THE WORLD is gripped by an invisible killer and life as we know it is falling apart.
In such a time, what we believe about ourselves, our situation, our neighbours, our community and our world will drive our actions and our ability to fight this existential threat — our attitudes and opinions about the world and each other will drive our response to COVID-19 and our ability to recover.
But in such an epoch, our powerlessness results from the fact that we are in the hands of our leaders and actions they take – their crisis response.
In a time of crisis, leaders need to remember that an abundance mindset is more helpful.
Quite simply, this is a time for virtuous leadership.
Academic Kim Cameron has shown that when leaders embrace an abundance mindset, when they behave virtuously, when they adopt positive practices, there is a defined and causal link to productivity, quality, innovation and engagement. And don’t we need these now!
A leader with an abundance mindset knows that there is enough to go around for everyone, they feel that humanity is capable of meeting challenges and see those challenges as opportunities for learning and growth; they know that attitude and effort determine ability, that it is not fixed and pre-determined.
Such a leader empowers others to overachieve and surpass expectation — they enable us to be our best selves.
Most of our leaders have arrived at this crisis with a scarcity mindset, where everything is a battle for resources, viewing humanity and the world as lacking.
With such a mindset, there will never be enough.
Such a leader facilitates panic and uber competitiveness — and where the powerful start using such language, the economic cost of the cure might be worse than the disease.
Seriously!? Policy-making is always about trade-offs but let’s treat such rhetoric for what it is — an attempt to justify the continued concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and a shifting of the costs to the many, many who will die and become sick.
Mahatma Gandhi, said this planet has enough for everybody’s need but not enough for everybody’s greed. We have fallen onto the treadmill of greed, narcissistically serving the ‘self’, even as thousands around the world die.
Dom Meli is the founder of People At Their Best. He has established himself as a trusted adviser and innovative consultant helping leaders and organisations to develop, define and deploy strategies which have inspired sustainable improvements.
