COVID-19’s Overlooked Symptom: Blindness Toward Others

From the Korn Ferry series: “Inclusive Leadership in a Time of Pandemic”

In Saramago’s Essay on Blindness humanity is going through an unexplained blindness due to a mysterious disease. As I have been re-reading this novel during the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been struck with how much the plot parallels what we are going through right now. In the story no one really knows how to face it. After a lengthy and traumatic quarantine, the characters survive by their wits and by the good fortune that the main character--the doctor’s wife--has escaped the blindness for some reason, and can help guide others to safety.

We are currently experiencing many dilemmas trying to protect us from the disease’s terrible consequences. Do we stay at home in lock-down to reduce the number of deaths or go back outside and try to recover the path to economic growth? Do we listen more to the epidemiologists or to the economists? Who should we rely on getting advice to survive and thrive during the crisis? It is like the Plato’s cave allegory: we are currently imprisoned in a cave and we cannot really see any of what is happening, we are only able to see the shadows cast upon the wall. But those “either/or” or "us vs. them" dilemmas are common fallacies that typically do more harm than good, because in reality no one fully has the right answers right now.

As many new symptoms for this disease are emerging (like losing sense of smell and taste) I think one of the most dangerous and overlooked COVID-19 symptom is blindness toward others. Our blindness as a society during the pandemic goes beyond those false “either/or” "us vs. them" dichotomies. With good intent --in the name of equality and meritocracy--, our society in general has been aspiring to be "gender blind", "color blind", blind to any kind of differences, minimizing or even dismissing those differences with the ideal to be fair with others. Our core blindness is about those systemic disparities that have been growing within our society that the virus has unearthed, proving that our differences do matter. 

For example, COVID-19 which is indiscriminate in how it attacks our bodies, has nevertheless disproportionately felled more of those who are poor and racial/ethnic minorities because of the already existing healthcare and economic inequities that made them more vulnerable to begin with. This has then been further exacerbated by them having less access to testing, social distancing (due to population density), and access to treatment.

The New York Police Department released figures showing more than 80 percent of summonses related to the corona virus were issued to Black and Hispanic residents, indicating that police may be taking a harsher tact toward people of color. 

“There’s a racial bias throughout our criminal justice system, and the way the coronavirus violations are being enforced just highlights it,” said Wendy R. Calaway, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati.

In addition, women -particularly women of color- have been hit hardest by job losses in the pandemic. "At 16.2 percent, women’s unemployment in April was nearly three points higher than men’s" according to Labor Department rates released recently. And it may only get worse. According to those numbers, not only are women over-represented in some of the hardest-hit industries, such as leisure and hospitality, health care and education, but women — especially black and Hispanic women — lost jobs in those sectors at disproportionate rates.

More structural blindness has been showing up in the design of respiratory protective equipment designed for a male face. Poorly fitting equipment is risking lives of female workers, who paradoxically are the big majority of health care workers around the world.

Like the story of the emperor’s new clothes what we all can see we still refuse to name. In social psychology this is referred to as pluralistic ignorance: a situation in which most group members privately may reject something, but they go along with it because they assume, incorrectly, that most others accept it too.

We are in desperate need of leaders like the doctor’s wife of Saramago’s novel, leaders who can help us to overcome the unexplained blindness to the brutal disparities that currently exist in our world.

There are examples of leaders who have escaped the blindness by shining a light to greater health and economic safety. For example, the CEOs of Delta, Disney, and Marriott have forgone their salaries for the rest of 2020 to save as many employees as possible. Others have gone even further by acknowledging the disparities that exist in their salaries and lifestyles compared to the rest of the workforce.

A CEO of a large pharma whose essential workers were having to come in to keep producing drugs and also contributing to find a cure and a vaccine insisted his executive team come in to the office every day as well in solidarity with their plant and lab employees.

At Salesianum --a private school in Wilmington, Delaware-- the school President, Board of Trustees, alumni, parents, and supporters are seeking to support all of its families affected by COVID-19 layoffs by raising funds to pay the tuition of their children, ensuring that the pandemic does not become a reason why a student would leave the school. 

Airbnb’s CEO has gone out of the “business as usual” approach to massive corporate layoffs in response to the crisis, providing a dignified way to support all teammates leaving Airbnb with new job seeking opportunities, including creating a public-facing website with an alumni talent directory, allowing them to keep their laptops, dedicating a significant portion of the Airbnb recruiting team and an external company to support Alumni placements. They are also encouraging all remaining employees to opt-in to a program to assist departing teammates find their next role.

What these leaders are demonstrating are some of the key elements of being an inclusive leader such as: 

• Leading with empathy and vulnerability. They value differences, are curious about the situations of others, and they connect with others in an authentic way.
• Engaging, inspiring and influencing others. They provide vision and purpose. They are realistic and transparent, helping spread optimism without being naive to the challenges of the reality.
• Displaying relentless courage and resilience. They question the status quo, they seek new ways of approaching, they are brave enough to name what is obvious, but no one wants to admit. 

These inclusive leader qualities are what we all need more of right now from our leaders, to overcome the terrible consequences of the virus, as well as saving us from our own blindness.