“Knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
– Rosa Parks
“Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control.”
– Tom Landry, former Dallas Cowboys coach
So, this would be the third installment of a COVID-19 blog series and like The Godfather, Spider-Man, and Superman, not much good ever comes from Part III of anything. Enough is enough already – segue into the fact that we have an election less than a week from today. If you’re wondering how these two things are related, refer back up to those quotes again and ask yourself what your level of fear and/or confidence is.
No one’s ever accused me of being a particularly affable person and if being devil’s advocate could be monetized, I’d buy an island and be able to anti-socially distance six hundred feet away from everyone. While my favorite pastime nowadays is identifying and exposing what I believe to be deficiencies in the competence and character of the so-called higher-up leaders (subtle enough?) whom we’re supposed to trust most, I would be remiss by not recognizing the positive.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m perfectly content to work from home full-time, but a very small part of me would be okay returning to normalcy…when the science supports it. To that end, measures already taken to get us there have been promising, at least at the local levels, and not only in my city and state, but in the office to which I will eventually return.
We’re a fairly small group of 20-25 and no one wants us back to normal more than the boss. From allowing (although requiring) in-office personnel to physically come into the office only once a week, supplementing for excess travel costs, providing PPE and advanced air filtration, and developing an app to record temperature, restrict attendance and provide contact tracing (okay, one of the millennials actually developed that), it’s plainly evident that someone is looking out for our health and general well-being.
Even though it’s unrealistic to expect an operative vaccine until well into next year, being able to trust in management and keep ourselves informed through all the noise will sustain us through to the end of this or any crisis.
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”
– John F. Kennedy
