The Joy And Pain Of Leadership

I don’t think that I would be alone in saying that this week got to me a bit.

With the spread of COVID-19 ramping up again, and three states that we do business with, in lockdown, it has tested everything within me. I know that we need to be resilient and spread positive vibes, but we too are human and sometimes I just don’t feel like it.

But it got me thinking. It is also important to understand our humanity and allow ourselves to be human and to display the emotions of humanity, because sometimes that is far more powerful and healing than trying to continually live in a bubble of positivity and motivational quotes.

It will get better, but before it can get better, we need to recognise that putting up a wall of so-called resilience for others to see, will eventually catch up with us.

In my email last week, I got abused by a Managing Director for only mentioning NSW and VIC in our support and not mentioning his state. The fact is, that NSW and VIC went into lockdown, his state had not. It blew my head apart that we have become so selfish that our parochial interests are more important than the welfare of our fellow Australians. I guess we have our current political structure and behaviour to thank for that.

That is not leadership!

So, however you are feeling, there are two things we all need to address.

Firstly, be proud of who you are and recognise that you don’t have to continually put on an act to be a good leader, to the contrary, we need to be vulnerable and let our feelings and emotions out, only then can we regroup and move forward.

Secondly, we need to recognise that there are people all around us who are doing it much tougher than us and we need to put aside our selfish attitudes and reach out to them. When we do that, we also heal ourselves.

So, give yourself a break this week and also, reach out to someone else.

That’s what leadership is and that’s what leadership does!

Have a great week.

Des Penny
Co-CEO
Proteus Leadership