How to be a great leader

What a subject and what a time to be talking about it. Somebody once said something like, ‘those that want to be leaders should never be allowed to do so’. This was something that I didn’t really understand until I began working with managers. Oh my, there  are some awful managers out there and many of them are supposed to be looking after our health and/or wellbeing.

There is a part of me that feels we should never be talking about Brexit and there is a part of me that is both intrigued and annoyed with it all. I am appalled at what a total mess our leaders have made of the whole Brexit business. From Cameron onwards  we have had disaster after disaster and now we are in such a sad state that we are about to have yet another leader and we still haven’t resolved Brexit.

I am very clear that I think Brexit is one of the stupidest things we could possibly do. I do not think that the EU is perfect and I believe that it needs reforming and developing. However the idea of people coming together and working together makes total sense to me and fulfils the aim of the European project of creating peace and not war.

As I watch the mad people take over the asylum we have Boris, BoJo, here, Trumpy in the states started his next election drive, surely to God we do not need another term of him, and we have Iran stretching its muscle and Korea wondering what to do next. I could go on but I will climb off this hobby horse.

Okay, to me it looks like this, leaders by definition are there to lead. With a bit of hope and a good wind they will lead us in a positive direction. The problem is that to be a positive leader you need to have insight. Around me I can not a see a single leader who has insight.

The spectrum of psychopathy begins with those around us who lack insight and empathy and are generally insensitive people and ends with murderers, mass murders and, sad to say, some politicians. For someone to say something or tweet something and then completely deny that they did does not suggest a person with insight. To feel able to lie about the funds that would supposedly be freed from EU contributions and used for the NHS does not suggest insight. And to be a socialist leader with splinters in their bottoms because they are unable to get off the fence does not suggest insight.

I think that we are in the era of the successful psychopaths and they are now taking power. Because these psychopathic traits of insensitive leadership are gaining in popularity they are on the rise. We now find them in organisation and the public services at all levels of management and leadership. This draconian approach to social interaction and management moves clearly away from the socialist models that developed after the last war with the NHS and the welfare state. This all suggests to me that society, in the normal ebbs and flows of social change, is lurching to the right. When this happens it can so easily lead to fascism, nationalism and isolation. This is exactly where we are, in Europe, before the Second World War and after all that ended we thought that we had learned that lesson. It was then that we created the United Nations, and eventual the EU.

This is one of those times in the social cycle when we need a leader to appear. A real leader who has both insight and empathy and can truly represent the ideals of all humanity and not be stuck social or religious factionalism.

My favourite phrase is…

…if we all look a few each other we will all be okay… 

Take care and be happy and if the storm does come then we will need to learn to dance in the rain.  

Take care

Sean x