Leadership Behaviours under Crises. The Application of a Process-Oriented View during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Literature on crisis leadership has grown over the last few years. However, extant research shows contradictory findings concerning the behavioural expectations of leaders in times of crisis. The chapter aims to add to this debate by bridging the literatures of crisis leadership and crisis management and introducing the processual and temporal dimension as a salient lens through which the complex repertoire of leaders’ behaviours can be investigated. A multiple case study design in the Italian context has been carried out in order to empirically explore the decision-making process and the related actions activated by leaders during the crisis generated by Covid19. The pandemic has placed unprecedented challenges on companies, especially in Italy, the first European country severely hit by the pandemic. The analysis revealed that three main sub-phases (awareness, reaction, and evolution) can be distinguished during the in-crisis period; from the leaders’ narratives, six behavioural patterns have also been identified and associated with each sub-phase. The chapter advances the literature by shedding new light on the complex repertoire of behaviours that leaders mobilise during times of upheaval to preserve company performance. The rich contextual insights derived from the qualitative study also offer implications relevant to leadership development.