#Leadership: Delegation ≠ Absolution

When the culture fails, the Leader is responsible, no matter whom they delegated authority to.

As debate has raged in Queensland over the last day or so about exemptions to "strong" border restrictions, we've been confronted with our opinions over just when (or if) compassion should factor into public health decisions.

But from a leadership perspective, something else has come into play: the attempt by an elected leader to distance themselves from the issue on the basis of delegation.

We know that the Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk MP, has delegated responsibility for decision making in relation to the State Border restrictions to the Chief Health Officer, an unelected civil servant who is eminently qualified for and capable of leading the State's health response.

However, we have also heard the Chief Health Officer state publicly that she has made exemptions or concessions to the draconian, yet apparently essential for the public health good, border closures on the basis that certain people or groups "bring a lot of money to the State".

And so we find ourselves asking questions about why it is a danger to Qld's public health for a Queensland-born citizen to travel from COVID-free ACT (with a better public health COVID record than Queensland) to visit her dying father and attend his funeral after missing his death due to said quarantine rules, but not such a danger to wave through scores of footballers, hangers-on, all from a COVID hotspot, and a hollywood actor because "they bring a lot of money to the State"...

Now, when did economic policy decision making get transferred to the Chief Health Officer? and when did economics get placed above health on the priority list of the State's highest-ranked health official?

Don't ask the Premier - she doesn't make these decisions, the CHO does. And therein lies the biggest problem of all.

The Premier is the Head of the Government. She is the Leader.

If the CHO has unfettered authority to not only make public health orders but selectively apply them, it's because the Premier gave her that authority. How she uses it remains the Premier's responsibility.

If you or I delegate part of our leadership authority or responsibility to a subordinate and they misuse or fail to fulfil that authority or responsibility - then that ultimately lays at our feet. We are the leader. We made the delegation. We are responsible.

When the Premier delegates her authority over the border to the CHO and questions arise over the CHO's selective application of that authority based on money rather than health, putting those questions to the Premier is not, as she claims, "bullying" - it is seeking responsibility from the person ultimately responsible.

When the Premier says "The CHO makes the decisions, not me" when questioned by the press or the Prime Minister, she is not "standing tough in the face of bullying", she's failing to take responsibility as a leader.

Hearing stories of people denied last moments with dying loved ones or first moments with newborns raced across the border in an emergency are heartbreaking. The reality is all the more heartbreaking for those living it.

Yet, we'd all be a lot more understanding of why it were the case, if the rules causing the heartbreak applied to everyone, and weren't applied so overtly selectively.

If, as they say, we were truly "all in this together".

But we're not "all in this together".

The rules are applied selectively. They're applied selectively on the basis of money and politics, and then thrown in people's faces with their elected leaders passing the buck to unelected civil servants.

Then, when the leader is questioned, they play the victim card and claim they are being bullied.

That is not leadership. It is a #LeadershipFail

When health officials selectively apply the authority over public health based on money, that is a failure of the culture within Government. The person responsible for that culture is the Leader. The Premier.

When culture fails in your organisation or mine, it is the responsibility of the leader - you and I.

The same goes for our Leaders in Government.