WHEN LEADERS FAIL US

There are many, many lessons to be learned from the coronavirus pandemic of 2019-2020. It remains to be seen if any of these will actually be learned in meaningful ways. I am not optimistic.

Primary among these lessons is that of leadership, specifically when it fails. The United States has a President who has demonstrated time and again over the past three years that his leadership leaves much to be desired. No, this post is not just about Donald Trump; so much has already been said and written about him that repetition would be wasteful here.  However, the major point regarding Donald Trump is that, in this time of a national and global crisis, he has not just failed as a leader, but failed spectacularly. Trump is uninterested and incapable of being the leader needed in a time of crisis. His basic message is "you are on your own, stop whining, and I'm upset because you don't appreciate me. And how am I going to profit from this?"

We are witnessing other leaders failing spectacularly. A large number of governors waited too long before ordering people to stay home and socially distance. Some of them have yet to fully implement these pandemic mitigation measures, and some have even overruled preventive measures implemented by local governments in their states. 

These spectacular failures of leadership are not just notable, they are responsible for people dying. They are, in my opinion, criminal acts perpetrated by men in positions of power. How many COVID-19 deaths in the United States would have been prevented had these men stepped up and provided the leadership needed to slow the pandemic, equip front-line medical workers with the tools and equipment needed, inspired people to do the right thing, and put in place mandatory rules applicable nationwide? This is a number that could be estimated, and it would be a very large number.

Leadership is both an innate personality quality as well as a learned skill. To lead means to inspire others to follow; in other words, a leader cannot be a single person without followers. And the direction being lead towards is important; there have been many leaders in history who have led their followers towards darkness and evil. As followers, we have choices; who do we choose to follow?

Our system of electing political leaders often results in the election of people into leadership positions who are not the leaders we need. Trump is a prime example of this. And once in power, ineffective leaders like Trump put people into lower positions of leadership who are not good leaders, and who do not threaten the poor leadership of the top dog. This might all seem fine for awhile, until a crisis strikes and the extent and dangers of poor leadership are exposed. The coronavirus pandemic we are now in is such a crisis. 

I truly hope the majority of Americans understands the lessons to be learned from this pandemic once it is behind us. I hope Americans understand the spectacular failure of leadership exhibited by Donald Trump, a number of governors, some federal agency directors and others. And I hope Americans use this understanding to make decisions at the ballot box (or the virtual ballot box). As I said at the beginning, I am not hopeful. I hope I'll be surprised.

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