Date: 2025-04-03 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00018569
The Coronavirus Emergency
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B-Team Initiative ... Facing Crisis with Compassion and Collaboration
Peter Burgess
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A Note From B Team CEO Halla Tómasdóttir
As the devastating toll of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, there are few words that capture the pain communities, families and individuals around the world are feeling. Navigating the ongoing uncertainty, fear and distress accompanying this crisis presents a massive challenge—first and foremost to our own safety and well-being, and that of our loved ones, but also to our ways of leading in business and beyond.
Our crisis of conformity in leadership has led to loss of trust in institutions and broken social contracts the world over. The impacts of COVID-19 only highlight these fractures—and the need for a new approach to leadership that keeps humanity at its heart. For the health and safety of employees, communities, customers and more, we need compassionate as well as transformative leadership.
We’re seeing people and companies around the world answer this call. Whether securing the livelihoods of their teams or caring for vulnerable communities, their responses reflect a true approach to leadership that serves all stakeholders. This growing promise is one we now need to see in practice—especially as the challenges this crisis poses to our businesses and economies grow even clearer.
At The B Team, we’re strengthening our work to help leaders act now for a better today—meeting the urgent need to protect the health and well-being of humanity. We’re also focusing on helping them decide now for a better tomorrow—ensuring we build economic recovery responses for long-term, inclusive and sustainable growth. We were fortunate enough to welcome two new Leaders, Hiro Mizuno and Torben Möger Pedersen, to our team this month who will only help us accelerate efforts toward these imperatives.
In these uncertain times, we all must step up and determine the types of leaders we want to be. Now, more than ever, it’s time to show up and answer the question: who do we choose to be?
“The chaos of coronavirus underscores the challenge that public health workers face in prioritizing their own wellness in the face of limited resources, often brutal hours, and seemingly endless demands on their bandwidth.”
We won’t combat COVID-19 without ensuring the safety and well-being of the public health professionals on the frontlines of this crisis. Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO of Thrive Global, and Michelle Williams, Dean of the Faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, share how we can protect workers bearing a disproportionate burden of this pandemic.
“As companies respond to coronavirus, false virtuousness will be easy to spot. Business leaders who back moral statements with practical action will stand out.”
The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are testing business leaders’ increasing commitments to serve all stakeholders—not just shareholders. As companies continue to respond to this crisis, our Chair and CEO (2009-2018) of Unilever, Paul Polman, calls on them to put their promises into practice and warns that those who fail to do so, or do so disingenuously, will pay the price in a post-pandemic economy.
“The post-pandemic world could give us a new model for the global economy, a new commitment to sharing the world’s wealth and a renewed investment in compliance and the rule of law.”
As governments, businesses and civil society respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the damage broken social contracts have brought around the world are as clear as ever. For both the immediate and long-term health and safety of workers, families and communities, our Vice-Chair and General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, Sharan Burrow, urges a rebuilding of a strong social contract.
The COVID-19 crisis is putting stakeholder capitalism to the test. How are companies responding? JUST Capital is providing guiding principles for corporate leadership, tracking company responses and sharing evolving practices as the impact of this pandemic unfolds.
Without proper protections for workers, supply chains and small businesses, working people and their families could feel the health and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for years to come. What do protections currently look like around the world? The International Trade Union Confederation is surveying trade unions in 86 countries to find out.
As COVID-19 spreads around the world, go-it-alone policies and actions from governments, businesses and more won’t be enough. How can we spark multi-stakeholder action at the scale and speed this crisis calls for? The World Economic Forum is partnering with the World Health Organization to form the COVID Action Platform and galvanize global, multilateral support to protect people’s lives and livelihoods.
- Ajay Banga, President and CEO of Mastercard, on the urgent need to keep decency at the very center of corporate leadership in the face of this evolving crisis. ed9a67bf-ea41-4f85-95b0-afadf1775c2b.png b739fa7e-d780-4a86-9cec-6a5df8b8249c.png 7f216fbd-2a44-4801-8096-f0b56caf5f32.png
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