The responses to the current covid – 19 pandemic provide an opportunity to observe and rate leadership.  The crises present a chance for leaders of all types (whether political or otherwise) to exercise their power (earned and granted) to good or bad effect.

As observers, we can gauge the effectiveness of the leader’s efforts and use this information to build on our existing personal inventory of effective leadership strategies.

It’s Not What You Do

Not surprisingly for me, the most effective leaders are leveraging the power of the populous.  It is not what the leaders do individually, rather what things they are able to motivate everyone to do collectively.

A key response to stopping the spread of the illness is to keep those who are disease-free away from carriers.   Of course, this is a herculean task when carriers are not easily identified nor is the transmission vector well defined.

This task requires consistent behavior among the entire populous (even the leaders) and the best leaders are the ones able to do this.  Again it’s not what they do but what they are able to get everyone to do.

Faith/ Trust

The second key observation I have made relative to those leaders with the greatest success is they are believed and trusted (i.e., the covid-19 spread is flat versus an exponential curve).

The actions being asked of everyone are both disruptive and full of unknowns.  Will they resolve the problem?  What are the impacts of these actions and how will we ever overcome them.

Leadership is not only about facilitating actions to achieve successful results but engendering faith that those results will be achieved.