Part I: Who’s in Charge? Leadership in a Time of Pandemic: Act Well the Given Part

Published date01 January 2020
Date01 January 2020
PART I: WHOS IN CHARGE?
Leadership in a Time of Pandemic: Act Well the
Given Part
James E. Baker*
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
METHODOLOGY & ROADMAP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
I. LEADERSHIP AND PANDEMIC LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
II. WHAT IT MEANS TO PREPARE, ACT, AND LEAD IN A PANDEMIC. . . . . . . . 6
A. Prepare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. Warning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2. Prepare the Public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3. Prepare the Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4. Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5. Bureaucratic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
B. Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
C. Lead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1. Observations About Leadership During A Pandemic . . . 14
2. Good Process Leads to Better Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3. Expertise Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4. Communications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5. Empathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6. The First General Order of Saving Lives: Leadership
Abhors a Vacuum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
III. PERSPECTIVE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF ROLE MODELS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
CONCLUSION: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM AND THE CHALLENGE AHEAD . . . . . 24
INTRODUCTION
Joseph Nye has observed, “Large groups and organizations often learn by cri-
ses and major events that serve as metaphors for organizing and dramatizing
diverse sets of experiences. The Berlin crises and particularly the Cuban missile
* James E. Baker is Director of the Syracuse University Institute for Security Policy and Law and a
Professor at the Syracuse College of Law and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He
previously served as a Judge and Chief Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. As a
career civil servant, he served as Legal Adviser and Deputy Legal Adviser to the National Security
Council. Baker has also served as a Counsel to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and
Oversight Board, an attorney in the State Department, a legislative aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, and as a Marine Corps infantry off‌icer. The author thanks Robert Kimball and Aly Kozma
for their helpful suggestions and edits. © 2020, James E. Baker.
1
crisis of the early 1960s played such a role.”
1
Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 played
a similar role with respect to homeland security. The U.S. Government’s response
to the COVID-19 pandemic will play such a role as well. However, we are not
done with the crisis and do not know when we will be. COVID-19 is here, and
apparently here to stay for the foreseeable future. Thus, the Journal of National
Security Law and Policy has begun the process of identifying new lessons to learn
from the government’s response to COVID-19. For a crisis with an indeterminate
ending, one might hope we immediately apply these lessons to the current crisis
and not just to those still to come. This article addresses leadership.
Most security issues in government, it turns out, present leadership challenges
and might in the f‌irst instance best be addressed with effective leadership. In the
next instance, such issues present process challenges; getting the process right
leads to better policy and to better results. Only in the third instance are issues
resolved through law. This is because, while law can enable key actors by provid-
ing them the authority to act, you cannot legislate leadership. It must come from
within, from the careful study of role models, and from conscious ref‌lection and
application of leadership principles and traits.
METHODOLOGY & ROADMAP
There are several challenges to writing an article on leadership. First, there are
as many def‌initions of leadership as there are leaders. Thus, f‌inding a good met-
ric, let alone an agreed metric, against which to evaluate events with a leadership
lens is diff‌icult. “Leadership” is usually presented in one of three ways: (1) as a
list of traits or precepts, such as the 14 Marine Corps leadership traits preserved
in the elaborate mnemonic device JJ-DIDTIEBUCKLE;
2
(2) as a series of quotes
from great leaders; or (3) through case study, especially the biographical study of
“great leaders” like Lincoln and Mandela.
Second, in an election year, the Trump era, and increasingly during any year,
there is risk that an essay on leadership will be perceived (or intended) as a politi-
cal statement regarding the incumbent president. Here are some of the statements
about leadership during the pandemic in just one week in May 2020:
“More than anything, this pandemic has fully, f‌inally torn back the curtain on
the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing. A lot of
them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.” Barack Obama, May 15, 2020
3
1. Joseph S. Nye, Nuclear Lessons for Cyber Security?, 5-4 STRATEGIC STUDIES Q. 18, 30 (2011).
2. See HEADQUARTERS, U.S. MARINE CORPS RP0103, PRINCIPLES OF MARINE CORPS LEADERSHIP
(2008), https://perma.cc/4NJU-3895.
3. Audra Burch & John Eligon, Obama Says U.S. Lacks Leadership on Virus in Commencement
Speeches, N.Y. TIMES (May 16, 2020), https://perma.cc/7XSM-R9KA.
2 JOURNAL OF NATIONAL SECURITY LAW & POLICY [Vol. 11:1

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