The holistic approach to leadership is the approach that the team working in the company and on a specific project is of more outstanding value than each of its members individually. It applies to ordinary employees and managers, who should not imagine themselves without a team. With a holistic approach, managers and leaders pay great attention to their managers and invest in their skills and reputation. By their example, they try to show employees how important it is to devote their whole souls to work. In crises like a data breach, the holistic view allows people to trust the team and not look for the guilty but make efforts to solve the problem.
The holistic approach to leadership is based on all employees and managers clearly understanding how the company works. The objectives of the work are known to all employees and formulated clearly; under such circumstances, minor crises will not affect the profession globally (Firestone, 2020). The company works continuously with this approach, only adjusting tasks (Kodama, 2018). Transparency of processes within the company is the main guarantee of a holistic approach, in which each member of the team or department understands what place he occupies in the system. The company appears as a large and robust organism, the parts of which, taken separately, are only systems that complement each other. Together, these systems form a strong body capable of coping with severe difficulties and conquering peaks.
Employees may question their self-identification under unpleasant unforeseen circumstances, such as a data breach. Here the leader takes the place of a charismatic example and shows that he is still committed to the initially declared goal. Managers are trying to improve the work and hone the transparency of processes (Solove & Citron, 2017). The staff in this system is an integral part of the complex for completing tasks leading to the central goal.
Planning processes follow an inductive logic: from most minor to most prominent in this approach. Once the manufactured product is collected from each department, managers and leaders, when planning, eventually move on to the primary goal. However, this does not mean that the main goal becomes less important. Planning in a holistic approach seeks balance without being carried into abstraction (Wisittigars & Siengthai, 2019). It is necessary to understand the state of affairs in each department to see a complete picture of the company.
Within the proposed framework, crisis management will be seen as a charismatic task to maintain motivation and reminders of a central goal. When data is leaked in a company, employees may feel frustrated, abandoned, and insecure (Cheng et al., 2017). Reorganizing the company and departments can be an excellent option for anti-crisis management. A holistic approach will allow the staff not to feel like they are in a new place but to keep the habit (Kodama, 2017). A data breach incident can thus damage the staff’s credibility with superiors. It is important to emphasize that the data leak affected all company levels. The managers did not intend to deceive the staff since the leaders are part of the team as others.
In crises, the holistic leadership approach allows departments to be reorganized in such a way, if necessary, that people do not lose their orientation toward goals. This approach aims to maintain team confidence and motivation to move forward. Leaders have charisma and set an example for their teammates, who are treated as equals. In times of crisis, these leaders try to demonstrate commitment while maintaining transparent management processes to avoid further undermining employee confidence. Such leaders talk to their subordinates and share their ideas, showing dedication and inspiration.
References
Cheng, L., Liu, F., & Yao, D. D. (2017). Enterprise data breach: Causes, challenges, prevention, and future directions. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 7(5).
Firestone, S. (2020). Biblical principles of crisis leadership: The role of spirituality in organizational response. Springer Publishing.
Kodama, M. (2017). Developing holistic leadership: A source of business innovation. Emerald Group Publishing.
Kodama, M. (2018). Business innovation through holistic leadership-developing organizational adaptability. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 36(4), 365–394.
Solove, D. J., & Citron, D. K. (2017). Risk and anxiety: A theory of data-breach harms. Texas Law Review, 96.
Wisittigars, B., & Siengthai, S. (2019). Crisis leadership competencies: The facility management sector in Thailand. Facilities, 37(13/14), 881–896.