Traumatised societies need ethical leaders

SOCIETIES that have emerged from traumatic experiences need leaders that offer hope, emphasise forgiveness and govern in the widest interests of all, rather than for one group.

Leadership is at a higher premium in societies that come from trauma, are ethnically diverse, have high levels of inequality and where democratic rules, institutions and democratic governance are not fully embraced by all. Traumas from such regimes deny the humanity of those they oppress, resulting in broken individuals and societies.

During trauma, individuals are often forced into moral compromises to survive, which blurs the line of right and wrong. They frequently live for the now because no imaginable future appears possible. Short-term thinking often becomes the norm, because planning for the future appears fruitless.

People

Such societies may grasp false beliefs to ameliorate their fears, pain and insecurity. They may also hold on to practices, even if they are harmful, that give them a sense of place, self and identity. In the political sphere, many people emerging from trauma may also put misplaced ethnic, language or political solidarity often with organisations, leaders and practices that may no longer serve their interests.

They may attach loyalty to collective organisations and leaders, even if these organisations and leaders prove to be corrupt, incompetent and uncaring. Societies emerging from trauma may fall into victimhood more easily, blaming others and internal enemies rather than proactively building a new future. The victimhood mindset, ironically, may often be the source of new conflict, unleashed by the former oppressed group, with the victim often becoming the perpetrator.

Produce

It appears that societies emerging from collective trauma tend to produce a disproportionate number of leaders who are broken, and unable to transcend their brokenness.

These types of people, in many cases, focus on their own self-aggrandisement, often deliberately sowing societal divisions for self-enrichment.

The challenge is for people who emerge from traumatic events to construct new moral values, build for the long-term and re-imagine a new future based on hope. Such societies need new kinds of leaders. They should not make decisions based on community solidarity, but on ethical values. They should dismiss both harmful beliefs and traditions.

Leaders must be resilient to lead complex

change after traumatic events, and not fall into the trap of victimhood, scapegoating and revenge.

Leaders must emphasise forgiveness and reconciliation; the past cannot be erased, but one can choose how to respond to the past, and how to forge a new future.

Acknowledge

Forgiveness is difficult in countries where the former leaders did not acknowledge the harm they have done. But one can forgive someone who is not apologising for a wrong, although an apology from the wrongdoer would make forgiveness easier.

At individual level, forgiveness leads to inner peace, at a communal level it helps with healing from the trauma. “Forgiveness can mean you step into your present rather than anchoring in the past,” Rubin Khoddam wrote in The Psychology of Forgiveness in Psychology Today. Vengefulness because of their traumatic past undermines the ability of leaders to provide quality stewardship.

Leaders must lead with hope. Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that, in the spaciousness of uncertainty, is room to act. When you recognise uncertainty, you recognise that you may be able to influence the outcomes – you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable.