Rob Moorman, the Frank S. Holt Professor of Business Leadership in Elon's Love School of Business, offered some insights into an approach to leadership as we face the challenges from the COVID-19 outbreak.
As the community, the country and the world face the multifaceted challenges from the outbreak of the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), Frank S. Holt Professor of Business Leadership Rob Moorman has some insights into a balanced approach to leadership.
Moorman points to the experiences of James Stockdale, an aviator and vice admiral in the U.S. Navy who was held as a prisoner of war in Hanoi during the Vietnam War. Stockdale’s approach to his captivity provided the foundation for what was coined the “Stockdale Paradox” by author Jim Collins in his book, “Good to Great.”
As Moorman explains in the video below, Stockdale discovered that an outlook that balanced a sense of hope with an understanding of current conditions was key to surviving the brutality of his imprisonment. Optimists who had unrealistic expectations that things would get better found themselves devastated when in the short-term they did not, Moorman explains. Likewise, those who lost all hope would feel similarly lost wallowing in the negative.
“What he said is as a leader, what we need to do is balance this notion that we can and will provide hope with a practical sense of what our reality is,” Moorman says. “You’re not somebody who sticks your head in the sand and hopes that everything improves. You understand that things are difficult and you talk about that, but you always couple that with statements, observations, good wishes, that give people a senes that this too will pass, and we will come out of it better for it.”