Teaching leadership the “Day After”, with care

Abstract

Purpose: This paper aims to share the author’s thoughts and reflections on teaching leadership in “pandemic times”. The author has been teaching leadership for nearly 20 years, both to undergraduate and graduate students, always stressing the importance of humility and compassion, traits that were often doubted and questioned vis-à-vis more traditional, masculine, perceptions of leadership. Yet, local and international leadership during the pandemic brought to surface the need and effectiveness of such characteristics, or what the author calls “the need for a feminist ethics of care” in leadership. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is a thought piece stemming from the author’s experiences and reflections. Findings: The paper discusses the fact that the most successful handling of the pandemic was largely carried out by female leaders, while also asking “why did so many male leaders do badly?” Research limitations/implications: With this thought piece, the author hopes to not only engage the readers in a discussion about effective leadership but also on how to teach leadership in today’s schools of management. Originality/value: The paper hopes to serve as a springboard for opening the discussion around traditional masculinist modes of leadership that have proven to be detrimental in managing the COVID-19 pandemic while also proposing that feminist leadership embedded in an ethics of care is what the world needs today.