Learning How to Lead Ourselves in a Pandemic

As I receive all kinds of newsletters with webinar offers and strategies of how to remain calm and work remotely during the COVID-19 Pandemic (thanks to everyone who is helping with their knowledge), I thought it would be a good idea to contribute by making our 2018 award-winning documentary available online for anyone to watch on demand, for free (film below).

Make Me A Leader was put together with the intention of helping all of us understand how important it is to develop our own leadership.

Leaders are now currently facing highly complex situations and are required to lead (and follow) in an uncertain and volatile world. It is important that we come together in these times. We must develop a new mindset for the future if we want to solve our global problems, continue to progress and create a better society.

Prior to releasing our film, in 2014 I launched the book ‘Leadership is Upside Down’ to encourage leaders to think differently about how they lead themselves, their teams and organisations. I never imagined as I was writing the book that we would so desperately be needing great leaders to help us navigate this pandemic.

As I bump into Harari’s post on imagining life after COVID-19, I could not be more certain that leadership is the most important skill anyone can develop.

And I mean, anyone!

This includes developing our brain/mind to alter the behaviours and mindsets which inhibit us from progressing and creating a better society. When I say leadership, this is not about ‘how to occupy a leadership position’ (even though people in leadership positions should possess solid leadership skills).

Without developing personally, we can very easily get into the competition / blame / victim / poor decision making we are seeing in some countries at the moment. We see this not only in leaders but in the people who are unable to understand that their actions are affecting others. 

We realise in these moments how critical it is to have great leaders who can positively influence their followers. We understand how important it is for followers to distinguish what’s right from wrong and to develop a team spirit, supporting the survival of a system rather than individual needs or desires. Team spirit means we empathise and help others before thinking of how we benefit first.

If we end up in the hospital, we want to be cared for by people with compassion who are willing to risk their lives to save others. Nobody wants to be cared for by people who do not value human life or who are selfish.

We need to look at this crisis as an opportunity to lift the game, to develop ourselves personally and spiritually.

In my view, this crisis is helping us (amongst many other things):

• Understand that we need connection (giving time and attention to those we love is the basis of a good society) - GENEROSITY
• See how nature is starting to show signs of recovery (we are making space for it instead of behaving like bullies towards the world’s flora and fauna) - BALANCE
• Change the way we work to allow the upcoming generation to work better (without controlling bosses micromanaging and resisting change) - AGILITY 

The moment is now. We should take this opportunity to assess our leadership abilities and how we think about the world. 

Take care of yourselves and enjoy the ‘Make Me A Leader’ Documentary.

Silvia Damiano & the About my Brain Institute Team

How to Use our Film

This film can now be screened/shared for free to any type of audience, shown in any organisation and used as part of an online training program for staff or students. It is also available with the following captions: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Chinese (Simplified). You can share the link or embed the film using our Facebook or YouTube players.

For media inquiries, broadcasting, distribution, information on our corporate training offering or if you would like to purchase an offline copy / DVD of this film, contact us!