Leadership Lessons From the British Government’s Awful Handling of the Coronavirus Pandemic
By: Jane Morrish
Tags: Britain, British Government, Coronavirus, Politics, Leadership

Photo by Vera Davidova on Unsplash

A former boss once told me that if someone more senior than you behaves in a way you don’t like, put it in your (physical or virtual) book of things you’ll never do as a leader.

Watching the British government’s handling of the Coronavirus crisis sent me running to the Moleskine store for a new notebook — because mine runneth over with new lessons on things not to do when you’re in charge.

The latest episode of ‘Boris Shows You How Not to Lead’ contains several themes. All of them are blindingly obvious but basic leadership skills appear to have gone out of the window over the past year.

There are many, many leadership principles which the British government has demonstrated are crucial — mainly by their inability to stick to them. Here are just three of them.

Giving clear direction

Direction and guidance from leaders gives clarity, guidance and structure. It help us work out what to do and why. It gives us confidence that we’re spending our time on the right things and helps us understand where we fit into the bigger picture.

When we hear new direction, we also try to work out what it means for us. How will it change our lives? What do we need to stop and start doing? How does it change plans we’ve already made?

We also evaluate the strategy behind the decisions that have been made. Does this course of actions make sense, given the context? How does it compare to what others have done?

There’s a lot of work when the message conveyed is clear. But it’s much harder when the direction is unclear, lacking context or sometimes downright contradictory.

The British government’s direction to the people in Britain on how to curtail the impact of the Coronavirus has been astonishing. Citizens, media and organisations responsible for implementing and enforcing government policies on Coronavirus have derided the incoherent, ineffectual communications right from the start of the crisis.

But why has it been so bad?

My guess is that it’s partly cultural. Brits are not comfortable speaking directly and no-one wants to be the person giving the bad news. I’m not saying that makes it okay. It doesn’t.

To be told you’re a ‘straight talking kind of person’ isn’t necessarily a complement in Britain. We’re not a nation comfortable with ripping the plaster off and getting the difficult stuff over and done with quickly. We’re more likely to try distract you with a funny YouTube video and sweets and lift the plaster off millimetre by millimetre, avoiding eye contact and hoping you won’t notice. We think we’re being kind. We’re not. We’re just drawing out something which will have the same painful outcome — except we’re all knackered by the end of it as well.

People need clear, unabiguous direction in times of distress and crisis. We need to be told what to do because our ability to process and respond to information is already challenged. We need something to grab on to that gives us hope, that helps us feel useful and gives a sense of moving towards a solution.

Pilots undergo specific training to enable them to communicate clearly and confidently so that people do what they are told in crisis situations. People running around screaming in a plane with engine problems will only exacerbate the existing issues.

A country’s leaders should communicate like pilots in times of crisis — not like someone too embarrassed to tell a friend that they’ve got toilet paper stuck to their shoe.

Unclear messages also put the burden of working out what they mean on the recipient. If the recipient interprets them wrong, then that’s on them — and they know it.

Direction which come with a broad set of perameters but a casual “but you probably shouldn’t” is the worst of both worlds. The British government has repeatedly given direction to limit social interaction which is much looser and much later than in neighbouring countries. It has also accompanied these directions with phrases like ‘Think hard and in detail’ or asking people to use ‘basic manners, courtesy and consideration’.

This means the government hasn’t had to communicate strict, difficult rules. It also isn’t clear, precise crisis direction. It puts even more cognitive load on the recipient and — even if not the intention — it gives the perception that leaders are putting the burden of responsibility on the recipients. That’s not leading, that’s not direction and it doesn’t achieve any of the things people need from their leaders in a crisis.

Leading visibly

There’s no denying that Boris Johnson needed time off to recover from serious Covid-19 symptoms. But both before and after his convalescence, his appearances at the government briefings on the crisis were limited to the ‘really bad days’. He was visibly absent. The country’s environment, transport and culture secretaries led 12 of the country’s 85 Coronavirus briefings between March and June. During this period, an increasing trend for ministers to appear and take questions without a medical or scientific expert was also observed by the media. There have been more ‘really bad days’ over the past few months so we’ve seen Boris more often. But it shouldn’t have got to this point. People need to repeatedly and consistently see and hear their leaders taking charge of the situations that matter.

By contrast, in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has led the majority of the daily briefings there, usually with a medical or scientific expert alongside her. This has given the people of Scotland consistency of voice and language that makes it easier for everyone to understand the content. Concepts are explained in the same way and repeated so solidify them. This consistency has also helps viewers to judge the current levels of severity. When Nicola sounds and looks optimistic, it’s okay to be optimistic. When Nicola is on the verge of tears, you know its time to tell granny that she’s not coming for dinner on Sunday. But you can’t do that when you see someone different every day (who you may not even recognise) and you’ve no idea what the man in charge is actually doing.

Reading out a statement at a press conference might not feel like leading, but it’s the only evidence the country has that its leaders are thinking about the virus and the country at all when they’re behind closed doors the rest of the time. Facetime matters. Consistency matters. Being visble matters.

Live what you preach

I remember my parents used to say ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ and that worked when I was seven. However it doesn’t work as kids get older (as they found out) and it definitely doesn’t work on adults.

The behaviour of Boris Johnson’s aide Dominic Cumming by flouting the lockdown rules in spring (and the government’s refusal to admonish him) validated a long-held belief amongst many people that the Conservatives rule with a ‘one rule for them, one rule for us’ approach. Whether this is true or not, for people with that belief, it added fuel to the fire of that theory.

For everyone else, it was, at least, evidence of inconsistency in even the government’s own understanding of its rules. The confusion about whether he had broken the rules, the government’s backing of Cumming and the fact that he was given the podium of his own press conference in the back garden of Number 10 Downing Street did little to give the sense that the government really believed or cared about the rules they were asking millions of people to live by. And when your leaders don’t have faith in what they say — why should you?

Leadership based on exemplary behaviour is best and easiest. Modelling good behaviour in itself can create change sometimes without even being accompanied by direction. But not modelling it and not ensuring that others model it will undermine your message every time. And if you get it wrong — because making genuine mistakes is — then appropriate acknowledgement is essential.

But Dominic Cumming broke the rules, displayed no remorse or acknowledged that what he did may have not been appropriate. His boss stood by him and observers were left confused and angry. There were no consequences for Cumming. And when people in a team see that bad behaviour has no consequences, it destroys faith in leadership. It also makes people question whether they should bother follow the rules themselves.

I’m still haunted by an image on Twitter in the days after the Cumming revelation. It was posted by a woman whose father had died from Covid-19. She did not visit him — to protect them both and to follow the rules that she had been told to follow. All she could do was Facetime him and all she had left of their last conversation was a screengrab of that conversation — him looking pale and in pain alongside his daughter’s distraught, tear-strewn face at the other end of the call. Her anger was visceral. She had obeyed the rules and didn’t visit her father. But she could have ignored them — just like Dominic Cumming did — and she would have had one final conversation in person with her father. She will never forget that and millions of other won’t too. The Cumming memes and jokes are still doing the rounds months later but they’re humour based on anger and resentment and that will fester.

I have huge empathy for the people trying to guide billions of people around through this crisis. No-one knew this was coming, no-one knew how bad it would be. But what we do know is that there are some basic leadership principles which get buy in to your direction and build your credibility. Sadly these are aspects of the British government’s response which have been absent.

For all of the pain that their terrible decisions and communications have cause, I hope every leader can see and learn from their from these mistakes. They’re a clear reminder of the value of clear direction in a crisis, leading visibility and acting consistently and with integrity.