Hello

 

I don’t deliberately look out for the gap between what most people would consider to be good leadership behaviours, and those which most people would consider to be questionable leadership behaviours.

 

However, I think that it’s difficult to escape examples of both these days, and sadly there appear to be more behaviours of the questionable variety, than not.

 

In the U.K. there is a lot of debate about the public sector pay freeze, which of course includes the NHS.

 

As usual with these issues, emotions can run high, and political party allegiances can colour our perspectives. However, have you noticed that more and more people are considering the merits of different policies on different issues from more than one party? Gone, or going, are the days of binary thinking and blinkered support of one party/politician. And that’s a good thing. I think that it’s very important to be cautious of the cult of the personality, whoever it is. We need to cut through the spin and the rhetoric and the strap lines, and get to the core of the issue.

 

Consider the following fable.

 

“There is a relatively small little ball that spins through a thing called space. The little ball is circling another bigger ball, and the bigger ball keeps the inhabitants of the smaller ball warm, and alive.

 

The inhabitants of the small ball are pretty much stuck to the ball by a thing called gravity. The inhabitants haven’t quite fully understood what gravity is yet, but they do know that although it’s quite a weak force, it is strong enough to keep them stuck to the little ball. And thank goodness for that, for without gravity, the inhabitants would fly off the ball and perish. By and large, the inhabitants don’t want to perish, they want to live as long and fulfilled a life as possible.

 

Now interestingly, on the little ball, some inhabitants are really important in terms of keeping the other inhabitants safe and well, and non-perished.

 

Some of these inhabitants are involved in defending the good people from being harmed by the bad people, some are involved in fighting fires, and some are involved in keeping others healthy and saving their lives.

 

How do these particularly bright, and dedicated, and selfless inhabitants get treated?

 

Are they rewarded spectacularly well and treated with respect?

 

Well, not exactly. In fact in one part of the little ball, they are given ever lessening resources to do their jobs, paid extraordinarily badly, and some of them are asked to work for so long during their working days that they often can’t think clearly at all. (Indeed one of the most effective forms of torture is considered to be sleep deprivation, and so in a very real sense one could say that their working conditions are tortuous).

 

‘But wait’, you may be saying, ‘I thought that most of the inhabitants of this little ball wanted to be happy and to not perish for as long as possible, so why would things be organised like that?’

 

Well, things are organised like that because the little ball has some inhabitants on it (they call themselves leaders) making some very short term decisions, and forgetting about the fundamentals that help support a happy and meaningful existence on the little ball.

 

They have forgotten, or perhaps never learned, that any sufficiently advanced society would have at its core the ability to take care of its needy, its vulnerable, its old, it’s infirm. And that for that to happen, some individuals would not only need to be very highly trained, but also that the huge investment in their training would dictate that they were deployed wisely, not overly stretched, not taken for granted. Not worked to the point exhaustion. Not pushed to the point of utter despair.

 

Maybe one day, someone will invent a gravity nullifying beam so that these so-called leaders can float off somewhere if they so desire. ‘Wouldn’t that be dangerous?’ you may ask. Yes, and so it’s unlikely that these so-called leaders would want to risk that, to risk having anything but a happy healthy life. It’s more likely that they too would want to remain as non-perished for as long as possible.

 

‘Why then’ you may then ask ‘would they harm the very inhabitants who are likely to be the most important in helping them achieve that goal’?

 

And the answer to that is because of something we have not yet mentioned about certain inhabitants of the little ball.

 

Some of them are complete and utter idiots”.

 

 

If you read one book over the summer, make it this one (link below) by Dr Rachel Clarke, an NHS hospital doctor.

(I think that it should also be required reading for every politician)

 

 

Best wishes
Mike

 

The link to the July podcast is here:

 

The link to the latest video is here: