True leadership is inspiring and courageous. True leadership opts for an authentic and genuine win/win approach rather than competing with others.
As an apparent second wave of Covid invades New Zealand, the leadership of the response comes under the spotlight. And, there is a growing feeling that ‘doing our best’ is insufficient when there is scope through enhanced collaboration to do a great deal better.
The disappointing (although not unexpected) return of Covid 19 and the accompanying unsettling revelations about the lack of rigour of our border security, our testing and tracing and social distancing illustrate that as a country NZ is far from gold standard in our Covid 19 response. Certainly, we agree that there is ‘no playbook’ for fighting Covid 19 but that is why ‘going it alone,’ ‘doing your best’ is no longer good enough. The Team of 5 Million expects and deserves much better. The time is nigh to be daring and gutsy. We need gold standard leadership; and we need it now. For that reason, Prime Minister, we cannot pretend any longer that it is not time to establish a non-partisan group to develop and lead a full-proof plan to keep Covid 19 out of NZ.
Rather than face into this global crisis as a united NZ leadership team, the current Government is choosing to brand the upcoming election “the Covid Election.” The natural pre-election voter debate includes comments such as “they are doing their best.” Members of the Opposition suggested that the NZ approach to Covid management could be better only to be met with accusations of said Ministers being “self-serving.”
Is it really self-serving to suggest that a global pandemic needs a more collaborative, focused leadership strategy? Is it really self-serving to suggest that an election should be delayed allowing a nation to focus on Covid management rather than use Covid as an election brand?
In our view, it is naive to think that facing an enemy such as Covid 19 with the intent to give it your ‘best shot’ should be considered good enough. This pandemic should not be about a political response. The best-case scenario for NZ would be that Covid 19 be separated from the General Election. We are in a major Global health and associated economic crisis which will impact New Zealanders for generations. As such, New Zealand requires and deserves the best response that this country can muster.
Sunday’s NZ Nine to Noon radio programme featured the highly experienced and respected Professor Des Gorman, Professor of Medicine, Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland Medical School. Gorman assessed the Coalition Government’s current Covid 19 performance at 2-3/10. His rationale for such a disturbingly low score convinces the listener easily. However, Gorman does not just criticise from the side-line, taking pot shots. He offers an equally convincing plan to make the NZ Covid 19 response genuinely gold standard.
Gorman’s plan involves establishing a non-partisan task force comprising the best minds and most experienced individuals to fight Covid 19. He identifies expertise within the current Parliament, expertise from the NZ medical fraternity, expertise from the business community – all people who understand through their combined lifetime of experience what gold standard actually looks like and the rigour required to achieve it. A formidable task force to stare down the formidable virus.
At BR we realise that making the decision to step back from the 24/7 immersion in Covid 19 would be a huge political call for a Prime Minister whose internationally acclaimed communication skills have seen her popularity soar with the NZ public. However, in our view, it would not be an admission of defeat, but rather a courageous, insightful leadership decision. It would be an acknowledgement that the learning about Covid 19 to date demonstrates that a collaborative and inclusive task force comprising the best minds in the land would deliver the elimination strategy that the country has bought into. It would also inoculate the politicians from the fall-out when ‘doing our best’ proves not to be good enough.
Leadership of such change from ‘political scrambling’ (“we’re doing our best;” “there’s no playbook for this”) to the collaborative expertise delivered by a carefully selected, highly experienced task force would be inspiring and uplifting for the nation. Further, it would more than likely alleviate much of the fear that now infects our community – and who better than the Prime Minister to sell that to us all!