Those with New Hearts and New Spirits #1 (read time 3 minutes 15 seconds, word count 506)

The type of leaders we had just a few weeks ago and prior to the COVID-19 pandemic are not the type of leaders that will lead us successfully beyond it. Moreover, I have been reading substantial commentary regarding what combination of skills it will take to lead during the exiting transitions and into the uncertainty, potential instabilities, and the likely impermanence of “the new normal.”

I have failed to uncover any reference to what I believe to be the most important requirement for leader’s post-pandemic among the other leadership TAGS (Talents, Abilities, Giftings and Skills) about which I have previously written. I now conclude:

We must have new leaders with new hearts and new spirits.

New hearts and new spirits will enable new hopes, innovations, bold strategies, and tactics that are best executed by fully engaged people. New hearts and new spirits are both a Biblical mandate and an incredibly sound leadership principle. They cross-inform each other and produce outcomes not otherwise achieved through old hearts and old spirits.

Some leaders grieving losses will see recovery from COVID-19 as burdensome and the future as onerous and will, without doubt, yearn for the good old days, many of which were not all that good.

Some leaders will attempt a return to former realities or will choose to opt out of new and indeterminate ones. Many leaders see a post-COVID world as the tipping point in their careers and the “reset” button will be pushed or the “quit” option taken.

Some leaders will quit and leave their jobs. Other leaders will quit and stay in their jobs. These are the ones most like to retain their old hearts and old spirits.

Some leaders see recovery as a salvage or rescue mission focused on regaining lost customers, market share, employees, reputation, and profitability. However critical these recovery issues are, there is much more to be reignited and ultimately gained through the new hearts and new spirits of unflinching and resolute leaders.

Others see the approaching workout and hoped-for stages of stability as genuine opportunities to arrange and capitalize upon the newly minted “new normal.” They envision an explosively fresh era of personal freedom and vocational promise. They anticipate organizational and institutional emancipation from oppressive regulatory overreach. They are examining the efficacy our government’s response to crisis and its use of emboldened power over commerce and citizens that would never have occurred without COVID-19.

Prescient individuals will envision a post-COVID world as an opening to become more intellectually, emotionally, medically, and politically aware. They will better position themselves within the workplace and be more vocationally visible to the marketplace. They will expand their opportunity consciousness, increase their professional and personal influence, and/or launch an entrepreneurial endeavor.

Good leaders must model what it means to have new hearts and new spirits and to inspire others to also have the same.

(My next post will define and apply what “new hearts and new spirits” mean.)