How could we be led differently in a Covid world? We need to construct a more dynamic, human approach to leading

By Jeremy Raymond a ProTem Expert http://www.protem.online

It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticise is good, to know how to create is better  (Henri Poincare, mathematician, 1908)

Everybody is wondering about what happens ‘after’, but at the same time we are all realising that things will not go back to how they were. 

The pandemic has revealed the uncertainty we live with, an uncertainty which for the majority of poorer people on the planet is life as usual. We have been studying leadership since the second world war, and have got used to ideas from the military like the concept of VUCA environments (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous). But is Covid-19 really like a war ? Are our assumptions about leadership still correct?

Models of leadership are built by researching situations and challenges and how leaders have responded. They identify qualities, actions and behaviour which increase effectiveness. Effective leadership can be observed, recorded, reflected upon, passed on. Biographers and academics asssess what differentiates the successful from the failure. But models have to be historical simplifications; they can only look backwards. No model can entirely predict what sort of leadership will prevail in the Covid world we now inhabit. To do that we need to think more intuitively.

To state the obvious, leadership is not the same as leading — the academic abstraction is different from the dynamic response. Leading is what the Covid world needs.Unprecedented circumstances mean there is no playbook and leaders have to improvise, with unpredictable results. As they lead and improvise we notice things about their leadership which perhaps would have passed unnoticed in times that appeared more stable. (Not that the times really were stable, but we lived as if they were; we dreamed, we planned, we organised. The floor beneath our feet felt solid enough to do those things.)

When leaders improvise we notice their ragged edges more. We notice how leaders interact with us and with their team. We notice their weaknesses, as well as their strengths.

It isn’t only leading that has been thrown into the spotlight. Covid 19 is not the only big challenge in the world, other big challenges facing leaders also move centre stage. These fractures are things we knew about but which the illusion of stability demoted in our consciousness. There was work to be done, homes to move into, holidays to be taken. The bigger stuff wasn’t continuously front of mind.

These big contextual challenges include

• The wild west digital / global communication world of ‘always on, always connected’, everything accessible, with its potential to unite and mobilise or to bully, deceive and isolate
• A stage of capitalism which has fostered inequalities and divisions, not just in wealth, but in access to social mobility, adequate health and social care
• The idea that perpetual growth of businesses is desirable and inevitable, even at high levels of risk
• The health of the environment and the planet (and thus the existence of all living creatures, including ourselves)
• The impact of artificial intelligence on the way in which complex systems are starting to operate and predict outcomes, and the risks of this happening without any clear moral boundaries
• The challenge to democracy of party politics taking second place to identity politics with its risks of a zero-sum game, tribalism and populism

No doubt you will have others of your own . . .

Were these other crises all too large and too awful to contemplate and so we preferred to remain in denial about these widening cracks in the floor? Or did we, and our leaders, simply not compute their importance?

These are the ‘big picture’ challenges which frame our leaders’ improvising. What do all these fractures have in common? Like Covid-19, they are all ultimately man-made, global ticking bombs of unsustainability. The crisis has created space and time to reflect, and upon reflection people become more conscious of fragilities like these. Especially because the Covid crisis is existential, it confronts our sense of mortality. When life itself — our own and that of people we love — is under threat, we are forced to consider what really matters, the risks and our values. For some people the fractures listed above already felt like existential threats. But Covid-19 is a big event with a strongly personal aspect, like a terminal diagnosis of a friend, or the birth of a child; we all notice the world differently. We all reconsider what we stand for and what matters in life.

Take kindness. A year ago kindness was hardly mentioned as a human virtue. Some people were nice, others less so. Kindness was what your granny did or a stranger in the street who picked up something you dropped. But the Covid world has made us realise how important it is. Not that this insight is really new. Ask any subsistence-level slum dweller; hospitality, consideration and compassion out-trump “Greed is good” in the game of survival. But we are revaluing kindness, dedication, loyalty, service to the public.

Our heightened attention to leaders forced to ‘ make it up’ every day plus our increased attention to the bigger issues prompts a re-evaluation of what really matters. In thinking about what is good for our families and good for the world, we naturally look at our leaders and wonder about their values too.

Do they see what we see? Do they realise how it is for us, our families and friends? Do they agree with us about what matters in life? Are they on the same page as us about what is happening and what to do next?

Leading, the urge to save, change or improve, has moral aspects . This is not limited to faith leaders or those who would teach us right from wrong. All leaders provide a vision, a sense of direction (strategic in the case of business, economic and social policy in the case of government). All leaders do this based on their underlying moral authority. With our increased awareness of bigger issues, and the imperative for leaders to improvise, leaders’ values have added relevance and visibility. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented action. The way in which the CEO of AirBnb handled his layoffs is news. Wealthy Virgin airlines boss Richard Branson’s bid for millions of government cash is contrasted with the 5 million children living in poverty. The behaviour of political leaders in ‘balancing lives and livelihoods’.

Neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency  (Jared Diamond Collapse (2011)

This shift in perceptions of what matters and what values leaders have creates a potential dislocation between values of the society - or an organisation- and the perceived values of its leaders. Existing leaders can end up looking ‘stranded’, left behind by what has happened. We know this is true of their competence, but is also the case with their values. The improvisational demands of leading in a context of unrelenting volatility provoke a stark contrast between what was the right thing to do previously and what is the right thing to do now. The 3- year strategy is out the window. Policy is shown to be inadequate or even dangerous. Think of the Fire services advice to the Grenfell residents, or some politicians’ recent cavalier attitude to physical contact over Covid . Were they channelling Princess Diana in the Aids ward? What seemed brave then, now seems ill informed. UK politicians’ avowed values about expertise had to be quickly ‘rewritten’ in response to a different sort of health situation.

To bridge that gap of values-that-don’t fit today, leaders need to think themselves into the Covid World and decide how they want to shape it. They have to be guided not just ‘ by the science’ but also transparently by their own values.

Only your small minded philistine who measures world history by the ell and by what he happens to think are ‘ interesting news items’ could regard 20 years as more than a day where major developments are concerned. Though these may again be succeeded by days in which 20 years are compressed . (Karl Marx. Letter to Engels 1863)

What should our assumptions be about the Covid world upon which to build a different model of leading?

One thing is predictable and precedented; uncertainty will be a key constituent of the Covid world for a while. The reassuring myth of a return to a more stable, predictable world has existed in every revolution and seismic social shift. Some always resist change just as others embrace it. (A majority socially distance themselves from change until it is known to be safe).

Considering how the Covid world will look is highly speculative. But let’s take Poincare’s advice and create it anyway. We do not yet know enough about the virus to judge which features of the current situation will endure and which might revert. But let’s start with how it has impacted our ‘ moral landscape’ .

What has the Covid world taught us as citizens, employees, families and friends in the developed economies of the world? Add your own ideas.

• Life and institutions are more fragile than we think. Community is stronger than we noticed
• Planning only makes sense short term, when tomorrow it could all change. Assess risk across multiple scenarios. Speed of response and agility create advantages
• Stability of supply is as valuable as efficiency. Collaboration in a loyal, local ecosystem of customers and providers is often as important as access to the range of global competing alternatives
• Relationships and communications mediated through technology are safer than hugs. Ever larger networks of acquaintances (and followers) but intimacy restricted to smaller groups. Remember: introverts have the survival advantage over extroverts during famine
•  ‘Essential’ travel is not essential. Destinations attainable by walking or cycling might be a better way to prioritise
• Secure work can be more valuable than short term higher monetary reward. The ‘best’ people in organisations are nice, self-starters; they are compassionate and carry their own sense of security within them. Prefer people who want to be the best they can be, rather than people who want to beat the competition
• There are less big strategic gambles worth taking. Innovation should also be unflashy, incremental and continuous.
• Debt-fuelled growth might not be such a good idea. Thriving as a business often beats expanding.
• Spread your career risks. Develop new skills. Widen your network. A broader base ensures greater stability.

We should also assume we will remain biologically much the same as 10,000 years ago.

Leaders will still have to deal with the same human issues in this Covid world as they have over the last few months. Anxiety, lack of certainty, need for truth, frustration at inability to decide and plan, scepticism about the authenticity and motivations underlying the leaders’ response, exhaustion from reflection without distraction. The need for hope based in fact.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man  (Cliff Gladwin, cricketer /bowler, 1948)

If these are features of our perceptions of the Covid World, what sort of leaders will succeed on the coronacoaster of continuing social change and uncertainty? Who will be able to respond to both the external challenges and fractures while addressing the human issues?

The prevalent metaphor for the virus has been ‘war’. It positions leaders as heroes battling a foe. In George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 there was permanent war, as this secured the position of the autocratic government. As Karl Marx observed about Napoleon; he substituted ‘permanent war for permanent revolution’. Will our political leaders present the Covid world as a permanent war, with its need for tight controls? Or as an opportunity for change, if not revolution? Might our leaders see this as an opportunity to build something better? Even the World Health Organisation has said that we must learn to live with the virus as we have come to live with Aids and other illnesses. It takes a long time to eradicate a disease and with 7bn people to vaccinate, even if we can find one which provides immunity, this may never occur.

If we are forward thinking and hopeful of a better Covid world, we will need

Leaders with visible moral values. We need to believe in the constant aspects of our leaders. Their behaviour should adapt to emerging situations, their opinions should change based on emerging facts, but we need faith in their ability to hold the boundaries between right and wrong actions. Ideally these values should be shared and common; such as care for others well-being, compassion for all aspects of the living world, integrity, a commitment to learning, a desire to build rather than destroy. “Mentors”

Leaders we can relate to. We need to know our leaders not just as the holders of job titles but also as fellow humans and citizens. This is about vulnerability as well as strength and suggests that our leaders must first know themselves and be comfortable with who they are. They will own up to mistakes and apologise. They will show humility, the ability to listen and make people laugh. They will be people who can project themselves on small screens more than large stages. “Good neighbours”

Leaders who we believe are not motivated by positional power for themselves. Leaders must understand their own relationship with power and be able to articulate it. They have to exercise authority to keep stability in any social system but it must be exercised judiciously to work. Power can corrupt and this impacts how judiciously that authority is used. Technology means leading itself may become more democratised and power more distributed, just as information has become more democratised and distributed (unless you believe the tech companies are the new political class). They will be people who aren’t fundamentally bothered about their power and status, except as leverage for others’ improvement. “Teachers”

Leaders who can create meaning for us. We will continue to be overcome with competing demands on our attention; facts, fake news, opinion. We need storytellers who are realists, people who can explain things in ways that we understand, and which create insight. We need dreams and inspiration as much as we need plans. People who provide perspective and wisdom about world. “Novelists”

Leaders who represent something of our idealised version of ourselves. We all want to believe in ‘better’, so a leader who has overcome odds and can share this honestly is often more appealing than one who has not struggled at all. Their representation of something of an idealised version of ourselves is inherently hopeful, because “if they can, so can I”. “Everyday heroes”

Leaders who accept the constantly changing nature of reality without losing their joy in an uncertain world or their confidence about succeeding within it. This positive pragmatism about what can be done, and what must be done is reassuring to others as long as the leader is transparent about where the actions create unquantifiable risk, and where knowledge is simply lacking. If leaders are always learning, they are, by definition, always behind the curve of demands implicit in the changing environment, but also constantly trying to fill that void in their understanding. Evidence of their curiosity, creativity and learning reassures us. There is fun to be had here too. Leaders who influence our perceptions of a changing world. “Artists”

This is a far cry from the archetypal leader we have grown too used to; self-confident and self-promoting, larger-than-life figures, reassuring advocates and smart operators. Generals who organise the armies of ourselves. People who enjoy power and who have ignored or dismissed the fractures in the world and sold us fake stability as the alternative.

Our rising critique of such leaders and increasing awareness of how uncertain our existence really is does not mean that current leaders might not be able to change themselves. But it is unlikely. It feels like a change in the seasons and for many their summer is over. Our new leaders are yet to emerge, although we may already know some who fit one or more of these roles as artists, mentors and good neighbours. Those unaware Gretas, Stormzys and Joes whose time is now. They may not yet think of themselves as leaders, blinded and blinkered by the image of leaders from the recent past. But they know the world they want to see, recognise the cracks in the floor and are inspired to do something

Will they succeed? There are two versions of the Covid world.

One, divided and bitter, where the current holders of power reassert themselves and the fractures worsen.

The other a more united and kinder world led by good neighbours, novelists, mentors, everyday heroes, artists and the rest.

All leaders need followers, so what the Covid world looks like will depend on who we choose as much as them.

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions. Both dispense with the necessity of reflection  (Henri Poincare 1908)

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