The fact that her co-employees could see her vulnerability and she admitted that she cannot find a prompt solution in every situation generated trust in her colleagues, said Szabina Tomán. “They also opened up much better”, she added. In addition, she believes that flexibility is also needed to overcome challenges. During the first week of the pandemic, she told her colleagues: “Forget everything what I demanded in the past five years. We’ll do everything differently from tomorrow.” Such a shift, however, is never easy. “At the beginning, I was sometimes afraid that I would destroy the somewhat idealistic image colleagues had about me”, admitted Szabina Tomán.
The leader has an important role. “In a threatening situation, the group can become fragmented. The feeling of being existentially threatened may lead to hostility. And if the group falls apart, it may not overcome the challenge. It makes a real difference how a leader interprets events”, said Márta Fülöp, psychologist and social psychologist. She believes that an external threat faced by the group together “is a good situation in social psychologic terms, because it strengthens internal cohesion.” The expert also called attention to an important finding of competition research, namely that collaboration is the most efficient competitive strategy in many cases. That is, competition and collaboration do not mutually exclude each other.
Zoltán Gazsi said that one of the most important changes at his company was that pandemic-related information was shared not only with leaders but also with all employees on a regular basis. “Being a humane leader has always been very important to me. Tough love is an expression I like very much”, said Zoltán Gazsi, Managing Director of Eisberg Hungary who besides his successes is also known for the decision to share the news of his chemotherapy for colon cancer with his whole company. “I shared information about my condition every two weeks to eliminate guesswork and uncertainty”, he said. Zoltán Gazsi believes that this approach was really helpful because “it brought the team closer together. You need to have a strong community to be able to admit such hardships and this community will definitely respond to other challenges efficiently as well.”
Judit Endrei-Kiss, Chief HR Officer of Telenor, also believes in the importance of team strength. “A lone wolf will die in nature. To be able to survive and be successful, you need community and collaboration even if there is rivalry in your group”. The accumulated experience will be hopefully used to create people-centric organisations after the pandemic, concluded Al Ghaoui Hesna, fear expert, one of the hosts of the video series.
For the fourth episode of the series please click here: https://youtu.be/VsFosSFu3Ik