Leadership Lessons

From January 1918 to December 1920, the world experienced one of its major and possibly worst pandemics. Nicknamed the Spanish Flu (Influenza), according to records it infected 500 million worldwide, younger people aged 18 to 45 in particular. Estimates suggest that between 50 to 100 million people worldwide were affected. Its virulent spread was down to overcrowding and poor hygiene. Sound familiar?

Here we are some one hundred years later. A virus, which while not influenza, seems to have jumped from the animals to humans, and in many respects has spread because of overcrowding (globalisation?) and poor hygiene.

There are a number of things we can learn from both then and now:

• Poor hygiene was a big factor in how this virus spread
• Pandemics (global epidemics) can spread very quickly in crowded populations
• The countries least affected were the quickest to shut down sea and airports to quarantine their citizens
• Many suspect that China and Russia have underreported the impact.
• National leaders need to tell the truth and do so early

In ‘The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history’, author John M Barry details how political interference played a huge role in the impact of dealing with this virus. So much effort and energy was placed on winning the war, that the US and other world leaders turned the heads away from focusing on a catastrophe, that would eventually kill more people than World War 1 itself.

His research highlighted that denial led to tragic consequences. Specifically, denial on the part of the wholly inept US health department and the social carelessness of Philadelphia’s local government. Rather than refuse to cancel the Liberty Loan parade, Dr. Wilmer Krusen, the director of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Charities, ignored warnings and let it continue, even though there were already reports of infections starting to climb. Within three days of this parade, Philadelphia had run out of beds. After ten days the infection rate had stormed to hundreds of thousands. Coffins ran out. Morgues ran out of space. Some people just died in their homes. 

It is not hard to draw comparisons between this and the current tragic rise of infections and deaths in places like Italy and Spain. Maybe not on the same scale as the 1918-20 Influenza, but globally people are expecting things to get worse with this 2020 coronavirus before it gets better.

Coming back to the book, one of the things that really stood out for me was the increasing mistrust in politicians to share the truth and to do so without getting people going into a wild panic. In the case of the coronavirus pandemic, the failure of political leaders to take control of the narrative early on resulted in mass panic buying. Failure to communicate truth not only leads to mistrust but also inaction; without strict rules in place to reinforce the severity of the situation people could be forgiven for becoming complacent and opting to use quarantine time to suntan in parks instead of staying home.

Good leadership in any of the public or private spheres of our lives requires people to be informed. Taking people on a journey and getting them to buy into a vision requires trust in the leaders’ ability to navigate through uncertainty. This leads to a sense of agency and good decision making based on that trust. Sadly, so many world leaders have reacted way too late and have seen massive spikes in the spread of coronavirus. Egos over evidence. That vacuum of trust fosters fear, resistance to sensible advice and subsequently rather than depending on governments, local or otherwise, people ignore directions and take matters into their own hands.

So what does good leadership look like at this moment?

While examples like South Korea on paper look like great benchmarks to follow, it is also important to realise that, like in many other Southeast Asian countries who have managed to contain this coronavirus, culture plays a big part.

The way certain areas have been quarantined. Testing enforced. Seals on doors. Identifying clusters who have been infected through the use of phone tech and other location devices. Methods that others may see as intrusive and affecting civil liberties, but that which many of these governments have seen as necessary to curtail the spread. Whether we believe the low numbers coming out or not, the response by these leaders is a far cry from the resistance and slow movement of others, e.g. Italy, Spain, the UK and now the US.

Citizens of South Korea, China, Hong Kong and Japan have long been used to wearing masks and social distancing. Less so in places like Singapore or Thailand, but, and I caveat this, many of the instructions to contain the virus have come about through compliance. This is not to say that the pandemic has in anyway plateaued in these countries, but the collective spirit in many of these is in stark contrast to the more individualist tones in the West.

On to hygiene. Take Japan. A country of some 126 million. Their levels of hygiene and social distancing are already legendary. They prioritise baths and hand washing as standard and don’t do hugs and handshakes in the way we do. Easy to lead a campaign in such a culture about hygiene when this is done as standard. That said, in such a densely populated group of islands we are not quite out of the woods yet. 

It would appear that in many countries, leaders are now throwing some serious investment into making sure their frontline health workers have enough equipment, such as masks and ventilators. The emergence in the UK of more testing kits for both health workers and the general population, as opposed to celebrities and otherwise famous. The use of phone technology to text people, instant message etc.

This, however, without wishing to scare, is just the beginning of competence we deserve from our leaders. We are heading into an unprecedented economic period. Behaviours are going to have to change across the board. We can’t just have a six to twelve-week period of isolation and hope that we can return to normal afterwards. Life will never be the same. Our social interactions and scepticism will shape how we live. Remote working will not be scorned in the same way many industries have done before. Mental wellbeing will take a hit as many have been forced into situations they have never before.

And if we are to learn anything from past pandemics and civil upheaval, there is always a second wave of infection. 

In these uncertain times, it is so important for civil and commercial leaders to take a long term view on the social, economic and political impact of this. To share information about best practice and to understand those within their own cultural context. To prepare for the worst while trying to build the best. Hopefully, this will help leaders and ourselves in building a brave new world, and not of the type Aldous Huxley wrote.