Hope v fear - leadership styles and pandemic payoff

Interesting the divergence between how the British government is managing perception of ‘the road ahead’ and how it’s being done in Dublin. It could be characterised as bounce versus boohoo, children v adults, or glass half full versus you know what.

 On February 22 Boris Johnson announced the timetable for re-opening Britain, on the back of the rapid vaccination program, with the final Freedom Day set for June 21. The critical cries of ‘data not dates!’ were drowned out by the joyful shouts of the masses longing to have their usual British summer of garden parties, shirt-sleeved groups spilling out of pubs, and flights to Italy and Spain (to get away from the usual British summer rain).

 

Meanwhile on my side of the Irish Sea we just had the sombre silence that followed Taoiseach Micheal Martin’s warning that there would be little relaxation of the Level 5 top lockdown until May.

That might be the mature and sensible approach, befitting a mature and sensible man, but it doesn’t set the pulses racing or even suggest sunshine behind the clouds.

 

The two approaches show a different strategy on managing expectations, and getting the team behind you.

It’s parallel to bosses who shout and rule by fear, contrasted with those who lead by love and empathy. Bill Michael, the UK head of consultants KPMG, suffered for his lash of the whip in February: after telling staff to stop moaning about pandemic working conditions, he swiftly found he had no working conditions at all, as he was forced to quit. Perhaps he should have whistled 'Always look on the bright side of life' and given a virtual group hug instead.

 

On pandemic scenarios, while Martin accepted more misery with grown-up seriousness, jolly BoJo was bursting with positivity. 

 Which works better?

 The responsible leadership indeed is to consider all the factors and not give people false expectations. Covid-19 has amply demonstrated its ability to reproduce and vary, with the ‘Kent’ version so much more contagious, and who knows what else coming down the road. There's still many new cases a day across the UK, currently around 5,000, and 500 in Ireland (roughly an equivalent rate). But we all need hope, and to have virtually nothing until May fro Dublin created a vast soup of misery. We feel we’re treading water, nothing beneath our feet.

 

Maybe Johnson’s jolly enthusiasm is based on little more than the UK vaccination programme going well, but it appears to be paying off. And caution has never appeared to be a strong feature of this politician. He’s not known for his business acumen or even as a celebrated leader. But perhaps his grip of the simple fact that people need a reason to get out of bed in the morning is better than the staid attitude of his Irish peers.

 

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