**Preface**

This Merits Special Issue "Changing Realities for Women and Work: The Impact of COVID-19 and Prospects for the Post-Pandemic Work World" provides a multi-perspectival view of the impact of the pandemic on women and highlights some of the areas that workplaces need to improve in order to attract women back to the workplace. The COVID-19 pandemic and in particular its resultant lockdown had a devastating impact on female professionals and workers in all sectors of the economy and all countries of the world. Despite their struggles and setbacks, women emerged from the pandemic with a new resolve to reform their workplaces by considering their emotional and physical needs. Author Karen Perham-Lipman highlights mental health issues exacerbated by the pandemic and the need for employers to address them. Patricia A Clary and Patricia Vezina Rose discuss how burnout manifested during this time, especially in not-for-profit organizations. In their articles, authors Heejung Ching, Hyolin Sen, Holly Birkett, Sarah Forbes, and Randal Joy Thompson study the impact of the requirement for women to care for and educate their children in addition to working at home during lockdown. Carrie Spell-Hansson emphasizes the importance of resilience in a workplace characterized by disrespect and the importance of employers requiring respect in the post-pandemic workplace. The career challenges women faced as the result of the pandemic are summarized in the article by authors Sara McPhee Lafkas, Marin Christensen, and Susan Madsen. Tingting Zhang and Chloe Rodrigue explore the impact of maternity leave on quiet quitting, which was identified during the pandemic. Successful caring leadership approaches manifested by government and organizational leaders during the pandemic are examined by Merike Kolga. Finally, how women employed connective leadership to manage the pandemic crisis and the four characteristics of crisis leadership, authenticity, alignment, awareness, and adaptability are investigated by authors Chris T. Cartwright, Maura Harrington, Sarah Smith Orr, and Tessa Sutton. All of the Special Issue authors are experts in their fields and have employed a variety of methodologies to conduct their studies which substantiate their findings, conclusions, and recommendations. Together, they provide the reader with a well-documented and well-argued understanding of how the pandemic impacted women and their workplaces.

We, the editors, would like to wholeheartedly thank all of the authors for the exceptionally important issues they have dissected in this Special Issue. We would also like to thank all of the editors at Merits for their tireless work in supporting this Special Issue. We would especially like to thank Ms. Aria Hou, Managing Editor of Merits, who shepherded our Special Issue and provided highly professional leadership throughout the process. We would not have been successful in producing this Special Issue without her dedication and hard work.

> **Randal Joy Thompson, Chrys Egan, and Tina Wu** *Editors*
