Business Leadership Tips for Sailing Through this Pandemic

The business environment has become highly volatile and uncertain. While equating it to the VUCA environment, handling it becomes an impossible or rather difficult task for naive entrepreneurs. To accustom with shifting business atmospheres, a business owner needs to grasp important tips. 

Similar to the army, VUCA is essentially applied to the business world as well. Even, the application and implication are quite similar when followed in the business ecosystem. To handle this scenario effectively like a soldier, business owners need to follow some business leadership tips. 

1. Mindset 

It is a universal fact that the mind is a more powerful instrument than muscle power. Military operations are often conducted in difficult terrain especially true with the Indian army. Half of the battle is with natural factors.  

Within this aspect, there are various subfactors which are as follows. 

• Embrace Reality

The current situation needs to be accepted. There is not any option of denying it and thus, business owners need to respond effectively to the situation. Basically, entrepreneurs need to take a cold look at what the situation is and should not let emotions come in the way. 

• Avoid Obsessing

Struggling business owners during this time, neither let the situation nor information overpower them. At the current scenario,  subordinates in the company are looking up towards their leaders for direction and guidance. Thus, the company owners should not despair and no matter what challenges need to be faced, there should not be no room for self doubt.

• Don't Let Fear Grip You 

At this time, entrepreneurs should be let fear grasp hold on them. They need to act as a good leader and do not let fear assess them. They have to overcome it and channelise it in an explosive action--determination and focus. 

• Avoid Knee-jerk Decisions  

Entrepreneurs should not give up objectives completely; instead they have to look for opportunities, resources, and prospects. Since the pandemic has begun, the business ecosystem is flooded with information like how to run the business and so on. It is not necessary to accept everything and implement it into the business, a businessman needs to take his own call.

• Be Proactive, Take Action 

To handle this scenario, business owners have to evaluate possibilities and narrow them down. Then, explain those prospects to the subordinates or team members. This will enthuse them and take them away from negativity and in turn, motivate them to achieve objectives.

2. Situational Awareness  

In the VUCA world, there is a lot of uncertainty and confusion. As a businessman strives for information, sometimes, he collects wrong information. For that, he needs to do the following  things. 

• Pierce the fog of war, seek out appropriate intelligence 

Wrong information that a business owner gathers has to be pierced by amassing apt round intelligence. The genuine collected data has to be related to your aspects of business. The entrepreneur has to organise that data and use it to formulate plans as well as strategies.

• Practice the OODA Loop

 The OODA loop is derived from warfare. It stands for observe, orientate, decide and act. It is a cycle of action on how one should act. In the business environment, a business owner has to observe the environment, pick up the relevant information that is significant for the company. Then, he is oriented to himself and his team to the situation as it is developing. He decides the option that is best suited to the company's objective and given circumstances. Having decided this, he has to take a quick plan and act .

While applying this cycle to the VUCA world, the business owner has to reduce this cycle. He has to reduce time for one single cycle and keep repeating as well as modulating it.