Leadership and Crisis: What the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed
“When things are working out fine, anyone can be the leader.” – How did you learn to ride a bicycle? Some of us learnt to ride by having someone, generally an adult, hold firmly to the back of the bicycle as we happily and boldly rode around with a smile on our face. What a shock was it then when the person holding us decided to let go of the bicycle!? That’s when we realised that our boldness and apparent balance were founded on a lie. Our real experience in riding a bicycle was suddenly revealed not only to the people watching but more especially to ourselves.
Thanks to the systems that we’ve put in place around the leaders of our time, it is easy to assume, both for the people and for the person in a leadership position, that they are doing a great job. And yet essentially all they just need to do is tweak a few things and put their name on the achievement while systems and other people’s efforts hold the country together. In this sense anyone can be in a leadership position.
A “good-times-leader” can fake things until a crisis comes about. And the greater the crisis, the greater the revelation of the potential weaknesses or strengths of the leader will be.
In my opinion, you cannot be confirmed to be a good leader until you’ve successfully managed a major crisis at the level of your leadership. Crises have the ability to reveal our strengths, tenacity and abnegation, or they will amplify our weaknesses for everyone to see.
To me one of the major roles of a leader is the ability to decide on the course of action. And the way the leader takes the decision (their frame of reference, whom they consult) will determine the success or failure of the subsequent execution of the decision.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the quality of the decision, leaders’ decisions have far-reaching implications and consequences for the people under their leadership. The greater the responsibilities of the leader, the more good or bad implications there will be. And in this globalised world, one leader’s decision in an obscure place on the map of the globe can affect the whole planet in a matters of days.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that a lack of competent leadership and hesitation in taking decisive measures can cost many lives, sadden the world and even cause the world economy to potentially collapse.
This pandemic has revealed three major problems in the attitudes of our 21st-century political leaders:
1. Attitude 1: Ignore as long as possible and then act in a frenzy to firefight:
It’s amazing to see the capacity of our political leaders to ignore a problem that they think is very far from them personally or is far from influencing their political reputation. Leaders can argue that in their positions, they cannot monitor every single incident, nor can they respond to all solicitations. But that’s where the real test of leadership is. Every political leader in any position of power should be able to quickly and straightforwardly answer the following questions:Do we have systems in place that can detect issues that could potentially cause harm to our people? If yes, do we have a mechanism of promptly acting and moving in decisively? Do we have the resources (human, financial, infrastructural and material) to respond to such emergencies?
I’m sure many countries in the West and a number of them in Asia would respond by yes to’ to the aforementioned questions. I would then ask a further question: if yes, what then did we miss or did we not do well that allowed COVID-19 to take over the world?
As a leader myself at a much smaller scale, I understand that there will always be situations that come by surprise. But could we rest assured knowing that our political leaders have done and will do the best they can to protect us? Or have they been riding a bicycle only with the help of a supporting hand?
2. Attitude 2 : Trying to gain political capital in all crises and finding whom to blame:
Whenever a crisis arises, you can be sure that every political leader is trying to find the best way to gain from the situation politically. This effort to gain political capital usually comes in two forms: either by showing up as the superman, seemingly making all the right decisions, or by pointing fingers at who is to blame for the situation. Whereas in the first case the leader desires to be the superman, in the second case they want to show that they are victims of the situation and should be applauded for the little they are doing to handle the situation.
3. Attitude 3 : Call for unity and solidarity when things go out of control:
When the crisis is greater than the measures put in place and that it would appear selfish to everyone to try to gain politically from it; the leader will finally call for unity and solidarity. Ironically, this is ultimately the only solution to a problem that is bigger than our leaders and their scheming.
In Conclusion:
Crisis situations will reveal the character of any leader. Crises also create new kinds of leaders, leaders from unlikely places and unlikely fields.
Our medical personnel throughout the world have shown and continue to show great leadership and sacrifice during this COVID-19 pandemic. When the rest of us are being asked to stay at home and limit our movement as much as possible. These people are working around the clock to stop the disease with no possibility of working from home.
Is it not proper then that we should entrust the leadership of the world to our medical personnel and scientists in such a time as this and allow them to save us while we also do our part to support them in all possible ways?
Who knows that at some other crisis we will maybe be saved by IT specialists, astronauts, mothers, fathers, the youth, business people, politicians, teachers, historians, psychiatrists, religious leaders, writers… and even philosophers, etc.?
Muhindo Malunga
