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The Covid-19 pandemic has continued to place intense economic and social strains on global economies and families. While rising poverty and unemployment have been worsened by the crisis, small businesses are under increasing pressure to manage burgeoning uncertainties and the corresponding economic and social challenges. No doubt, the deleterious effects of the crisis has intensified pressure on small business leaders to sustain their role in delivering responsible services.

Scholars argue that in crises, like Covid-19, the values of small business leaders are placed under scrutiny. Despite laws and regulations guiding ethical leadership especially in business, there exist challenges that are complex and not easy to address, and the pandemic situation further adds to them. The implication is that small business leaders are increasingly associated with accountability problems.

Navigating this period will require strategies for addressing the weaknesses in an existing leadership capacity in the delivery of business services, and successfully implementing ethical standards. This becomes crucial since the pandemic as an added challenge can spur on unethical leadership. The highlights of some of the key elements impacting ethical leadership during crises like Covid-19. This chapter also explores how business leaders can influence responsible behavioural change among employees for them to be creative and innovative. Additionally, an attempt will be made towards assisting small business leaders in finding responsible solutions.

The new post-pandemic normal reveals challenging features of living through a crisis, including a heightened sense of fear and the awareness of one’s limitations. Some of the challenges have been identified as relating to shifts in employer–employee interfaces or doctor–patient interactions; to increased effort to embrace rapid digitalisation while maintaining interpersonal relations; and to increased pressure to adapt flexibly to financial and structural changes. These are embedded in a greater (and mostly positive) consciousness of human and organisational interconnectedness.

This chapter looks at the parallel experiences of business and health systems as they endeavour to thrive during and beyond a pandemic. The authors recognise the intricate relationship between businesses and health as they feed each other’s overall growth directly or indirectly. Businesses create wealth through a healthy regard for the well-being of their stakeholders while healthcare systems are affected by their own business structures. In both cases, responsible leadership and fairness help to avoid an unhealthy prioritisation of profit.

This chapter reflects on the various routes businesses and health care can take to preserve fairness through ethical leadership. The authors focus on six stakeholders (employee, customer, shareholder, society or community, environment, and creditors) who need to be appropriately cared for and prioritised. The authors consider how promoting human competencies can affect skill acquisition, emotional intelligence, spiritual, and moral growth in both spaces. At the core of our discussion is the concept of self-leadership, which boosts the organisational leadership that in turn determines the kind of future we will have in the new normal.

This study examines the cultural history of the Api-Opi deity in Opi, Nsukka, Enugu State of Nigeria. The study sets out to examine the re-emergence of youthful worshippers of Api-Opi, despite the penetration of Christianity in the area.

The study employed ethnographic observation and field visits to the shrine of Api-Opi in Opi community of Enugu State, Nigeria. In addition, this study uncovers new information drawn from semi-structured interview questions undertaken in the study area between March and October of 2019.

Against certain claims on the impact of Christianity on Africa's traditional religions, the study found that the Api-Opi deity has withstood these post-colonial changes, growing its followership, particularly amongst the youths. It demonstrated the resilience of Igbo Traditional Worship System even in the midst of culture clash and religious iconoclasm advanced by Christianity in Igboland, Nigeria.

Evidence from this study helps debunk the notions of Eurocentric scholars who say African traditional religions are fetish, barbaric or primitive. It also shows how indigenous communities have protected and preserved their religious heritage despite the wave of modernization and other eternal influences. The study contributes to the increasing conversations about the role of traditional religion in the cultural resilience/revitalization of indigenous communities.