02-01 Political Leadership

The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, has demonstrated brilliant political leadership. Besides declaring an early one-month nation-wide lockdown, she has declared the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy to be essential workers.
It is a combination of tough medicine and humour to inspire the nation to defeat the coronavirus outbreak. Her leadership is working.
It was back in 1982 that I went to Boston to take special television training, using the same company that trained the Kennedy brothers.
I was to learn all the tricks of what was called “television politics”. Like how to avoid a TV reporter’s tough question by looking right into the camera with concern, and then “answering your own question”. I felt I was in acting school. “You’re surprised.” “Look pleased.” “Show anger.”
Then as part of my training, I was shown ten clips from President Reagan’s successful 1981 campaign in which he mixed a constant message about fighting communism with humour and sorrow. In all ten clips, he used a line from an old Cagney movie that was a real tear-jerker.
Then I was shown clips of President Reagan showing global leadership. It was President Reagan vs. candidate Reagan. Two different people, but both knowing when and how to use emotion.
During my MBA years at the University of Toronto, we had extensive discussions about leadership and management. Leadership to inspire and management to accomplish measurable goals.
And in later years I never met any successful leader, in business, government or politics that wasn’t a competent manager. The best leaders always had the best advisers.
That doesn’t mean some political leaders don’t come with special skills. The problem is that there are so many issues that come at you “out of the blue”. And what you say and how you say it defines public perceptions.
The real differences associated with the current crisis is that so many people are impacted and so many lives are at stake. Emotions are running high. Things happen quickly. Everything is quirky. And, yes, leadership is everything.
It’s like WW2 for those of us who have the right memory bank. Leaders were both good guys and bad guys. And tough decisions made by Churchill and Roosevelt were cloaked in English language magic. People experienced hardship and sorrow, and at the same time, demonstrated strength and resilience.
Today, however, we are not getting war time leaders. Mostly, we have leaders with their focus on the day to day crisis facing their own people and their own futures. They cannot see the forest for the trees.
Where is the leadership that is so necessary to provide global hope? To coordinate global research. To share global technology. To protect the most vulnerable societies. Where is the US we remembered during WW2?
My fear is that the new global political leader will be Xi Jinping of China and not Donald Trump of the United States.
The big news story that I am waiting for will be about China’s global supply of protective equipment.
The brain trust around President Xi will be doing what political advisors are paid to do. Change the political narrative. They want the world to stop talking about the “Chinese virus” and instead talk about those “Chinese masks”.
Can’t you just imagine that young strategist working for Xi Jinping? “Let’s allow our global technology companies to distribute free masks and gowns to the nations that are customers and potential customers.”