Crisis leadership from the perspective of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to identify traits and behaviors of organization leaders that were deemed helpful by employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: This is an exploratory qualitative study that utilized online surveys. Data from 155 participants were subjected to content analysis. Findings: Several interrelated traits and behaviors of effective crisis leadership were identified. These were clustered into three superordinate themes-attending to the person, taking charge and showing the way forward and sustaining the spirit. Research limitations/implications: Findings from this paper can be furthered by conducting quantitative studies to validate themes and/or test a conceptual model of effective crisis leadership. Gathering data from other populations at different points in time during the COVID-19 pandemic may also be useful. Practical implications: A review of leadership development programs and organization norms and values is recommended in order to ensure that they are consistent with crisis leadership competencies. Originality/value: This paper helps address the gap on follower-centered perspectives about organizational leadership responses to crises and highlights the importance of care and compassion in leading employees during difficult times. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

COVID-19 and spiritual well-being: implications for social work

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has presented unprecedented health challenges across all strata in society throughout the world. During this time, spiritual care forms a vital component of holistic health management, especially in terms of coping, coming to terms with illness, sufferings, and ultimately death. Spiritual care deals with the provision of compassion and empathy during the time of heightened stress, distress, and anxiety. Spirituality refers to the individual's personal experience that provides a greater sense of inner peace, harmony, hopefulness, and compassion for others and oneself. The term "Spiritus” is a latin word which means "the breath,” that is the most vital element for life. Religiousness may focus on the personal attitude, emotions, and personality factors. Spirituality may encompass positive emotions- love, hope, joy, forgiveness, compassion, trust, gratitude, and awe. Religion refers to the interpersonal and institutional aspects of religio-spirituality based on the doctrine, values, and traditions of a formal religious group. This paper seeks to highlight the role of spirituality in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic with use of social work throughout this process.

Guest editorial

[...]most individuals who are under correctional control serve time in the community on probation or parole. Because health care for older adults is exceedingly complex and costly when compared to younger adults, this large and growing older adult population under correctional control (prisons, jails, parole or probation) ought to sound an alarm through the public health and carceral fields. Service providers in community-based settings such as area agencies on aging, senior centers and leaders in long-term care are encouraged to prepare for an influx of elders with a criminal legal history and to examine current strengths and potential barriers in rising to the challenge of compassion in the wake of custody.

Building emotional-political communities to address gendered violence against women and girls during COVID-19 in the favelas of Maré, Rio de Janeiro

Although the intensification of direct and indirect gendered violence against women during the COVID-19 pandemic has been extensively reported globally, there is limited research on women's responses to it. Addressing calls to explore the relationships between emotional-affective atmospheres and politics during the pandemic as well as to centre analyses of gendered violence within geography, this paper explores how women in the favelas of Maré, in Rio de Janeiro have developed mutual support, (self)-care and activism in the face of the crisis. Engaging with nascent debates on responses to COVID-19, together with feminist geographical work on resistance to gendered violence, the article adapts the notion of ‘emotional communities' developed by Colombian anthropologist, Myriam Jimeno, to examine how emotional bonds created among survivors of violence are reconfigured into political action. Drawing on qualitative research with 32 women residents and 9 community actors involved in two core community initiatives in Maré, the paper develops the idea of building reactive and transformative ‘emotional-political communities' at individual and collective levels to mitigate gendered violence and wider intersectional structural violence. Emotional-political community building is premised on grassroots activism among women and organisations that develops as part of compassionate (self)-care and the quiet rather than spectacular politics of change.

Online Teaching of an Undergraduate Research Module amid COVID-19 Lockdowns: Reflections of an Academic at a University of Technology in South Africa

With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the transition from face-to-face teaching to online teaching was enforced in higher education institutions. The study illuminates the lecturer's reflections on practices adopted whilst embarking on the trajectory to move teaching an undergraduate research module to online platforms amid COVID-19 lockdowns at a South African University of Technology. An auto-ethnographic qualitative approach was adopted, with personal reflections as data sets. Using a Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework to analyse data, findings indicate that cognitive, teaching, and social presence are crucial in an online undergraduate research module. Significant during the lockdowns was the need for communication;the lecturer had to be present as a real person;show compassion towards students;and treat students as real people online, thus adopting humanistic pedagogy. Furthermore, the findings indicate various factors enhancing or impeding the quality of online undergraduate research pedagogical practices. Hence, the study recommends the addition of "policy presence" focusing on staff development, provision of online related resources, and ensuring a conducive environment in pursuit of inspiring and enabling both staff and students to participate in impactful research.

Nature, nurture, (Neo-)nostalgia? Back-casting for a more socially and environmentally sustainable post-COVID future

Commentaries on lived experiences of COVID-19-induced ‘lockdown' have simultaneously directed public imaginations backwards to draw inspiration and fortitude from historical periods of national and global challenge, and forwards into futures characterised by greater environmental sensitivity and community resilience. In this article, we argue that individuals' and households' practical coping strategies from different phases of lockdown within the UK offer clues as to how adaptive embodiments of close connection – to nature and community – both inform contemporary practices of everyday resilience and signpost towards enablers of a more socially compassionate and environmentally sustainable future. Our novel approach to conceptualising post-COVID recovery draws on ‘back-casting' – an approach which envisages pathways towards alternative, ‘better' futures – to work back from the notion of sustainable lifestyles, through participants' narratives of coping in/with lockdown, to the forms of adaptation that provided solace and encouragement. We highlight how these embodied and emotional adaptations constitute a form of nascent ‘neo-nostalgia' capable of reaching beyond the enabling of coping mechanisms in the present to inform long-lasting capacity for individual and community resilience in the face of future socio-environmental crises.

The development of a behavioural competency framework for school principals

Orientation: More than two and a half decades into South Africa's democracy, the majority of the country's learners receive low-quality school education, adversely affecting upward social mobility. Ensuring quality education for all South Africans requires a combined approach of equitable resource allocation and effective school leadership that transforms resources into educational outcomes. Research purpose: The objective of the study was to develop a behavioural competency framework for school principals. Motivation for the study: While past studies highlight school leadership and management to be pivotal in the establishment and maintenance of well-performing schools, less is known about the behavioural competencies required by school principals. Research approach and method: Guided by a synthesis of literature on school management, critical incident interviews were conducted with a sample of 10 school principals with good track records. The salience of the literature-derived competencies was established, and the content supplemented by contextualising the competencies with specific behavioural denotations from the interviews. Main findings: Eleven key competencies emerged from the data: creating a school vision and setting strategic direction, setting goals and expectations, developing school staff, influencing and communicating, resourcing strategically, leading with compassion, maintaining a student-centred learning environment, making decisions, managing self, managing teaching and learning, and leading across school boundaries. Managerial implications: The competencies identified provide a blueprint to guide human resource management interventions aimed at establishing effective school leadership. Contribution: The study provides a rich source of information about critical school principal behaviours, explored from an integrated perspective that acknowledges the school context.

Performance Management and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Framework for an Agile Performance Management System for the South African Higher Education Institution

The main objective of this article is to shed some light on one of the burning questions in the South African university on how to manage people's performance in disruptive times. There is a shortage of scholarly work exploring PM during the COVID-19 in the university. Most of the extant studies examined PM before universities were forced to use Remote Emergency Teaching and Learning (RETL), the remote and hybrid work model. This article attempts to achieve its main objective by first re-examining the weaknesses of the traditional PM systems during disruptive times and developing an innovative performance management system to bridge the gap. An Agile performance management system framework for South African Higher Education Institution (HEI) was developed in light of the pitfalls of the PM systems and other relevant literature. The proposed Agile, Continuous Performance Management framework calls for an agile mind-set and the development of new competencies, which include manager-as-coach and compassionate leadership. This article is valuable as it does not only fill this gap by bringing together the pitfalls of PM during the COVID-19 in a South African HEI. It also calls for strategic change and reconceptualisation of PM to provide a strategic way forward.

Managing Roles in Entrepreneurial Organisation

The success of an entrepreneurial organisation towards meeting its objectives is largely dependent on the effective management of roles.An effective development and survival is attainable in entrepreneurial organisations since originators have the compassion to give their best for achieving the sustainability of the organisations through hard work and commitment. Entrepreneurs are generally thought to be abnormal people because they are unique and creative in their thoughts and ability to change an old way of doing things to more acceptable modern and global standard. This study used secondary data from extant literatures in international and local academic journal articles, textbooks and other useful articles on the web sites. The inability to get adequate responses from entrepreneurs is responsible for desk research due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Also, entrepreneurial organisations partially closed their businesses and this necessitated the use of secondary data. The study adopted two role models: Managerial Roles proposed by Henry Mintzberg and the Founder's Multiple Roles Model by Peter Wilson and Sue Bates. The study concluded that roles that need to be implemented by the founders and their managers must be articulately carried out in entrepreneurial organisations in order to achieve stated objectives such as corporate survival. Furthermore, the study recommended that investment in training and development of workers should be put into consideration to enable them cope and adjust to assigned duties and functions that is accompanied by technological innovations towards corporate survival.

Analyzing Instagram Posts from the Minister of Health and the Ministry of Health in Line with Crisis Response Strategies During the COVID-19 Pandemic Process

The aim of this research is to determine how the first and second waves of the COVID-19 crisis had been managed through the official Instagram accounts of the Ministry of Health and Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca as well as which crisis response strategies were used more intensively. The research is limited from March 11, 2020 to March 11, 2021. Another limitation is Ministry of Health's and the Minister of Health's Instagram accounts were only examined within the framework of DiStaso et al.'s (2015) crisis response strategies (information-sympathy-apology). The research uses the quantitative content analysis technique. In line with the analyses, the Ministry of Health and the Minister of Health were determined to mostly have used visual posts in the form of photos+text in their official Instagram accounts regarding the first and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the posts both accounts made in the relevant process were mostly related to the pandemic. Among the crisis response strategies, the Ministry of Health and the Minister of Health were also determined to have used the information strategy the most, followed by the sympathy strategy in their official Instagram accounts regarding the first and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only one post regarding the apology strategy was determined to have been made on the Minister of Health's account during the second wave of the pandemic. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR]

A journey to compassion: A service user perspective

With the spread of Covid-19 and the corresponding lockdown, mental health problems in the UK are rising exponentially (The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2020). So it has become more important than ever to consider and discuss our mental health. Mental health difficulties can happen to anyone from any background. It is like any other illness requiring steps to be taken to attain recovery. We generally hear the viewpoint of mental health professionals who share their experiences of therapy and promote their idea of wellbeing, but the service user voice is often unheard. This paper outlines the author's experiences of mental health problems and treatments. He will then discuss CFT and emphasise the importance of the therapeutic relationship between psychologist and client.

Editor's Introduction

By conducting interviews and ethnographic observations, Stein shows how dreams of various groups from Palestine, and video activists and human rights workers failed in the hands of the Israeli military. It looks at the presence of main Spanish brands most active in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in four main Spanish televisions channels with the highest audience and online press during the two months of total lock-down due to Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The January issue of the Journal of Communication Inquiry includes five original articles, and one book review. [Extracted from the article]

Global Virtual Immersion in a Post-Covid World: Lessons Learned in Moving from Sympathy to Informed Empathy in Subsistence Marketplaces

We describe lessons learned from one-and-a-half decades of global virtual immersion practices in subsistence marketplaces, and explore implications for international business teaching and learning in the post-pandemic world. Global virtual immersion refers to bottom-up learning experiences, typically in contexts much different than what we may be familiar with, without being physically present in a specific geographic location. "Bottom-up" learning connotes learning from actual ground-level reality rather than the opposite, "top-down" reliance on prior knowledge. The aim of global virtual immersion is to move learners from sympathy – a most natural human emotion in response to poverty and suffering, to informed empathy, developing an understanding of subsistence marketplaces in different countries through a variety of means. Students, thus, broaden their global horizons, paving the way for additional learning and perhaps actual immersion, where possible. This process is particularly relevant as global contexts are so diverse and often elude generalities, and more so at lower income levels. This "bottom-up" approach for understanding subsistence marketplaces enables a better appreciation of the environmental realities, social contexts, market-level exchange systems, and individual behaviors of subsistence consumers and entrepreneurs, providing a particularly important learning approach for international business education across geographically diverse settings. [ FROM AUTHOR]

The Emergency of Prosociality: A Developmental Perspective on Altruism and Other Prosocial Behavior in the Face of Disaster

No two emergency situations are alike. A combination of human and contextual factors makes each emergency and disaster unique in its time line, its aftermath, and especially its impact on affected populations. In all of these situations, however, people engage in prosocial behavior that benefits others. We provide an overview of altruistic and other prosocial behavior in typical human development and of developmental distinctions between helping, sharing, and comforting. We focus on the expression of these behaviors in emergency situations, using the COVID-19 pandemic to illustrate how prosociality shifts and adapts in a specific context. Finally, we suggest that a developmental framework may help researchers and professionals in the field achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the many facets and underlying mechanisms of prosociality in emergency contexts.

Schadenfreude and Sympathy Following President Trump?s COVID-19 Diagnosis: Influence on Pre-Election Voting Intentions

Schadenfreude and sympathy are often experienced at the intergroup level;however, little research has been conducted to examine their role in one of the most prominent and emotionally evocative intergroup contexts: the political arena. In this study, we assessed a sample of 506 Americans??? (Age M = 41.69 years, SD = 13.94;57% women) schadenfreude and sympathy (and related cognitions) in response to then-President Trump???s COVID-19 diagnosis (a salient misfortune of a contentious political figure), and how their schadenfreude, sympathy, and related cognitions were associated with shifts in voting intentions (own and public???s) in the 2020 Presidential Election. We also examined trends in, and associations between, these variables by political affiliation (focusing on Democrats and Republicans) and gender (focusing on men and women). Unsurprisingly, compared to Republicans, Democrats expressed more schadenfreude and less sympathy. Contrary to previous research, however, Democrats??? experiences of schadenfreude were tempered and were primarily driven by deservingness beliefs rather than intergroup competition or malice). Amongst Republicans only, men experienced stronger schadenfreude than women. Regarding voting intentions, participants were more likely to report that the diagnosis would impact shifts in the public???s voting than their own voting, primarily in favor of the Democratic Party. Feelings of schadenfreude and sympathy were not significantly associated with anticipated shifts???rather, those who believed then-President Trump???s diagnosis was deserved (cognition strongly associated with schadenfreude) were four times more likely to believe the public would change their vote to the Democratic Party. These findings are discussed in relation to research at the intersection of psychology and political science and have implications for politicians and psychologists who aim to understand emotions underlying partisanship and voting behavior.

Palliative care strategies of Iranian nurses for children dying from cancer: a qualitative study.

Background: Children with cancer, who are at the end-of-life and facing death, need access to palliative care services, and nurses play an important role in providing these services. Aims: To explore the palliative care strategies of Iranian nurses for children dying from cancer. Methods: This was a qualitative study with conventional content analysis. Participants were 8 nurses, 1 social worker, 1 psychologist, 2 children, and 4 mothers from the Paediatric Oncology Unit in Semnan, Islamic Republic of Iran, who had experience in palliative care for children with cancer. Data were collected from individuals using in-depth, unstructured and semi-structured interviews and analysed using the Graneheim and Lundman approach. Data rigour increased with credibility, dependability, transferability, and confirmability criteria. Results: Data analysis led to the emergence of the concept of "perceived compassion". This theme was derived from the 2 main categories of "feeling the shadow of death on the child" and "comforting accompaniment". Feeling the shadow of death on the child included the subcategories of "pre-death arrangements" and "an opportunity to continue interactions". Comforting accompaniment was derived from 3 subcategories: "preparing to announce the child's death", "extra-role sympathy" and " post-death interactions". Conclusion: Perceived compassion was the main strategy used by Iranian nurses to provide palliative care to children dying from cancer.

The Roles of Health and e-Health Literacy, Conspiracy Beliefs and Political Sympathy in the Adherence to Preventive Measures Recommended during the Pandemic.

Adherence to preventive measures is of the utmost importance for limiting the spreading of the coronavirus. Many predictors of adopting preventive behaviors have been analyzed in different countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objectives: The study's main aim was to assess the roles of health (HL) and e-health literacy (eHL), conspiracy beliefs, political sympathy, and religious practices in the adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures after adjusting for sociodemographic factors. The analysis was based on the data obtained from a survey conducted among 2410 adult Internet users in Poland in October 2020. The survey was performed with a computer-assisted web-based interviewing technique. Survey data were analyzed through uni- and multivariable linear regression models. The multivariable regression model revealed that after adjusting for sociodemographic variables, the preventive measures score (PMS) was significantly associated with HL (B = 0.04, p < 0.001), eHL (B = 0.03, p < 0.001) and the COVID-19-related conspiracy beliefs score (C19CBS) (B = -0.24, p < 0.001). There was also a significant statistical relationship between PMS and political sympathies and religious practices. HL and eHL are key factors eligible for modification through appropriate interventions and showing positive effects in compliance with preventive measures. Conspiracy beliefs, political sympathy and religious beliefs are independently associated with the adherence.

A study of compassion, self-compassion, and self-care in senior baccalaureate nursing students

Compassion is an integral part of nursing care and may be a source of stress for the professional caregiver. Two protective variables, self-compassion and self-care, may lessen the symptoms of stress for professional caregivers. Nursing students also employ compassion when caring for patients throughout their nursing education and subsequently experience similar stress to nurses. A descriptive multivariate correlational design determined the relationship among compassion, self-compassion, and self-care in senior baccalaureate nursing students, using the Compassion Scale (CS-P), the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) and the Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP II) along with subscales. Compassion, self-compassion, and self-care were found to be directly related. Senior baccalaureate nursing students were found to have low levels of compassion, but adequate levels of self-compassion, and self-care. A canonical correlation revealed a positive relationship among two subscales of self-compassion, isolation and mindfulness, and interpersonal relations, a subscale of the HPLP II. This relationship represents the use of coping skills during the COVID-19 pandemic in which quarantine restrictions were in place. Many components of compassion and self-compassion were determined to have a positive effect on health promoting behaviors. Nursing students with children were correlated with lower compassion. Low income was correlated to low self-care scores. Supportive measures for students and educational interventions are recommended. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Compassion‐focused therapy group for men with intellectual disabilities who had maladaptive conceptualisations of masculinity

Purpose>The purpose of this paper is to determine the effectiveness of an adapted compassion-focused therapy (CFT) group treatment programme for individuals with an intellectual disability (ID), specifically aimed to help address maladaptive conceptualisations of masculinity.Design/methodology/approach>Outcome measurements were competed at pre- and post-group and the effectiveness of the intervention were assessed using a Wilcoxon signed ranks test.Findings>Findings demonstrated that the treatment group showed significant differences in their “gender role conflict” subscales including the Success, Power, Control and “Restrictive Affectionate Behavior Between Men” subscales;however, no significant differences were found on the Restrictive Emotionality or Conflicts Between Work and Leisure subscales. Furthermore, no significant differences were found on participants psychological well-being, psychological distress, anxiety, self-compassion or quality of life measures.Research limitations/implications>Limitations include that a lack of qualitative information regarding outcomes, a lack of control group and a small number of participants may have impacted the outcome of the research.Practical implications>The Men’s Masculinity group had a positive impact on the participant’s sense of success, power and control, so it could be considered that this group enabled participants to feel more powerful and in control of their difficulties which is associated with the “drive” system of CFT.Originality/value>Overall, this study adds to the small but growing literature that supports using CFT groups as a stand-alone psychological intervention when working with people with an ID.

Influencing and motivating employee engagement: An exploratory study on employee engagement in organizational injury-prevention programs

Using a modified Clark and Estes's (2008) gap analysis model, this study explored employee perceptions and attitudes about participating in an organization's injury-prevention program aimed at reducing sprains and strains and how these perceptions and attitudes were influenced by authentic leadership. The data was collected through qualitative semi-structured interviews, and the study participants were comprised of union-represented male employees over the age of 18 who suffered 80% of the sprain and strains injuries in the organization. Findings revealed that employees' high levels of self-efficacy and perceived value of the program served as the most significant motivating factors for their participation in the program. Additional utility value themes emerged that influenced employee participation, such as decreased pain, lower risk of injury, and improved well-being. Findings revealed five organizational obstacles that prevented their participation in the program:1) the prioritization of emergent work, 2) stalled program efforts due to COVID-19 restrictions, 3) a lack of leadership program support and participation, although leaders communicated the program's usefulness for injury-prevention, 4) a prioritization of safety rule enforcement, and 5) a lack of employee awareness of participation expectation policies. Lastly, four themes related to authentic leadership were revealed that influenced employee participation in the program: 1) supervisors encouraged integrous work behavior, 2) supervisors extended compassion during COVID-19, 3) supervisors encouraged and facilitated professional work relationships, and 4) supervisors failed to model program participation. This study concludes with four recommendations based on the findings and presented in Chapter Five. . (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)