Leadership and Covid-19

Motivational speaker Simon Sinek gave a TED talk about five years ago, wherein he claimed, 'Why good leaders make you feel safe'. Seems an apt conversation topic for the Covid-situation we face today. 

Just watched the evening news, wherein residents of Italy have had enough staying indoors, and are threatening the Government with a revolution of sorts if the lockdown isn't lifted very soon. Some are organising 'mass attacks' on supermarkets, via social media, with the idea of looting and ransacking those establishments. This revolution style threat will undoubtedly cause some jitters within the Italian corridors of power, or at least one would hope so. Leaders who care about their long term political ambitions might take note. Perhaps not the likes of President Putin of Russia or President Xi of China. Agreed that it is a Government enforced shutdown, but doesn't that mean the same entity has an obligation to ensure that its citizens are looked after well - financially and otherwise? Do we assume that people are genuinely starving, feeling claustrophobic and the lockdown is hurting them way more than what the virus has in store? Or do we believe that they don't feel reassured by Prime Minister Conte's cautionary words and measures, and have little faith in his leadership? 

No matter who the chieftain, it was always going to be a difficult call. On the one hand, you have to stop the devastating progress of a virus bothering the frail and elderly causing destruction and death along its route of travel, and on the other, one has an obligation towards the rest of the society whose livelihoods are on hold with the social distancing and forced economic shutdown. Its times, such as these that test the very resolve of even the greatest of leaders. On the one side, you might have the ever-inspiring, scientifically-backed words of a Prime Minister, and on the other, you have the freedoms and democratic rights that people are so used to and take for granted, put on hold. 

In this sort of scenario, there generally are no winners. No matter what you do and say, there will always be people who take a 'swing'. Unfortunately, in such circumstances, there is no one answer fits all, kind of a solution. And so, one can only do, what is right for the vast majority, limiting the damage as far as possible, obtaining consensus along the way from peers and experts, and communicating those thoughts and ideas in a firm but effective manner. 

Post-Covid, do we know, who's going to sign on the dotted line and help pay for the significant fiscal stimulus that individual economies have put in place? 

Another interesting discussion, perhaps for another day.