Writer: Betty Ogiel Rubanga. PHOTO/FILE
The monitors of my vitals were beeping at the hospital, both showing that I was alive and also indicating that my life was hanging in the balance. It had been an excruciating 36 hours of life-altering events, starting with a nasty road accident in Namutumba. We had all survived, but I was worse off than everyone else who was travelling with me in the car I was driving.
Within those 36 hours, I had become paralysed from the neck down, faced the prospect of losing my son, and I had slipped into a coma. But what does a life-altering crisis mean for someone who is part of a team? What does it reveal about leadership?
The humanity of leadership
He was more than your average leader. Perhaps he wasn’t even practising your favourite leadership style. He was just being humane. When it matters most, leadership is about being humane, not just in moments of crisis but throughout our leadership journey.
As the monitors were beeping and I was in a coma, he stopped by my bedside. I do not know how long he was there, but we couldn’t interact. However, I knew he was there because he reached out to me through his faith and his humane nature.
Faced with the prospect of becoming a vegetable and losing my job because of it, my life was at the precipice of a major change—once again. Yet, this leader reached out to me in the state I was in and said, “Betty, we will wait for you.”
I heard those words as clearly as any day. Although I couldn’t respond because I was incapacitated, the words went straight into my spirit, giving me hope and a reason to fight. In a crisis, what we often need is just one more humane person to tell us they are with us. To me, great leadership is the act of high-level care for people; everything else revolves around that.
A catalyst for hope
When my boss said, “We will wait for you,” he literally gave me a fighting chance. The rest was up to me, and it was a big uphill task, but he had opened the door. He had shot the gun that signified my race against paralysis, speech loss, and becoming a vegetable in life. Eventually, we are winning that race more than 17 years down the line.
This brings us to a critical question: What is leadership when it matters the most? When does it matter the most? It’s easy to look at a crisis and identify a shining star who helped humanity through it. But true leadership is not just about crisis management; it’s about consistently doing what matters—caring for people and committing to transformation, no matter what. Maya Angelou said it best when she said, “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”
Leadership beyond titles
Leadership, where it matters, transcends titles. Those in authority have an incredible opportunity to exercise leadership because they have been given official and express authority to do so. But leadership that truly matters goes beyond the title you hold. It reaches the highest position of leadership—humanity.
Reflection questions for leaders:
1. Would a humane leader fail to plan?
2. Would she compromise on her standards?
3. Would she take advantage of people and steal from them?
4. Would she prioritise her needs above serving others?
5. Would she fail to take responsibility when it matters the most?
6. Would she see herself as more important than others?
When my boss showed me care, he didn’t do it because of the laws and by-laws of the organisation. Our company hadn’t even foreseen that an employee could be in the position I was in and probably didn’t have a written response to what needed to happen. Leadership where it matters does what’s right, regardless of precedence. This kind of leadership is found everywhere, with or without a title.
Betty Ogiel Rubanga is a coach, speaker and trainer, [email protected]
