These days, sim­ply lis­ten­ing to the news or read­ing the news­pa­pers is a psy­cho­log­i­cal haz­ard. Trag­ic news is loud­er than good news. Peo­ple car­ing for oth­ers, is over­shad­owed by peo­ple in­tent on harm­ing oth­ers. In the past few weeks in T&T, we’ve wit­nessed more than our fair share of in­hu­man­i­ty. The big ques­tion is, “Where and how do we be­gin to res­cue our­selves and our so­ci­ety from a per­ilous fu­ture?”

My think­ing is that hu­man­i­tar­i­an­ism, that shows up as “care,” must be­come a na­tion­al vi­sion. This man­date would be a tri­par­tite un­der­tak­ing. Through our gov­ern­men­tal in­sti­tu­tions, care has to be el­e­vat­ed to dis­tinc­tive de­liv­ery of goods and ser­vices, where no cit­i­zen is left be­hind.

All the while, bal­anc­ing eco­nom­ic progress, with time­less val­ues, that can with­stand the test of the dark­est of times. Cit­i­zens should ex­pe­ri­ence in­sti­tu­tions that are found­ed on the watch­words of ef­fi­cien­cy and ex­e­cu­tion. In oth­er words, our in­sti­tu­tions must func­tion well.

But there’s an­oth­er re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that has be­come ur­gent to T&T in these times. The need to raise the na­tion­al psy­che to “ex­cel­lence” as a per­son­al watch­word. We have to con­sol­i­date our col­lec­tive ef­fort, by aim­ing to do our best, do­ing our best and be­ing our best.

Ex­cel­lence was once our bea­con, but win­ning the oil and gas lot­tery, may have shift­ed our fo­cus from in­ner, to out­er di­rect­ed growth.

The cam­paign has to be imbed­ded in com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivism, in sports, in schools and ac­cel­er­at­ed through the pow­er of vol­un­teerism. While some com­mu­ni­ties are well re­sourced for this through in­fra­struc­ture and NGO net­works, oth­ers with­out the where­with­al, will ben­e­fit sig­nif­i­cant­ly. The hu­man cap­i­tal ex­per­tise can be sourced by mo­bi­liz­ing cit­i­zen vol­un­teers.

Those of us who op­er­ate in the busi­ness are­na, are no strangers to the fact that the work­place is a stage where life un­folds in re­al time. Fears, doubts, trau­mas, un­re­solved is­sues, as well as joys, achieve­ments and suc­cess­es, all share the same stage. The work­place is ripe for use as a con­duit for pro­mot­ing ex­cel­lence as a way of life. Af­ter all, it’s the place where in­di­vid­u­als are cap­tive for half of their day­time hours.

In this work­place re­al­i­ty, lead­er­ship re­fine­ment is not op­tion­al. It de­mands a new code of lead­er­ship. Busi­ness­es need to be­come sat­u­rat­ed with em­pa­thy and lead­ers need to lead the way. If em­pa­thet­ic lead­er­ship is not a leader’s forte, there are learn­ing op­tions and re­sources that can fill that gap nice­ly.

The man­date is to en­sure that work­place en­vi­ron­ments are no longer high­ly charged with noise, tox­i­c­i­ty and volatil­i­ty. They need to be­come safe havens for em­ploy­ees, where calm ner­vous sys­tems can thrive. The leader’s sig­nal to noise ra­tio must change, so that an em­pa­thy-led cul­ture, be­comes a strate­gic as­set for busi­ness suc­cess. Now, let me clear up a mis­con­cep­tion. Em­pa­thy does not over­ride fair and fear­less lead­er­ship. It oc­cu­pies earned space on the hu­man side of ef­fec­tive gov­er­nance.

One more thing. Lead­ers should do their best to heal be­fore they ac­cept the in­vi­ta­tion to lead. When lead­ers car­ry un­re­solved trau­ma, out­rage gets buried with­in a busi­ness. Such tox­ic en­er­gy at the top, then rip­ples unchecked across the busi­ness. In­vest­ing in ex­ec­u­tive coach­ing or ther­a­py to en­sure that un­re­solved pain is not trans­ferred in­to the busi­ness, is not an in­dul­gence. It is re­gard­ed as a func­tion of lead­er­ship in­tegri­ty.

While gov­ern­men­tal in­sti­tu­tions have their cit­i­zen­ship man­date and busi­ness­es have their du­ty of care, in­di­vid­u­als need to in­vest in per­son­al growth and pros­per­i­ty prac­tices. In the midst of the most try­ing of cir­cum­stances, in­di­vid­u­als must be­come re­silient and bat­tle ready. In the midst of out­rage, in­di­vid­u­als need to take care of them­selves and their well-be­ing. They have to do what they can, to res­cue them­selves.

Ef­fec­tive per­son­al growth and pros­per­i­ty prac­tices are crit­i­cal to main­tain­ing com­po­sure in the midst of change and chal­lenge. In­di­vid­u­als are prompt­ed to live in­ten­tion­al­ly. They are in­spired to main­tain an op­ti­mistic out­look on life and to de­vel­op a flight plan. Defin­ing one’s pur­pose in life, is an act that sup­ports di­rec­tion­al clar­i­ty. Liv­ing in grace and grat­i­tude, is an­oth­er act that fu­els hu­man re­silience.

Out­rage will not dis­ap­pear on its own. It re­quires de­ci­sive ac­tion on the part of gov­ern­men­tal in­sti­tu­tions and busi­ness­es. But most of all, it re­quires in­di­vid­u­als to not be over­whelmed by life. Eas­i­er said than done of course. But achiev­able through tools that build the in­ner ar­chi­tec­ture for nav­i­gat­ing life and side-step­ping emo­tion­al col­lapse.