Public Leadership Through Crisis 8: You’re not ready. No one is. Prepare to work differently

written by Matt Andrews

I have spent 7 posts discussing leadership challenges in crisis for the leader herself or himself; what the individual needs to get ready and steady to help people through crises. In this post I am going to start pivoting to thinking about your organizational capability.

I am hoping that a wide group of people find these blogs useful, but I am writing with a particular group in mind: those responsible for mobilizing a public response (of any kind, at a school, in a sector, in a town, or a nation) in low  capability settings (especially the developing world) where there has often  been a tendency to look to outsiders for help in crises. The advice I offer is not perfect in any way, and will not always travel across contexts, and I do encourage  you to consider other resources and ideas when acting (see our seventh post for ideas), but I—and my team—are offering what we can, given our capabilities, and I won’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good here (I think these are good  ideas and they can be helpful, even if more work could make them better—remember this is a key to remember from post 3).

I have been in touch with a number of leaders faced with the COVID-19 pandemic in the last week or so, and I sense real concern that their organizations and systems do not have the capabilities needed to weather the current storm. In this blog I  want  to agree, but also encourage you: You’re not ready. No one is. Prepare to work differently, with what you have.

a painting of a ship in blue

So, you are asking if you have the capability to address this crisis. The answer from me is that you do not. No one does.  But you probably have more latent capability than you know, and can deal with the crisis better than you think if you mobilize it in new ways. (more…)

Seeing Pandemics as Complex Adaptive Problems

Guest blog written by Peter Harrington

As the world grapples with the first truly global pandemic, a crucial struggle is emerging between different ways of seeing the current coronavirus outbreak. On the one hand, it is a virus that medical science can tell us how to combat. On the other hand, it is a complex social challenge to which human behaviour and norms are the key. In truth it is both, but if we fail to understand this, and understand that it requires adaptive learning to overcome, far too many will die.

Five years ago, I worked alongside the late statistician and epidemiologist Hans Rosling in Liberia on the Ebola epidemic sweeping the country and its neighbours. I had gone back to Liberia having previously spent three years in the country with the Africa Governance Initiative, working in the office of President Sirleaf. Like many, including Rosling, I came out of a sense of duty. Looking back on that experience, it holds powerful lessons for how we respond to coronavirus today.

Rosling said something memorable in 2014, that ‘Ebola is both a biological and a social phenomenon’. In other words, beating it was as much about behaviour as beds, as much about trust as treatment. The huge spike of cases in Liberia – which at one point threatened to collapse the country – peaked around November 2014. Privately, many of the foreign epidemiological experts in Liberia admitted it is unlikely that the (belated) influx of beds, logistics, money and aid workers explains the decline in new cases around the country after that.

So what happened? It is actually really useful to look at what happened as an exercise in mass problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA). The headline problem was abundantly clear – an out of control epidemic with a mortality rate of over 50%. And the country lacked the capabilities to handle this epidemic. What followed was a mass learning process, encompassing many actors. Starting with the authorities: they had to learn how to set up an Incident Management System, the name for a completely new institution dedicated to the eradication of the outbreak, to avoid overloading the Health Ministry and other existing institutions. They had to learn to set up emergency response phone numbers, special burial teams, to build special Ebola treatment Units (ETUs), set up and run testing labs, mobilise mass logistics to distribute these resources, all without abandoning those in need of other healthcare.

At the same time, the stampede of outside organisations wishing to help had to learn too – to take their ‘expertise’ with public health, epidemics, logistics and communications and translate that to the local context. Some organisations – like the American CDC who came with ears and eyes open – proved very good at that. Others like the WHO proved very slow indeed. The difference was the willingness to learn. (more…)

Public Leadership Through Crisis 7: Additional resources for you

written by Matt Andrews

In today’s post I will be locating information, examples, and more to assist those leading through crisis. Please send suggestions and additions. I am sure it will be a constantly changing post.

an image of a man and a woman onto a boat and the man is looking out into the sea

Are you looking for ideas on  leadership in this storm?

Leading through crisis, and Covid-19 in particular

This online interview with my colleague Dutch Leonard on leading through crisis is fantastic.

This online page at the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) for International Studies at  Stanford is very good.

This is a page with short ideas on managing the current crisis from a selection of colleagues at the Harvard Kennedy School.

This post by Tomas Pueyo on Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance is excellent and offers good ideas on actual responses based on what other countries are doing.

This pdf on Mitigating the COVID Economic Crisis edited by Richard Baldwin and Beatrice Weder di Mauro is also useful.

This post on ELGL by Maggie Jones on Finding Place in COVID-19 and learning about ourselves and each other.

This is a good effort to get lessons from CEOs in the Asia-Pacific region about dealing with coronavirus.

Personal care for yourself and those close to you (family or your team)

This is a great essay by Danny Kaufmann at Brookings, on Caremongering in the time of Coronavrius: Random Acts of Kindness and Online Enrichment.

How to Lead and communicate virtually

A comment on my previous post about communication asked if we had anything to  say about communicating—and  leading—virtually. A great and important topic, especially now. If  you and your team are remote, how do you communicate?

Here are some sources offered by friends and colleagues:

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Public Leadership Through Crisis 6: Know your role, Empower others to play their roles and Stay in your lane.

written by Matt Andrews

So far this series has focused on ideas to equip the individual to lead through crisis. This is because real people struggle during crises and need to ready and steady themselves to take leadership. Before you start trying to lead others, you need to have some basics in place to prepare yourself, and that’s what we have focused  on.

We will soon move beyond talking about you, and offer ideas on mobilizing  your organization(s) to tackle the crisis. But remember that self-leadership is crucial when you are leading through crises, and come back to some of these ‘basics to remember’ if needed.

For this post, however, I want you to still think about yourself, and another ‘basic to remember’ as you lead in this crisis: Know your role. Empower others to play their roles. Stay in your lane. 

a sketch of a sailor on a ship's sails

You’re not alone in this crisis. But how do you think of everyone’s roles?

The message is simple: your personal leadership is crucial right now, but insufficient in the face of crisis (and at most times, in fact). You must work with others who also provide leadership. Put differently, borrowing  from the NPLI; ‘you  are it’ but ‘others are it, too’. So, you must identify what your role is, find others to play other roles, and stay in your lane to let them play those roles. I know this may be difficult for many, but it is imperative.

As you reflect on this idea, remember how I suggest we think about leading through crisis (from the first blog post), drawing on David Foster Wallace’s view that “leaders help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.”

Now, consider this: “Where are you and who are the people you are ‘helping overcome’?” You could be in a family (where you are helping your kids through crisis), or the front desk at a hospital (where you are helping a few staff members), or an entire hospital (where you are helping hundreds of staff members and thousands of patients), or a community, or a nation.

Now, consider that there are other people in every place you find yourself leading. Some are in positions of authority above you, some are under your authority, others are operating at your side, inside or outside your personal sphere of influence.

I find that the kind of leadership required to help people through crisis requires contributions from many of these people, playing different roles and allowing each other to play their role as effectively as possible. 

I first saw this when conducting research on leadership in 12 cases where major achievements followed crisis-like periods (mostly related to conflict). I was interested in who had led these achievements, and interviewed people who had been involved to better understand this. I expected to hear the names of one or two prominent individuals in each case, but was surprised when I heard an average of over 7 names in each case. It was the first time that I realized leadership is not about one person on her or his own.

Following up with the interviewees, I asked why each person identified specific individuals as a ‘leader’. This led to the identification of a specific set of roles I now see played in all important change processes (like the kind required when you lead through crises). These roles are played by individuals working together in what I call multi-agent leadership engagements. The roles include:

Interestingly, my research suggests that leaders who really help their people ‘do better, harder things’ seldom play more than three roles. Even the people we sometimes call ‘champions’ (or, perhaps, supervisors or Tzars give responsibility for overseeing crises responses) hold to this rule-of-thumb. When most effective, I see these champions or supervisors authorizing, convening, and motivating to facilitate effective decision making and communication, but requiring and empowering others to play the other roles.

If you are interested to learn more, see research on the topic here and watch this video.

I think this kind of leadership matters so much when facing crises and other stressful challenges because multiple agents leading together helps to spread decision-making risk, fosters creativity, and starves off burn out (among  other things). And this kind of leadership gives more agents the chance to exercise their leadership muscle and be part of helping people through crisis.

This is why you should consider, very seriously, identifying what roles you plan to play and letting others play their roles. Which brings me to key questions you might want to reflect on:

  1. Do you agree that there are many roles to play in leading through crisis?
    • How would you define your role? (use your own words)
    • If you are forced to choose just three roles you will play in this list, which would they be? (i) Authorizers, (ii) Motivator, (iii) Convener, (iv) Connector, (v) Problem identifier, (vi) Idea generator, (vii) Encourager (or empowerer), (viii) Resource provider, and (ix) Implementer
  2. Do you agree that many people in your context are available to play their role with you?
    • Think of who you would look to play roles with you?
    • Write names down next to the following roles, so you have a good idea of who you have playing what roles in your multi-agent engagement: (i) Authorizers, (ii) Motivator, (iii) Convener, (iv) Connector, (v) Problem identifier, (vi) Idea generator, (vii) Encourager (or empowerer), (viii) Resource provider, and (ix) Implementer.

For multi-agent leadership to work, you and other leaders need to identify your role and stick to it, letting others play their roles too. Leonard Marcus from NPLI calls this ‘staying in your lane’ (in describing ‘swarm leadership’ which is a great description of how multi-agent leadership works). He notes that a key to successful leadership in the face of crises is to “Stay in your lanes, do your job, and help others to succeed in theirs. [always ask ] How can I make you a success?”

‘Staying in your lane’ proves to be difficult in many crisis situations, however, especially for those leaders playing champion or supervisory roles. In this video (video no longer available) Norwegian psychiatrist Lars Weisaeth finds that  champions (or supervisors) often interfere with others and take on  too many roles. He comments that [for leaders] “Forcing yourself to restrain from doing things yourself [or playing all the roles] requires a lot of self-control.” This is especially the case when the supervisor feels like she or he is not doing enough, and he or she gives in to “The urge  to act  [and take over all the roles].” Unfortunately this can lead to you ‘spreading  yourself too thin’, ‘overpromising’ and disempowering others to ‘do better, harder things’ themselves.

Be careful not to fall into this trap, by staying in your lane. To help you reflect on this, consider the following  questions:

  1. What will cause you to want to ‘leave your lane’ and take others’ roles from them?
  2. What disciplines can you adopt to ensure you have enough self-control to stay in your lane?

For some inspiration, watch this video by Gregory Ciottone, on crisis leadership in response to the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States. It is nearly twenty minutes long, but very much worth watching—especially if you are currently feeling overwhelmed by crisis. At moment 2:02, Ciottone says he was asking “what will my role be here”. One of our key questions in  this blog. He then refers to being  ‘a little piece in a big machine’ (around 8:04) which you can only say if you realize that others are working alongside you (playing other roles).

The Public Leadership Through Crisis blog series offers ideas for leaders questioning how they can help and what kind of leadership is required in the face of a crisis (like the COVID-19 pandemic).

Public Leadership Through Crisis 5: Good communication ideas you might consider

written by Matt Andrews

In my last blog I noted that communication is a key leadership act in crisis. (and you must commit to communicate —to help people deal with fear and accept change).

It is good to remember that every crisis poses different communication challenges, so I don’t think there are one-best-way solutions to doing communication right in the face of crisis. But I do think there are some good communication ideas you might consider whenever you are engaging with others during this difficult time.

an old sketch of an 18th century ship in the sea

How do you communicate to your people when the wind and waves are high?

Let me offer some ideas that I personally think can be useful. Before doing so, however, let me encourage you to open yourself to learning about communications in crisis. There are a number of articles out there offering advice on communicating in crisis, like this one and this one and this one. I advise you to read as many articles as possible and weigh up all the different points of view  out there, to see where the ‘good ideas’ are (those that seem to be offered by multiple authors, with examples, and that you think you could act on in your context). Additionally, and particularly regarding the COVID-19 crisis, you may want to  reference the excellent resource on communicating during health crises (by the United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration).

My first good communication idea is ‘Be calm’. Your main job in crisis is to lead your people through a stressful time; they will only follow if they think you are credible and know what you are doing. The best way to foster this credibility is  to stay calm and collected. I have encountered much advice on how to be calm in communication, and here are a few—briefly: (i) be as prepared as you can and keep things simple—make sure you have a basic narrative that you will stick to (it is your anchor); (ii) be calm in your demeanor, sure of what you are communicating (adopt a simple standing or seated pose, for instance, and do not try to be  charismatic here!); (iii) do not be threatened by any questions or challenges, but  rather listen and take notes (you will  get many  chances  to communicate and can  easily  get  back to people if you don’t have answers now); (iv) tell the truth; anything else will generate stress (now or later, for you and the people you are communicating with). (more…)

Public Leadership Through Crisis 4: You as a leader must be smarter than your brain

written by Matt Andrews

You will notice that the first three blogs have all been about the leader—not the crisis. This is intentional, as we think you—the leader—need to be ready in  yourself for the challenge  you are  facing. You can never be fully ready, but the basics I am suggesting  can help you. I will be offering four more posts dedicated just to you preparing  yourself—rapidly—for this challenge, and then we will move to working with the  crisis  itself, and your team, and the broader set of actors you will need to engage for help.

As indicated in the third blog post, I do not believe there is a one best way approach  to do this work. I hope these ideas will help you think actively about the approach you will take.

Let’s remember the ideas shared so far (with links to the relevant blogs):

  1. Clarify your ‘public’ motivation (it’s what will keep you strong and  focused),
  2. Be honest —but not hampered by—about self-doubt,
  3. Commit to communicate—to help people deal with fear and accept change,
  4. Identify your key people and how you will motivate and mobilize them, and
  5. Fight all tendencies to freeze, by being brave (take responsibility, nothing less), being calm (responding quickly not rashly), and being adaptive (remember there is no perfect response, so try and be  willing  to  change) 

We wonder if you agree with these ideas? Or if you have tried answering the  questions asked in relation to the ideas: they are designed to help you actively prepare yourself.

Notice the important, vital message embedded in idea 5 (above): One day in the  future, when this crisis is averted or resolved or managed into some new and acceptable equilibrium, you will not be tested on whether you did things perfectly. You  will, instead, be tested on whether you ultimately managed  to help your people get through it, albeit imperfectly. You will almost certainly have made mistakes and be able to learn lessons to do things better, but you will also know that your success in leading would not have been possible without the mistakes. So please, adopt a brave but calm try-learn-adapt mentality to your leadership. Your goal is to steer your ship through this storm in a good manner. Don’t let the  perfect be the  enemy  of that good.

Today’s blog post topic is also centered on you, but also gives you some ideas to ponder about why it is so hard to mobilize your  people, and how you might communicate with them to get them mobilized in the face of the crisis. The topic is ‘you as a leader must be smarter than your brain’ (especially in  this crisis).

an image of a small boat in the ocean

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Enhancing the employability of young people in Guinea

Guest blog written by Thierno lliassa Balde

a group photograph

The Guinean tertiary education and Technical Education and Professional Training (TVET) system is dominated by programs that do not meet the needs of the labor market. Inappropriate orientation of training is a major cause of programs’ lack of relevance to business requirements. The system lacks scientific, technical, and professional training opportunities. Graduates rarely develop entrepreneurial skills, as most aspire to enter the public service. Challenges include overstaffing, poor linkages between training institutions and businesses, an over abundance of theoretical courses, dilapidated laboratories, and a lack of practical activities. The result is a very high unemployment rate among young graduates, despite many years of study.

Unemployment is highest among Technical Education and Professional Training (TVET) – 40% and Higher Education graduates -60%. With the exception of large-scale mining companies, the economy is dominated by informal enterprises and low productivity jobs and a skills mismatch between graduates and those demanded by employers.[i]

This problem is politically sensitive (the population of Guinea is young) and it affects the country’s growth as well as its prosperity. Once this problem is solved, it will put an end to the paradox of seeing employers complaining about the lack of skilled labor on the ground to fill the available positions.

Moreover, including entrepreneurial programs in the skill-training will also save most unemployed graduates complaining about the lack of jobs/employment; they can instead use their initiative to create their own enterprise with some kind of support both financially and morally.

For all these reasons, the Government of Guinea and its partner the World Bank, have set up a project to address this problem which will aim to boost the employability and employment outcomes of Guinean youth in targeted skills programs. More specifically, it aims to improve the effectiveness of training programs in universities and vocational institutions, and provide professional opportunities to young, job-seeking graduates by strengthening their skills through training, internships, jobs, or personalized support for business setup.

The project is based on public-private partnership. Its success in terms of impact and sustainability depend on the ability to use standard project management tools, the commitment of the various stakeholders and the quality of the partnership. For all these reasons, these points have been identified as critical and are essential for the sustainability and effectiveness of the project.

The key stakeholders of the unemployment problem are:

This kind of initiative has been successful in some countries, with time-limited design and implementation under specific frameworks. The design of the project is innovative, complex and involves several stakeholders and a paradigm shift in relation to the local context.

Considering all these factors reduces the flexibility in project implementation. It was necessary to expand the possibilities for action and find complementary tools to those existing.

During the implementation of this project, one of the problems identified was the effective involvement of the various stakeholders.

As Project Manager, I am responsible for the overall management of the policy. I must negotiate with key stakeholders and make  sure that each facet of each issue is effectively dealt with before implementation. Furthermore, I must monitor progress as well as the longevity of the outcome or result. I hold a key role in making the initiative as worthwhile as desired.

In this context, I began to explore how I could facilitate and improve project implementation in line with its framework and objectives.

The PDIA method seemed to me to be the most appropriate Tool for the implementation issue we are facing. I needed to use such a tool to improve the performance within the framework and objectives of the project.

Right from the beginning of the IPP program, I felt comfortable, as I met a wonderful team of experienced trainers familiar with public policy issues, especially those in developing countries, and pairs of students from different backgrounds with different experiences. It made me comfortable and strengthened my choice to attend this class.

With this training I have gotten a new approach to solve simple or complex problems in my daily work.

After my on-campus training and the acknowledgement that the effective involvement of stakeholders in the project is a problem, the government with its partner requested our team to do its utmost to change the situation. We used this as an entry point for action. The idea we immediately started working on was the weakness of stakeholder dialogues. Our aim was to improve the dialogue between stakeholders: young people (unemployed and students), companies in the university system and associations and chambers of SMEs, the government, in order to deconstruct the problem. First, we identified the team members of each stakeholder, then we scheduled meetings between them. This is a useful approach which can be easily implemented, to facilitate deconstructing the problem.

I started to use and share with my team the PDIA approach and tools. These tools allowed us to integrate the context in order to find local solutions to local challenges and then work iteratively to learn and adapt before generalizing.

As part of our project’s activities, we conducted a capacity building activity for the beneficiaries (universities and private sectors). I took this opportunity to use the PDIA approach to identify problems and provide solutions in a participative manner with stakeholders.

One of the immediate benefits of this approach is to to speak openly and address the real challenges, free from the risk of being judged.

a group of people sitting around a table in a meeting

Deconstructing the problem: a participative diagnosis of the difficulties encountered by stakeholders was carried out. The main issues identified included ; governance (dysfunction of the steering committee), coordination, partnership, design and sizing of activities, internal and external communication, team management (delegating, motivating,…) poor dialogue between the stakeholders.

Partnership issues

a photograph of a diagram

Management issues

a photograph of a fishbone diagram made on a chart paper

Relational Mapping

a photograph of a brainstorm/relational map made on a chart paper

Our mid-term goal is to bring together the relevant stakeholders in a single working forum. We are working under the leadership of the government, its partner, the World Bank, in collaboration with the private sector, to organize this meeting in order to improve dialogue and the partnership between the project’s stakeholders (universities, private sector, Public Employment Agency, etc.).

Before the forum we had meetings that allowed us to strengthen public-private dialogue and partnerships, such as;

a photograph of a press conference

a group picture

a panel seated in front of the room

To conclude, I would like to share some of the lessons I have learned from this experience, namely :

Listening

This experience allowed me to understand how crucial it is to communicate and how important it is to listen to partners in order to take care of their concerns.

Involving various stakeholders

To better involve the various stakeholders, I have opted for power sharing with the heads of the components by giving them more autonomy and flexibility in the implementation of their activity, while ensuring that there is no mismanagement in the process. This has allowed better collaboration and successful implementation of an innovative and highly complex programme in the context of Guinea. In PIU I try to value my employees by giving them maximum autonomy and valuing their work and the results obtained.

Motivation

The most difficult aspect of the work I have done is to bring about lasting change in the established habits … The methods I usually use to motivate myself and others to continue doing challenging things is always telling myself that the policy in question (training the young people well) can make a real change and have a real impact on the daily life of the population.”

We are indeed working on a project which will have a positive impact on human capital and will therefore strengthen the capacity of the State to solve the problems of the population and better serve it. I was able to convince the team that this project is strategically very important for our country. A well-educated population is crucial to the development of our country.

This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Implementing Public Policy  Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. Participants successfully completed this 7-month blended learning course in December 2019. These are their learning journey stories.

To learn more about Implementing Public Policy (IPP) watch the course and testimonial video, listen to the podcast, and visit the course website.

[i] World Bank. 2014. Project Appraisal Document : Guinea, Stepping Up Skills Project.

Public Leadership Through Crisis 3: Be brave, calm, adaptive; there is no perfect crisis response

written by Matt Andrews

In my last blog post I emphasized the importance of leaders in crisis situations being (i) motivated for the public good, (ii) honest about—but not hampered by—self-doubt, (iii) committed to communicating more than ever (to help people deal with fear and accept change), and (iv) aware of who their key people are and how to motivate and mobilize those key  people.

We wonder if you agree with these ideas?

These may seem like simple ideas to start with, but many crisis situations are exacerbated by leaders who do not adhere to these lessons. Instead, we see many leaders making mistakes like thinking too much about themselves during crises (their careers, political futures, etc.), giving into their doubts, communicating poorly,  or centering the work too much on themselves (and failing to mobilize the key people around them or to help these people embrace change). Often they fall into these traps because they think the only thing that matters is getting to a solution, fast; actually, leading your people matters just as much (if  not more).

You need to be aware that these traps are there. And beware of them. They can cause you and your people to fall over the edge.

image of an old 18th century ship in the water

Building on this, Katharina Balazs (cited in the last post) reflects on a concern we have for anyone expected to lead in these crisis situations. She talks about how leaders (and others) ‘freeze’ in the face of crises when they become defensive about the past and give in to doubts about moving effectively into the future. She, and her co-author, write that the “fear of a narcissistic injury, of having to acknowledge that the present state of affairs is not good enough, can contribute to a frozen stance [where] we seem to prefer the familiar “bad” to the promising unknown.” (Transforming the mind-set of the organization (Kets De Vries and Balazs, 1999,646)).
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Public Leadership Through Crisis 2: Know your motivation, put communications and key people first

written by Matt Andrews

When the storm, wind and rain, of crisis is coming (or has come), how do you start to lead?

Building on my earlier blog post, we are sharing two posts today with some rapid ideas on how leading organizations, towns, cities, regions and countries might start thinking about leadership in the face of crisis (like the Covid-19 crisis). We know that the approach everyone takes will be different, and should be  fitted to context. And it is hard to offer ‘perfect’ answers. But we are trying to be responsive and helpful by pulling together some materials we think can empower leaders in times of crisis.

We are asking other academics, practitioners, and more to comment on these blogs, contact us with their own ideas, links to materials, etc. This is not a take-it-or-leave-it space, but one where we want to foster real learning and sharing by the large community of people who we know care about public service. The more lessons are shared, the more help will be offered.

My first blog raised questions, based on Nancy Koehn’s work, about:

  1. The role of motivation in public leaders in times of crisis (and the importance of knowing you are on a ‘worthy mission’),
  2. The importance of ensuring public interest drives leaders’ decisions (being ‘thou’ centered instead of ‘I’ centered),
  3. The fact that you as a leader will have doubts (about your capabilities, and more) but the key is not giving into these doubts, and
  4. The idea that leadership is about helping others to overcome their limits and ‘do better, harder’ things in the face of a crisis.   

I want to pick up on the last idea that, as someone in public leadership, you are here to help your people get through the crisis you are all in.  Your job is not just to manage the technical dimensions  of the crisis, or the  logistics, or the timeline of activities. Your job is to help your people work through their limits to rise up and make the small and big, temporary and permanent, hard and not-so-hard changes required to get through the high winds and rough waves you are encountering. (more…)

Public Leadership Through Crisis 1: Can public leaders navigate high winds and big waves in little boats?

written by Matt Andrews

A ship on stormy waters

Governments are most important in times of public crisis. This is where individuals—no matter how talented or self-reliant—look to their governments for help; to empower or use or deploy the powers and potentialities of the collective on behalf of that collective.

But many people tasked with leading public organizations in times of crises, struggle to know if and how to rise to the occasion. They know that people are looking to them for a lot, but wonder if they and their organizations are ready and/or capable to handle the many tasks.

This is a particular challenge in governments that have low capability or are in the process of trying to build capability. Crises involve threats that can easily overwhelm state capability, especially where such  capability is limited to start with.

Leaders in such situations can easily feel like captains on small boats facing  high winds and big waves. I have recently been in touch  with a few such leaders, asking something like the following: “How do I help my people navigate and survive through high winds and big waves in our little boat? What kind of leadership is required to do this navigation?”

I plan  to use this series of blog posts to offer ideas for leaders asking  this question; on the subject of public leadership in and through crisis.

I write at a time when the Covid-19 crisis is peaking in some countries but only just hitting many countries where I typically work; especially in the developing world. I am not a public health specialist, and cannot therefore offer ideas on WHAT your  policy response should be in the face of this crisis. But I do a lot of work on HOW you might organize your response—communicating, coordination, structuring the process, and managing yourself. That’s what I will focus on. (more…)