Leadership’s Silver Lining: How the Pandemic Permanently Elevated Management Effectiveness

When COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, organizations worldwide braced for unprecedented disruption. What followed was not just a test of operational resilience, but a profound transformation in how leadership functions across industries. While conventional wisdom suggested that remote work and pandemic stressors would erode leadership effectiveness, our extensive research reveals a surprising truth: leadership capabilities have not only endured but significantly strengthened in the pandemic’s wake.

Many people assumed that when the stress and difficulty of the pandemic were combined with working remotely, leadership effectiveness would decline, and employee engagement would plummet. By analyzing data from over 100,000 leaders before the pandemic and 15,000 leaders from 2021 to 2024, we uncovered a counter-intuitive finding. Rather than deteriorating under pressure, leadership effectiveness showed marked improvement compared to pre-pandemic measures. This article explores this unexpected phenomenon, examining how the crucible of crisis forged more agile, communicative, and trusted leaders across global organizations—and why these improvements appear to be lasting well beyond the WHO’s official end to the pandemic in May 2023.

Elevating Management Effectiveness 

After contemplating these results, we asked the obvious question: “Were the leaders more effective,  or were the raters more generous in their ratings?”

We conducted further analysis. We discovered that in the pre-pandemic results, 32% of assessed leaders received a “1”, “2”, or “3” rating. (On our survey scale 1 = “Needs Significant Improvement”, 2 = “Needs Some Improvement” and 3 = “Competent”.) In the post-pandemic ratings, only 27% were rated a “1”, “2”, or “3”. That difference is statistically significant.

Only 28% of leaders in the pre-pandemic data received a “5” rating, signifying an “Outstanding Strength,” compared to 32% in the post-pandemic data. Again, that difference is statistically significant.

It is possible that raters in the post-pandemic might have been a bit more generous in their ratings, but if leaders were more effective, they would naturally receive higher ratings.

In the realm of romantic love, there is the adage that “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”  Does that also apply to attitudes toward one’s immediate manager in a work situation? While we realize this trend is not universal to all businesses and leaders, our database is composed of leaders from hundreds of different organizations in the US and internationally.

Data comparing overall leadership effectiveness and employee engagement pre-pandemic to post-pandemic in North America, Europe, Central and South America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa showed that the post-pandemic ratings of leaders and engagement were all significantly higher. This is a global trend.

Leadership Competencies

We measure overall leadership effectiveness by assessing a leader’s skills in 19 competencies. Every competency showed statistically significant improvements in the post-pandemic results. In the table below, we show the top 10 competencies compared to pre-pandemic and post-pandemic results. The competencies are sorted by the t-value, which measures the degree of improvement in each of the 19 competencies.

The competency with the most significant improvement was Learning Agility. This measures a leader’s ability to ask for feedback and adapt behavior in new situations. This was a critical skill at the beginning of the pandemic. Working remotely during the pandemic was significantly different than working in the office. It was driven by necessity. When the pandemic broke out, there was a great deal of concern about the health and welfare of individual employees. Many supervisors who were concerned about their team members’ well-being improved their relationships by reaching out and checking on individuals.

Communication presented new challenges. Leaders needed to develop novel new skills, such as conducting Zoom meetings and virtual training sessions. The skills developed during the pandemic were not lost after the pandemic ended. Notice in the list of competencies that were improved many belong in the soft skills designation such as, relationship building, communication, collaboration, integrity, and inspiring and motivating. So-called hard skills such as problem-solving and technical expertise also were rated more positively.

Analyzing the Pre- and Post-Pandemic Differences in Management Effectiveness

In the table below, we show the top 10 behavioral items showing the biggest differences between leaders before and after the pandemic. These items highlight some significant changes resulting from our pandemic experience.

1. Trust– Items 39, 6, and 8 all highlight a significant improvement in how much leaders are trusted after the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, most leaders assumed that they were trusted—but the pandemic forced leaders to make difficult decisions and changes, which ultimately engendered greater levels of trust. Trust is earned through positive relationships, consistency, and showing needed skills and ability.
2. Asking for and acting on feedback. Items 13, 14, and 15 measure a leader’s motivation to ask for and improve from the feedback of others. It signaled their desire and ability to continually work on personal improvement. Our research proves that leaders who ask for and act on feedback throughout their careers will be significantly more effective.
3. Building positive relationships and a collaborative team. Items 44 and 40 illustrate the importance of interpersonal relationships and teamwork. At the beginning of the pandemic, many assumed that cooperation between individuals and teams would suffer as people worked remotely. Good leaders at once saw the need to build better relationships and elicit cooperation between different individuals and teams.
4. Walking the talk. The pandemic emphasized the importance of every person being a role model. It highlighted consistencies and inconsistencies between what everyone said and what they did. Honesty and high integrity created additional trust between everyone.

Examining this research and the changes created by the COVID pandemic reinforces the conviction that oftentimes, difficult situations generate positive change and improvement in most people. The pandemic was a difficult period. However, challenges and obstacles made many leaders stronger and significantly better.

Joe Folkman