Times of big, world­wide crises are hard — both on indi­vid­uals and orga­ni­za­tions. The world economy is currently trying to regain its footing after the massive shock­waves of COVID-19 that sent it sprawling to its knees. We don’t know yet how life will be changed after the coro­n­avirus pandemic has run its course. We do know that many people, compa­nies, and even coun­tries will take a long time to recover and might never do so. Some are fortu­nate enough to be able to get back on their feet, dust them­selves off, and keep going like before. And then there are those who make their own fortune, who not only stay standing during this crisis but find a way to keep their balance and keep moving — while also doing their part to support the people suffering most in this crisis. 

They are the ones who under­stand that times of crisis are also times of oppor­tu­nity and new begin­nings; not just for them­selves and their bottom line, but for society as a whole. While glob­al­iza­tion itself was the virus’ means for its rapid spread across the world, experts believe that glob­al­iza­tion is also our ticket out of the crisis. “No man is an island” — and coun­tries no longer are, either. The world has been moving closer together for decades and to over­come this crisis and come out stronger at the end of it, we’ll have to move closer together still. 

But for this to be successful, we’ll need the right kind of leaders with the right kind of compe­ten­cies to be able to navi­gate their compa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions through the churning waters of change on a global scale. We need “global leaders” who under­stand that this is not the time to freeze and wait things out. This is the time to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ties and unlock the new begin­nings presented by a crisis; the time to reassess and adjust core values and commit­ments to support each other better and attain a true global mindset beyond profits and bottom lines. 

COVID-19 and Glob­al­iza­tion

Our first instinct in terms of the coro­n­avirus crisis and glob­al­iza­tion may be to think “without glob­al­iza­tion, the virus would never have spread so fast on a global scale” and vilify the fact that the world has become a smaller, incred­ibly inter­con­nected place as the reason for the current crisis. 

And it’s not completely wrong. COVID-19 wasn’t impeded by borders or medieval infra­struc­ture, and there­fore spread like wild­fire across the globe. Some down­side risks of glob­al­iza­tion were thus uncov­ered and the very concept of glob­al­iza­tion itself chal­lenged, crit­i­cized, and doubted. Conse­quently, some voices have called for deglob­al­iza­tion or anti-glob­al­iza­tion. However, “reversing glob­al­iza­tion” isn’t a viable option at this point. We all rely too much on each others’ goods, wares, credit, and services for this to even be a possi­bility. As Ian Goldin said, “if there is one lesson COVID-19 has taught us, it’s how inter­con­nected our lives are.” 

The better approach, that many experts are seeing, is to enter into a new age of glob­al­iza­tion that is more digi­tized and struc­turally adjusted. The pandemic will not termi­nate glob­al­iza­tion; on the contrary, it demon­strates the impor­tance of global coop­er­a­tion. Many compa­nies — or rather, their leaders — under­stood this early on and reacted accord­ingly. 

Compa­nies Responding with Increased Global Lead­er­ship Compe­ten­cies to the COVID-19 Crisis

If you’re one of our regular readers, you’re familiar with the key compe­ten­cies of global leaders we’ve discussed in detail in several arti­cles. But let’s review those compe­ten­cies, to make sure we’re all on the same page going forward: 

• Global Busi­ness Exper­tise; global leaders have to be some of the most knowl­edge­able and expe­ri­enced exec­u­tives in their industry when it comes to the busi­ness of… well, busi­ness. 
• Inter­per­sonal Compe­ten­cies; you can’t be a successful global leader without having people skills. 
• Intrap­er­sonal Compe­ten­cies; as a global leader, your “people skills” have to extend to your­self. Having intrap­er­sonal compe­tence means being good at recog­nizing and inter­preting your own emotions and thoughts, which takes both confi­dence and humility. 
• Multi­cul­tural Compe­ten­cies; without cultural sensi­tivity, cultural intel­li­gence, as well as mindful inter­cul­tural commu­ni­ca­tion, you’d be missing the point of being a “global” leader.

These are core compe­ten­cies for global leaders to be successful, espe­cially in times of crisis. But this partic­ular global crisis has shown that we’re going to have to expand our under­standing of global lead­er­ship compe­ten­cies. Let’s illus­trate this with some exam­ples of how various compa­nies have upped their crisis-game to the benefit of all. 

Unilever’s Approach of Systemic Thinking

With the global supply chain at a stand­still, major indus­tries like travel liter­ally grounded, and cata­strophic un- and under­em­ploy­ment in many coun­tries, the novel coro­n­avirus has had an enor­mous socio-economic impact. In this “New Lead­er­ship for a Global Crisis: COVID-19“ inter­view by UN Global Compact, Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever, outlined how Unilever not only tries to safe­guard their own cash and employees, but raised whole facto­ries within a few weeks to manu­fac­ture soap and hand sani­tizers, donated hundreds of millions of euros to people in need, designed “hospital boxes” to send to parts of the world that need extra hospital capacity, like Africa. 

According to Jope, the company is moving at 10-times the usual speed on deci­sion making for all of these measures. Things that usually take months, Unilever is finding they can actu­ally do in days. Jope attrib­utes this fast response time to the company’s leaders and their key lead­er­ship compe­ten­cies needed during a crisis: 

• Strategic, systemic, and struc­tural thinking, 
• clear prin­ci­ples, 
• personal mastery, and
• agility. 

For example, Unilever set aside 500 million euros to pay their suppliers and extend credit to customers and distrib­u­tors; this money was made avail­able to small busi­nesses, to help keep them in busi­ness. This strategic and systemic mindset bene­fits both Unilever, who needs the global infra­struc­ture and ecosystem to continue existing as a company, as well as the small busi­nesses them­selves. 

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Royal Philips’ Inter­woven Sustain­ability

In the wake of COVID-19’s devas­tating churn, less imme­diate global issues like the envi­ron­ment and global warming may be put on the back burner. Who has the time and resources to “clean the deck” while every sailor on the ship is fighting to survive the attack of the corona-kraken? 

But for Royal Philips, a leading health tech­nology company, the two issues aren’t sepa­rate enti­ties. Rather, they ask them­selves: “how do we fight the kraken while cleaning the deck at the same time?” For Royal Philps, saving lives and tidying up go hand in hand. The company is fully committed to support coun­tries, insti­tu­tions, and indi­vid­uals in the fight against COVID-19 by sustain­able means. 

Royal Philips’ mission state­ment is to make the world healthier and more sustain­able through inno­va­tion. Sustain­ability is woven into the company’s strategy; it’s not an after­thought, not a secondary oblig­a­tion, and it can’t be switched off when dealing with the current crisis and following through on their corpo­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ties towards their employees, customers, health­care workers, and patients. 

The company was an early player to the pandemic; with 15% of the company’s oper­a­tions located in China, Royal Philips ramped up produc­tion to deal with the crisis there in late January. While other compa­nies were “taking shelter” and going into lock­down, Royal Philips had to do the exact oppo­site, as need for their acute care equip­ment and support went up approx­i­mately eight-fold. The increase in produc­tion was fulfilled with the company’s usual sustain­able supply manage­ment and respon­sible sourcing. 

For CEO Frans van Houten, it’s all a ques­tion of lead­er­ship. The world “needs leaders to stand up, take a stance, and lead the way”, in the under­standing that sustain­ability isn’t simply a cost factor or marketing gimmick; rather, it will become a growth and profit booster. Compa­nies who have progressed further in their sustain­ability efforts will find them­selves at an advan­tage sooner rather than later — even in the wake of a global crisis. 

Main­taining a clean deck during the fight means the ship will be ready to sail on quickly — and further than ever before — once the fight is over. But only if the captains and their offi­cers under­stand the value of a tidy ship. 

Luxury Brands and their Commit­ment to Social Respon­si­bility

You may have heard that luxury brands like Ralph Lauren or Louis Vuitton have dropped their pursuit of profit (to some extent) during this crisis. Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH), for example, repur­posed their work­shops in France to produce protec­tive face masks instead of expen­sive bags. They also instructed three loca­tions of the group’s cosmetics and perfume divi­sion to begin produc­tion of hydro alco­holic gels in view of the shortage of disin­fec­tants in France, rather than the usual perfume. The gels were distrib­uted primarily to hospi­tals for free. Other cosmetics manu­fac­turers, including L’Oréal and Rocher, also joined LVMH’s initia­tive. 

The Ralph Lauren Corpo­rate Foun­da­tion began the produc­tion of 250,000 masks and isola­tion gowns, and committed 10 million dollars to helping teams, part­ners, and commu­ni­ties impacted by the pandemic. The foun­da­tion also made a dona­tion to The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity that enabled the purchase of a specialist machine to test for COVID-19. The machine enables cancer sufferers, who are immuno­com­pro­mised, to find out sooner if they have the virus or not, and to undergo treat­ment accord­ingly.

Many other luxury brands, like Lacoste, Prada, Estée Lauder, and L’Occitane have also reopened or mobi­lized their produc­tion lines across the world to manu­fac­ture protec­tive face masks or disin­fec­tants rather than their usual high-end prod­ucts. None of these measures are mandated by their govern­ments; these compa­nies’ leaders simply recog­nized that they’re in a priv­i­leged posi­tion to help people by producing and distrib­uting some of those things that have suddenly become scarce essen­tials all over the world. Yes, they are also seeing and seizing busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties here, but in doing so are answering that social oblig­a­tion that they’re in a posi­tion to act upon. 

Being able to recog­nize and own up to that social respon­si­bility is another “new” compe­tency of global leaders, which will help not just their compa­nies but the world through global crises, now and in future. 

The “New” Compe­ten­cies Global Leaders Need to Lead Through a Global Crisis

As noted earlier, this pandemic and the resulting economic crisis won’t termi­nate glob­al­iza­tion, but has rather demon­strated the impor­tance of global coop­er­a­tion. Glob­al­iza­tion will, in fact, be more impor­tant going forward than ever before. This means that leaders will need to adopt a new kind of global mindset. And, as Gregory Bateson’s 6 Logical Levels of Change demon­strate, this will have to start from the very top: the vision.

The vision at the top of this pyramid of change is about asking the ques­tion “what else?” This logical level of change goes beyond the indi­vidual and relates to being part of a bigger system, whether that be family, company, commu­nity, or beyond. Without adjusting this vision to reflect the new global mindset, the values (third level) that repre­sent a company’s core compe­ten­cies, will never become inter­woven in the company’s over­ar­ching strategy. 

In order for a company to not only get through, but lead through a global crisis, its vision must be broad­ened. Today, a company’s vision is usually limited to the company itself, possibly extending to its market. In future, company leaders will have to expand this vision to encom­pass our inter­con­nected, glob­al­ized world. Compa­nies must start caring about all possible stake­holders, including even their competi­tors. Rather than having values like sustain­ability and social respon­si­bility be inte­grated in a company’s marketing strategy (to be found on the lower logical levels of behavior and envi­ron­ment), they must become part of the overall vision, creating an entirely new corpo­rate iden­tity with new values like

• strategic and system thinking, 
• resilience, 
• flex­i­bility, 
• creating a healthy envi­ron­ment, 
• ecology, and the afore-mentioned
• respon­si­bility, and
• sustain­ability.

How to Develop a New Global Mindset

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis has shown that glob­al­iza­tion and collab­o­rating on a global scale are more impor­tant than ever before. Rather than “freezing” up and halting all busi­ness, this is the time to take charge and make changes. Moving forward will require C‑level managers, global leaders, and global compa­nies alike to develop a new global mindset; to adjust their vision and realign their core values. 

Global lead­er­ship devel­op­ment that focuses on compe­ten­cies building is more impor­tant than ever, and this is where eurac can support you. We help compa­nies and global leaders develop their vision and values, define the compe­ten­cies needed to reflect them, and put them into action on a behav­ioral level to get the desired results. Contact us here for a free initial consul­ta­tion or feel free to peruse our global lead­er­ship maga­zine to find out more about how to develop global leaders in your company. Be sure not to miss any news or new arti­cles coming your way by signing up for our email newsletter here: