Building resilient leadership: A study exploring leadership development during uncertainty

Susan Walsh; Alan  Johnston; Lynne Gabriel

doi:10.18282/hrms.v6i2.3474

Susan Walsh York Business School, York St John University, York YO31 7EX, United Kingdom
Alan Johnston York Business School, York St John University, York YO31 7EX, United Kingdom
Lynne Gabriel School of Education, Language and Psychology, York St John University, York YO31 7EX, United Kingdom

Article ID: 3474

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.18282/hrms.v6i2.3474

Keywords: leadership; SMEs (small medium enterprise); learning and development; resilience

Abstract

Effective small and medium enterprise (SME) leadership demands creative solutions to ensure organisations survive and thrive during the turbulent times that COVID-19 continues to bring. This paper explores how SME leaders (in micro and small organisations) prioritise and access the skills and development needed to provide effective and sustainable leadership to organisations, focusing on the role of resilience and the benefits it provides. Participants were selected through purposive and snowballing sampling. Online surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted and provided qualitative data that contributes to an understanding of the role of resilience and the view of participants as to what is needed to effectively respond to a dynamic environment. Evidence shows that SME leaders prioritise learning and development opportunities that provide demonstrable benefits throughout the organisation. Building business resilience remains a fuzzy concept; however, viewing resilience as a multi-level construct offers benefits when designing and delivering development opportunities. It has been found that networking, partnerships, and relationship building promote resilience and may offer a solution to how to embed resilience building into development opportunities that SME leaders value and wish to engage with. This article contributes by illustrating and exploring leadership development within SMEs during a period of unexpected and untested uncertainty. The pandemic caused major shock waves within business communities, and SMEs were significantly affected. The research is limited in that it is expected to be a once-in-a lifetime event, and as such conditions may not be replicable, learning opportunities for other ‘shock’ events are possible. The findings of this paper have relevance to practice in that, while the event may be one-off, shocks to the business environment are not.

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