The importance of leadership in crisis situations
Leadership plays an important role in the organization. It helps the organization in reaching to a better decision by opting the right leadership style as per the situation. As today’s business environment is too complex, that is hard to handle. In crisis, organization’s faces various problems such as stress, lack of proper communication, stakeholder related issues. In order to solve these issues, leadership competency is essential (Altheide, 2017).
In this way, crisis in business is unexpected that happen beyond the business routine. These sometimes happen without giving any time of warning signal. Today’s business world is very much fluctuating and it is engaged in an ongoing process of constructing different types of crises. Leadership and Business leader play an essential role in the organization during the time of crisis. It is the duty of leader to use effective leadership skills at the time of crisis. Leadership in a crisis proves to be fruitful that is why it is called the construction of crisis (Klenke, 2016). Leadership the situation of crisis is different from leadership in normal conditions, so leaders need to focus on enhancing and adapting most effective skills. Each and every industry demands effective leadership and skills to deal with the crisis which they are facing in today’s business world.
In every organization, good leadership assist the company to a better decision at the time of crisis. Same as, leadership plays an important role in the fast food retail industry and it may have different implications in this industry to construct different crises faced by the industry. In today’s business environment, fast food industry is highly growing and competitive that can make its players face different types of crises like food safety crisis, competition, bad quality of food, product failure, loss of marketing advantages, overexpansion of food outlets etc. It has stated that only financial implication of crisis is not significant. There can be various other crisis events such as loss of business, downfall in prices of stock, lawsuits, or decrease in productivity. Let us take the example of crisis in the McDonald’s. In the year 1998, Russian economy was facing too much inflation. Due to this, many Russian citizens were not able to afford the daily necessity products (Coombs, 2014). Therefore, leadership in McDonald’s founded that it is better to reduce the prices of menu item that was the central component of its brand. At this time, it has decided to employ the suppliers of Europe to train the Russian supplier. By doing this, it has decided to build the food production facility of its own by ensuring the consistent quality of dairy products as well as local meat. The Russian economic crisis has provided an opportunity for hiring the best employees and it has designed a compensation system based on productivity of their work. Therefore, it is stated that effective leadership provides a great help at the time of crisis (Puffer, McCarthy & Shekshnia, 2017).
Apart from this, the organizations in fast food retail industry may face the crisis related to food quality standards. There are various food outlets which are compromising on food quality to stay competitive among leading players. It can lead them towards crisis of bad food image. It can destroy their brand reputation among targeted population. To deal with this crisis situation effectively, the leaders in fast food sector can conduct an audit of the raw materials and food preparation techniques (Coombs, 2014). Under this process, the leaders can use effective leadership skills and competencies to stay competitive and successful. For example, the leaders at McDonalds have implemented technological innovation to deal with the crisis events and explore more opportunities in global fast food industry. It assisted the company to overcome the crisis of bad food image in China.
Different types of crises faced by the fast food industry
Moreover, the industry is confronting the issue related to stress and employee turnover. It has founded that there are various restaurants and fast food outlets, which have faced this crisis and issue. In order to deal with this, leaders may have the responsibility to use teamwork to control the stress and conflicts among employees (Harms, Credé, Tynan, Leon & Jeung, 2017). It can be stated that leaders who respond to the responsibility, helpfulness, values and positive attitude, they contribute to create a synergistic and cooperative teamwork environment. To overcome this crisis, fast food industry leaders can communicate the teamwork via higher employee engagement. In this sector, it will increase the job satisfaction among restaurant staff and encourage them to work with higher morale (Powley, Edward and Scott, 2015).
In today’s business environment, development of crisis leadership competency is essential. It is seen that leaders often focus on the negative side of the crisis and they do not see the opportunities lie in situation. Crises are the opportunities for the organization change because a crisis brings the attention of leadership issue that has been neglected. (Castelao, Boos, Ringer, Eich & Russo, 2015). Situational leadership style is one of the best styles that can support restaurant leaders to deal with both expected and unexpected situations. Apart from this, there are some other leadership styles which can be implied in the fast food industry so that they can deal with the crises and issues. The leaders can adopt autocratic leadership style where they make the participation of employees in decision making process. It makes the followers and employees more engaged towards their roles and responsibilities of restaurants. For instance, McDonald’s at the time of crisis took the best approach of leadership to handle the situation. It has made the proper use of its resources and opportunities to assist the situation in a best possible way. Thus, leadership is too much necessary for success of the organization in its good as well as bad times (Zhu, Anagondahalli & Zhang, 2017). There are various leadership styles and approaches that leaders need to differentiate which conditions and crises require a certain type of style so that companies in fast food industry can have smooth and successful business.
Conclusion
From the discussion in above paper, it is conclude that grabbing the opportunities from the crisis situation put pressure on the organization to be resourceful in some way. In fast food retail industry, organizations may face different crises where leaders have to use most appropriate leadership styles. For various organizations, identifying the opportunities means forming an alliance with the outside stakeholders. However, this industry is finding the growth opportunities even during the crises events. It was possible by using the leadership competency in an effective and efficient manner. Therefore, it is proved that leadership plays an important role in the organization to handle the different situation of organization.
References
Altheide, D. L. (2017). Creating fear: News and the construction of crisis. Routledge.
Castelao, E. F., Boos, M., Ringer, C., Eich, C., & Russo, S. G. (2015). Effect of CRM team leader training on team performance and leadership behavior in simulated cardiac arrest scenarios: a prospective, randomized, controlled study. BMC medical education, 15(1), 116.
Coombs, W. T. (2014). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding. Sage Publications.
Harms, P. D., Credé, M., Tynan, M., Leon, M., & Jeung, W. (2017). Leadership and stress: A meta-analytic review. The leadership quarterly, 28(1), 178-194.
Klenke, K. (2016). Qualitative research in the study of leadership. United Kingdom: Routledge.
Powley, Edward H., & Scott N. Taylor. (2015). “Pedagogical approaches to develop critical thinking and crisis leadership.” Journal of Management Education 38, no. 4 (2014): 560-585.
Puffer, S. M., McCarthy, D. J., & Shekshnia, S. V. (2017). Leadership development in Russia. In Human Resource Management in Russia (pp. 55-76). Routledge.
Zhu, L., Anagondahalli, D., & Zhang, A. (2017). Social media and culture in crisis communication: McDonald’s and KFC crises management in China. Public Relations Review, 43(3), 487-492.
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