|
|
|
|
| THREE QUESTIONS FOR |
| Lee Hsien Loong |
| At a recent virtual event for Asia’s leaders, Oliver Tonby, chairman of McKinsey’s offices in Asia, had the chance to speak with Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, about his experience leading his country through the pandemic. |
|
|
|
|
| What does good leadership look like in the next normal? |
| First of all, you have to know and you have to believe that good leadership makes a crucial difference. You can have the best group in the world, but unless they can, amongst themselves, muster a leadership team whom they trust, who are capable, who are able to organize them, inspire them, and take them forward—I think their capabilities would be limited, and the group may not even hold together. So, good leadership makes a vital difference. |
| Second, if you are in a leadership position, you have to seek out and make full use of others. There are more things in heaven and earth than you can possibly encompass—even in the most capacious mind. You cannot know it all—you must depend on others who know more about many things than you do. And be able to tap them, get them to work for you, and to put them together in order to get a coherent overall reaction. I talk here about COVID-19, but this is really what you must do in many, many situations. |
| Thirdly, you have to be prepared for surprises and setbacks. You can do the right thing, you can make the best decision, but things can easily turn out differently. And you have to be prepared for that psychologically. Well, you made the best bet. It didn’t work. Let’s play the cards from where they are. |
| As we reimagine the next normal, how is society going to change? |
| The economic impact will linger. Even if COVID-19 disappears tomorrow, economies aren’t going to recover overnight, and the virus is going to be with us for quite some time yet—a year, maybe longer. And the impact on economies will last longer than that, particularly for sectors like travel and tourism, but even the knock-on effects on the rest of the economy as well are considerable. |
| Therefore, there is impact on jobs. And that goes across the board in different ways. For example, many low-income workers can’t work remotely. In a crisis [like this], they are exposed to the public-health risks. But also to the risk of losing their jobs and being thrown onto their own resources, and maybe unable to cope for themselves. |
| The economic stresses, uncertainties, the social stresses, the public-health challenges are not only going to affect our society but are also going to affect trust in government, and therefore the way politics plays out in many countries. |
| How should we think about the role of government? |
| We now know where the limits of markets are; what markets can do, what markets cannot do. And one of the things markets cannot do is to prepare you very well for new pandemics. You may know that they are on the way, but you can’t provide for them. |
| Not even with pandemic insurance—never mind all the other things you must do for resilience, self-reliance, forward planning, and preparing the population. So for situations like that, there is no substitute for the government coming in to play its role. And you have to draw from state resources. You have to commit to them. You have to take a view. And you have to persuade the population that these are investments which are essential, even in the face of many other seemingly more urgent priorities. |
| — Edited by Barbara Tierney |
|
|
|
| BACKTALK |
| Have feedback or other ideas? We’d love to hear from you. |
|
 |
|
|
| Copyright © 2021 | McKinsey & Company, 3 World Trade Center, 175 Greenwich Street, New York, NY 10007 |
|
|
|
