For those of you old enough to remember (which should be most people, more or less), do you remember what it felt like after 9-11? There is a sense of grief and loss that transcends and connects us, or at least, you think it would. Now, there certainly was a sense of rallying behind our country, and patriotism surged to a level I had not seen it in many years. However, beyond that simple emotion, there were others in play – many others. Not all were noble.
I’ll always remember a company meeting (at my prior company) after 9-11 where leadership wanted to have the employees express their feelings about what had happened. I’d love to tell you that it was an enriching experience, and we all came away better for it. No – not hardly. I have to tell you that it was the most embarrassed I’d been and the most uncomfortable I’d been in a long time. That meeting, how it was handled and how people were allowed to prattle on with the most ludicrous trash did a good deal to shake my confidence in my former company’s leadership as a whole (and as they are now out of business, I am somewhat validated in that emotion).
Emotions, at such a time, are too raw to leave leadership to the masses. That’s why we have governments and laws and elected officials. The last thing people want when a crisis happens is for their leaders to look at them and go “what do you think” or “what do I do now?” They want a John Wayne to stand up and tell them how it’s going to be. They want a Dirty Harry to tell the bad guys to watch over the shoulder. They want a Sergeant York to walk up with a hundred captives in tow. They want a soldier from the 101st Airborne to stand up out of his fox hole and yell, “Follow me!”
Horrible events will happen. That is the nature of our fallen world. We judge our leaders by how they react in these times more than at any other moment.
Take care. More soon, God willing. 🙂
JTL