A parallel between organizational leadership and leadership in university teaching in times of COVID-19

Abstract

Abstract We live in a dynamic and ever-changing world. It continues to be disrupted in multifaceted ways, facing multiple challenges. As organizations step up learning how to distribute budgets and reinforce the commitment to meet continuously changing business needs, there is also an increased emphasis on strengthening the learning skills inside universities, as the parallel between private sector and teaching universities is growing at a fast pace. The COVID-19 health crisis has gone as far as shutting down countries, putting people in vulnerable positions. In this crisis, a leader, even if we speak from a private organizational level or an academic teaching institution, must stay focused on his purpose as it is not negotiable. The research from this article gathers information from the literature review and from the author’s experience in the private and academic sector as well. The purpose of the article is to increase awareness on the needed leadership skills in this changing times and to emphasize the strong bound that needs to be created between organizations and leadership skills inside universities, for students, as they are the next managers and for universities’ managers as they need to align to the business environment in order to offer a better structure for the next generations. As talent mobility and upskilling are currently the main focus of organizations, with this paper we are looking at several aspects on how to build the most suitable profile for the next generation of leaders. Our paper is built more on qualitative research, where we explore in depth the attributes of leadership with the aim to highlight the best frame possible for business, in this changing time, when we are expecting to approve the work from home system at a greater level and we believe that online and remote meetings are likely to become the norm, as organizational and education sector has undergone a set of major changes.