Dr. John C. Maxwell, a world-renowned Leadership Expert, defines a crisis as follows: ‘A Crisis is an INTENSE TIME OF DIFFICULTY requiring a DECISION that will be a TURNING POINT. Where is the DECISION in the BUDGET that will be a turning point? I leave it to you to go find it if it is there. While a crisis is quite common, the Covid19 pandemic has highlighted our unpreparedness in many areas, should a similar situation arise again in the future. People are not prepared to face this kind of situation, a situation where their entire life is unconditionally based mostly, not to say completely for the majority of the people, upon one source of income. Should this source disappear, then it is total chaos. Our population requires education, capacity building, and a shift in mindset on how to prepare for the future differently. I saw nothing in the budget that makes provision for this. We are waiting to continue life as usual, business as usual, everything as usual…but ‘as usual’ is no more usual. We need to understand that we need to change, we need change at every level, we need a change in the way we think, in the way we perceive, in the way we envision life, now and after.
Our people are looking at the Leaders for direction. What they are looking for and what they are going to get will shape our future, and the future of our country. My Mentor, Dr John c. Maxwell says that Leaders are people of value, who value people, and add value to people. We need our Leaders to VALUE the people of our country and ADD VALUE to them, so that they can face the future with boldness and positivity. How we view things is how we do things. It is not about the Leader or Leaders anymore, it’s about the people – People should come first. This is not a political mantra, this is the truth. If our people are well built and prepared, then the future will be well built and prepared, because our PEOPLE are going to build the future. The investment today should be on building our people, on capacity building, on self-education, on entrepreneurship.
In this time of crisis, we have to get it right – we need REAL LEADERSHIP, leadership that’s visible, leadership that shows up early, with clarity, and with hope. Our Leaders need to come from a position of awareness and be clear, honest, and open in their communication. They also need to know the direction they want us to move. They can afford to be uncertain in uncertain times but they cannot afford to be unclear. They need to show us clarity because clarity helps to prioritize. Our Leaders should show faith that together with the population, we can make things better. Hope is an active virtue, we cannot stand by passively waiting for things to improve – we have to act on improving things, starting by improving the people who will improve the things.
We need to see constant communication from the Leaders with the population to explain the direction we are moving and the reasons behind those decisions. We need to understand how responsibilities are being delegated amongst the Leaders to understand if we are being lead the right way by the right people. We need to see partnership thinking – a mastermind with the top minds of the country sitting together, discussing, brainstorming, and generating ideas for the POSITIVE FUTURE of every one of us. And lastly, but not least, we need to align our thinking and decisions with our core values, the values that have been at the base itself of the growth of our Nation for the past 52 years of our independence. All these will help to help ideas and creativity to begin to flow from every responsible citizen of the island. This is how REAL LEADERSHIP shows up in a crisis, not from some selected few.
To conclude, I still hope to see a national spirit emerging, a vigorous spirit that will seriously ponder on our positive future by attracting the great minds of the country around the table of leadership and help generate the ideas and creativity that will take us forward to our bright positive future. If not, God bless our country.
