How did we ever get into this mess?
What’s the real challenge we face in today’s Covid crazy Australia? Controlling the pandemic or controlling the human behaviour that has been created by the pandemic?
I’ve been struggling with this question but more so with the answer which for me is self-evident; it’s not the pandemic it’s our reactions, response and behaviour to the pandemic that is the real problem. Its society and communities at our ugliest and nastiest.
From our politicians to our keyboard conspiracy theorists, our anti vaxers, our pro vaxers our anti lock downers our pro lock downers, our Marxists and our Fascists we are more divided than ever at a time when we need to be more united than ever.
Leadership is not about left or right it’s about straight ahead, what makes sense for the MAJORITY of the stakeholders, it’s about taking advice but then making decisions not hiding behind the advice.
I’ve been blessed to have worked with and for some truly great leaders, From Gerry Harvey at Harvey Norman, Julian Tertini at Fantastic Group, Allyn Beard at AH Beard to CEO’s of Steinhoff, Honeywell, Schindler and Arnott’s Campbells they all had the same core character traits, confidence, transparency, personal accountability and decisiveness .... you may not have agreed with their decisions, but you respected them, you understood them, you followed them and if you didn’t you had a voice and they listened. they never waffled, they never wavered, and they never hid behind their CFO or their HR Director.
I listened to our Premier’s morning update and all I can do is cringe, what a load of shit! Sorry Gladys but it was. It was confusing, divisive, gibberish that did nothing to inspire, unite, comfort, your stakeholders…
Non occupied Building sites can re-open because they are safe so fifty people can work but you can’t go to a funeral because that is high risk. Make sense of that?
Year twelve students can go back to school, but they must be vaccinated even though the vaccine doesn’t stop the spread, what does that do for parental choice? ?
Trade’s people can undertake non-contact tasks… WTF?? Gladys how do you interpret and administer that?
And the kicker straight out of the Orwellian play book. I urge everyone to call the police, report the rule breakers, let us know when people are breaking the rules, we’ll have more police out in force. In other words make sure you turn on each other because that makes for a strong united community!
We live in a world of filtered, curated distorted information overload and that is what defines our behaviour not the facts or the evidence because no one trusts the facts or the evidence anymore no one even knows what that is. We are here on a professional platform that reads more and more like Facebook and twitter every day and I am the first to admit guilt because the lines have been blurred!
I look back on the best and worst leaders I’ve worked with and reflect on the performance of ALL our current politicians. Not one of them would last five minutes in their board rooms or leadership teams and that my friends is why we are in the mess we’re in, not because of Covid-19.
Our politicians had advance warning of what was to come, we are an island continent, we share no borders, we have 25 million mostly decent law-abiding people to manage and yet here we are more confused, divided, angry, and hopeless then ever while the rest of the world returns to normal, why? Not because of Covid because of a total lack of leadership... In my opinion of course!
Stay safe. take care, be kind to each other, even when we don't agree and for those amongst us that have some kind of faith maybe a prayer wouldn't hurt either! ?