees, and consult with them, before taking decisions that would impact their lives both at and outside work.
“In the weeks ahead, we will be driven by the need for leadership that goes beyond the rational, and connects with people on a far more authentic and motivating level, within a context that values holistic employee health,” she explained.
“This is a time for regenerative leadership – that which balances humanism with capitalism,” added Nicklin. “It is a time for leaders that can understand their teams beyond the output that they create, and really empathise with them. These will be the leaders that manage to lead their businesses and people to recovery.”
Aisha Al Wardi, in the context of leadership, said the decisions taken by private sector leaders would show them as managing by example, and would definitely encourage employees in companies to do the same, and show dedication in their job during these tough times.
“When we think of leadership, we think of people that inspire us, people that rise up to the challenge,” she said. “People that are not afraid of taking risks regardless of how unconventional their ideas may seem to others. People that are empathetic and aware of the needs of others. This is the leadership we hope for.
“Since this is a global pandemic, it’s safe to say that none of us predicted it,” she added. “To continue growing, we must have the flexibility to adapt to changing situations and obstacles. I believe that Oman as a nation, is in the correct mindset of growth. I am hopeful that the current changes will bring about what is necessary to maintain and encourage more growth.”
Nicklin complemented this by saying companies needed to actively face the challenges with which they were confronted during the pandemic. This proactive measure would definitely help them in the long-run, if not short-term.
“As we look towards 2021, the biggest challenges sit in the need for companies to simultaneously nurture innovation, diversification of products and a highly engaged workforce to reflect the social and business reality we find ourselves within,” she added.
“All too often, people confuse delegation with losing control,” Nicklin went on to say. “When delegation is successful, teams are supporting their leaders in delivering work to ensure those leaders are able to focus their time and attention to the areas that they are most needed and are optimally strategic and business changing.”
