How to lead self-government employees through the crisis : empirical evidence on impact of crisis management competencies on team performance in COVID-19 pandemic

The emergence and spreading of COVID-19 pandemic were surprising and sudden. It caused the need for competent crisis management throughout the public administration to manage the initial stage of the crisis. The purpose of our research is to identify the connection between the competencies of crisis management in self-governments and employee performance, measured at the time of the initial stage of the crisis, by their feeling of satisfaction, safety and establishment of conditions for work. In this research report, we expect these variables to be connected via the sharing of information, teamwork and cognitive diversity of work teams. The research used the mediator model according to Baron and Kenny. Sobel's test was used to test the mediator effect. Regression analysis was used to verify the hypotheses. The ANOVA variance analysis was used to analyze multiple dependency. The level of significance was 5%. The research sample consisted of 207 managers in self-government organizations operating in Slovakia. The hypothesis on the dependency between the crisis management competencies and team performance during the initial stage of the crisis, facilitated by sharing of information, teamwork and cognitive diversity of crisis management, was confirmed.