Compassion

What makes a good leader?

I’m not actually sure why that particular word jumped into my mind but let’s go with it.

Compassionate people care about others, they don’t live in a singular world they live in a collective one. You might say:

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one” Star Trek The Wrath of Khan

If you look at life that way then as a leader you will seek to do your best for the greatest number of people that you can, without making the lives of others worse.

You would be a person who put country before party. Something UK politicians don’t do. They may be compassionate people, I actually feel that Sunak is, but the Conservatives think nothing of undermining their leaders, Johnson and Truss I understand, but not the constant bullying of the far right to get what they believe in.

Working this through I would say that compassion and a strong sense of duty are the marks of a true leader.

A true leader?

She didn’t have to sit alone, her friend and Lady in Waiting lived with her, but the public had to so she did. That’s understanding your role, your duty, and your people. That was compassion, duty, and perhaps that other very key word – respect.

The Royal residences are huge, the then Prince of Wales could have stayed at Windsor with his mother. They could have eaten together ten feet from each other. Spoken together in rooms twenty feet wide with massive windows. They didn’t. We couldn’t see our elderly relatives so they didn’t.

She and our new King mixed with ordinary people all over the world, all their lives. They both respect their peoples enough not to break the rules we have to follow. That’s a true leader.

Obviously she could, and the King can, only advise. But what sort of leader would she have been? The King has dedicated his life to the things he was laughed at for, the planet, the climate, and we now know he was right.

Trying to save the things that matter to the whole world. What sort of leader could he be? We will never know, what a shame.

A sense of humour would be nice too. I think I’ll remember her as much for this as anything. Haven’t laughed so much in years. That and finally knowing what was in her handbag. She waited until her final illness to tell us.

What a woman! Finished her last red box, closed her eyes, and left us. 70 years of doing the right thing 24/7/52/365.

My all-time, compassionate, hero. I would have voted for her.

Deb xx