THE IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE TIME OF THE CORONAVIRUS

In a volatile world, when most of the social conventions are violated, when leaders have to work remotely with different generations having different technical knowledge when the wellbeing and health of the employees and their families are more important than daily activities when the pressure of uncertainty affects the efficiency of the employees, leaders and managers have to rethink the frame of values and missions of the company, and how they will handle the social problem. The COVID-19 pandemic started in late 2019 and continuing in 2020 is a test for all societies, companies, leaders, and it is also testing the status quo of the leadership theory. A crisis can emerge in many different forms and COVID-19 in one of them. Big companies have formulated business continuity plans for emergencies. Usually what companies omit to consider is emotional intelligence, one of the crucial factors of effective crisis management. An emotionally intelligent leader can have better solutions and reactions in a crisis than a leader without emotional intelligence competencies. This short paper explores a series of early risk mitigation strategies to prevent COVID-19 and prepare leadership to face this inevitable challenge. The research design types used are literature review and naturalistic observation. The research methodology is observation.