Leadership During Crisis
I had the opportunity to visit the George W Bush Presidential Library in Dallas over a year ago. One of the exhibitions in the library was about decision making during his presidency. Bush, fortunately or unfortunately, was handed many epic challenges to deal with during his presidency including Katrina, 911 and subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2008 financial crisis, each being a historical event in the history of this country. The exhibition highlights the decisions that President Bush had to make with uncertainties and often contradictory information available at the time. Yet the situation required him being decisive and courageous.
On the same trip, I also visited the The Sixth Floor Museum located on the sixth floor of the Dallas County Administration Building in downtown Dallas, overlooking the very spot from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The visit reminded me how Kennedy handled the Cuba missile crisis in a firm but sensible way. Even at the height of the crisis, he maintained a back channel with Moscow which may have kept the superpowers from going to war. Likewise, the exhibition also described in details how President Linden Johnson made decisions in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy and guided the country through an epic crisis. Thereafter, he carried on with the duty of presidency and had arguably one of the most successful legislative agendas in US congressional history for his vision of “new society”.
The visit also reminded me of the address by President Reagan immediately after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, he played the role of national eulogist by managing a gamut of emotions accompanying this unforeseen disaster. Fast forward today, it is clear that we as a nation did not have a stellar performance in handling the current pandemic crisis which has killed over half a million Americans.
Most of us are not in a position to make decision with such consequences, but what would you have done in each of the situations? It is the tough decision that separates the average leaders from the ones who are truly great. It’s during the moment of crisis that leadership abilities are truly put to the test. This is not about politics. It is about leadership and leadership makes a difference, especially during crisis. It is about leadership that can impact the life of millions of people.
Related Article
What is Leadership (01/09/2021)
Sixteen Years After 911, What Did We Learn? (9/11/2017)
(Please join the 130,000 subscribers to my newsletter by click subscribe here to be notified of new editions. Better yet, please join the conversation by sharing your comments. Thanks.)
Support Worker at Accredited Suppourt to the Community
3 年I love the way you potray leadership and I understood it. In my simple way of saying leadership based in my experiences where I work , one can be a leader no matter what is your position. We can be a leader if you come out beyond the job descriptions but to do more with humility for the good of the people you serve with out expectations of praises and awards but your co- workers will follow through. You lead by your examples as we say it. Thank you always for your insightful articles.
Executive medical director and healthcare consultant developing strategic plans that deliver substantial improvements in healthcare
3 年This is an excellent article on leadership. Everybody is in a leadership position. Most employees do not assume the leadership the have. I am reminded of a situation at an army base that employed a significant number of civilians. This caused a hugh issue with ingress and egress from the base. After several unsuccessful attempts to solve the problem, the admiral hired a consultant at a cost of over 1M dollars. This also was a failure. a crew of garbage collectors sent a letter to the admiral stating they could solve the issue without further cost. The admiral gave them the go ahead. The solution was simple. The base employees were assigned separate start times in 15 minute intervals based on their last name. Problem solved because these lower level employees assumed their leadership role.
Open for job opportunities
3 年Thanks for sharing, very informative and to the point articles. Once you start reading you never stop until it completed.
System Director - Pathology Services
3 年I've heard some say that adversity builds character. I am one of those who believes that adversity reveals, puts on stage and shines a spotlight on a person's character.
LEADERSHIP TRAINING THROUGH AWAKENING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
3 年There are TWO kind of LEADERS: (1) The ones who need FOLLOWERS, or are desperate to control others. Either for good or not so good; I would call them "pseudo-leaders" who promote modern-slavery... (2) The other ones, which I consider TRUE-LEADERS. Wo have discovered their inner human potential which we all posses: (Three brains and seven endocrine-glands). Which our materialistic and atheist scientists do not promote because they prefer to stay unknown to avoid conflicts with others. But, TRUE LEADERS are the ones who "are not looking for slaves to follow them, no matter what"... True-Leaders, "don't follow no-one", because they already know that "followers make a double mistake"... They FOLLOW WRONG LEADERS and also THEY NEVER ARRIVE TO DISCOVER THEIR OWN INNER POTENTIAL... A true-leader, will never sell his soul-consciousness to UNFAIR, ILLEGAL, or ABUSIVE situations. JUSTICE must be their motto. Not only our own legal-articles in our Courts of Justice, but more than that, following COSMIC JUSTICE, which it means there are PRINCIPLES based on HUMAN-RIGHTS. Also, the very intelligent position of a genius like ALBERT EINSTEIN who developed more clearly than any other scientist "THE RELATIVITY OF TIME (4th dimension) and SPACE (5th dimension)". He also described his own perception of reality by being a brilliant scientist. When he said: "SCIENCE WITHOUT RELIGION IS LAME... RELIGION WITHOUT SCIENCE IS BLIND". JIM ROSS (1) methodacting.ca (2) rickyradio.com