Leaders should act fast in times of crisis, says Dr. Brian Mcgarrie, University of Birmingham
Office of International Affairs, Amity University Gurugram organized a virtual webinar on “Leading & Managing Through Crisis: The Case of COVID-19” under the banner of “The International Expert Talk series”. The Session was delivered by Dr. Brian McGarrie, Director- Executive MBA Programs, Birmingham University, UK. Following the vision of our Hon’ble chancellor Dr. Aseem Chauhan on augmenting internationalization, AUG has an active interface with accomplished academicians across the world regularly.
Dr. Brian mentioned different types of crisis and also about various stages of a crisis which the organizations could face in their functioning. He gave some very lucid examples to explain some of the crisis that has affected the world before COVID 19. In the Indian context, he highlighted some of the disasters such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004 and also the Bhopal tragedy that occurred in 1984. He emphasized that in such a scenario, the government must address challenges on three fronts – How do we address the health crises? , How do we address the economic crisis? And, how do we keep the business of the government operating? He suggested that the government should respond fast to recover and thrive from such crisis.
He raised a very important issue as to what does good leadership looks like during a crisis. The salient features that emerged from his discussion are- acting with urgency, communicating with transparency, responding productively to missteps, and engaging in constant updating. He further brought out a very relevant point where he emphasized that it is wrong to think that the work of the leader is to set a course and stick to it. He opined that leaders must constantly update their understanding of prior probabilities deliberately using strategies to elicit new information and learn rapidly as events unfold and new information comes to light.
Dr. Brian is the Executive Director at Birmingham University, UK. He teaches Crisis Management and Organizational Reliability and Resilience. Brian has recently taught in Singapore, Malaysia, India, Jordan, and Zambia and worked with Airbus on their World Class Leaders Programme and taught a Risk and Crisis Management Executive Programme for Singapore Social Services.
Prof. (Dr.) PB Sharma, Vice-Chancellor, Amity University Gurugram in his special address highlighted resilience that India is demonstrating in the handing of Covid 19. Leaders must act with urgency and they must acknowledge the crisis. Often delay in crisis creates unmanageable situations. Leaders must also act a tremendous amount of robustness on the policies and their execution.
The discussion was hosted and moderated by Vice-President- RBEF and Director- International Affairs, Prof. (Dr.) Gunjan M Sanjeev. While delivering her speech, she talked about the necessity of new leadership models to be adopted to lead through the crisis and managing organizations.
Several senior officials actively participated in the discussion -Dean-Students Welfare, Maj, Gen. GS Bal (Retd), Director-HR, Rear Admiral KK Pandey (Retd), Director-Admission and HoD-ABS, Prof. (Dr) Vikas Madhukar, Director-AIBAS, Prof. (Dr.) Rajesh Nair and Deputy Director- ASH, Prof. Arunagshu Bhattacharya. The session emerged as a great platform where all participants came forward enthusiastically to express their thoughts with the esteemed speaker.
This virtual event was coordinated by Ms. Shaivy Sharma, Office of International Affairs. The session was attended by over a hundred participants and was appreciated by the audience from both India and as well as overseas.
