Leadership is an opportunity to serve, not a trumpet call to self-importance

Many years ago I lived in Wales. I had a smallholding and enjoyed some of the best years of my life, being both a nurse and a hobby farmer. The house was located on the side of a valley and the views went on for miles. Most of the time the valley was quiet, with just the occasional tractor to be heard in the distance or the lowing of cattle and the calls of mother sheep trying to locate their lambs. That was until I got a pair of peafowl.

I had always wanted peacocks and eventually decided to get a pair. They came from Norwich. All those years ago it was quite common to buy live birds and have them delivered to your nearest train station. I was very excited when they came. They were stunning, the male had bright blue plumage and his missus speckled white feathers. 

However, their most striking feature was their call. It is a cross between a ‘meow’ and a ‘yowl’ emitted at full volume and which can be heard over long distances. It is unmistakable and once heard will be instantly recognisable thereafter. They were inclined to call at the slightest thing. Now I love the sound, but many people don’t and whilst it was fine in the Welsh countryside, they are not really suitable for urban environments. So when I moved to Manchester, they couldn’t come with me and were donated to friends. The couple are no longer my friends…

This lovely memory was sparked by reading the story last week of a Russian zoo that had sent a pair of peacocks to the frontline in Ukraine. This rather bizarre gift was aimed at lifting the mood of the Russian troops and allow them to find some spiritual tranquillity through contemplating and admiring the beauty of the birds. I may be completely wrong, but on the front line of what is an unremittingly brutal war, I’m not sure the continuous sound of a pair of peacocks screeching is going to help raise morale or bring spiritual tranquillity to the soldiers. Being a soldier at war is a high stress job.

And so, apparently, is being a politician*. Last week I read the story of how many politicians experience poor mental health and mental wellbeing. The story was prompted by the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez openly contemplating resigning, because he was mentally exhausted. He has eventually decided to stay on. It is the toxic nature of contemporary politics that seems to be taking its toll on our senior political leaders. Something noted last week by my former colleague at the University of Salford, Dr Ashley Weinberg. He is one of the few researchers who have collected data on politicians and their mental wellbeing. Ashley noted that ‘we want people in all kinds of occupations to be in the best possible frame of mind and state to do their work’, and ‘we are hearing many politicians now saying there’s only so long I can do this work’.

In recent times there have been many examples of skilled and experienced political leaders resigning because of the impact that stress has had on their health and wellbeing. In recent times Leo Varadkar, Jacinda Arden, Sigrid Kaag have all unexpectedly resigned cited how the pressures of the role impacted on their health and the wellbeing of their families. Likewise, in his resignation speech last week, Humza Yousaf described politics today being a ‘brutal business’ and ‘it takes a toll on your physical and mental health: your family suffer alongside you’. No one should be subject to the type of abuse these folk have reported experiencing while undertaking their public service.

In 2023 the Apolitical Foundation carried out a study with over 100 current and former political leaders. When asked, 41% of these folk reported having low or very low mental wellbeing. This is a much lower level of wellbeing than that reported by police, emergency fire and rescue responders and paramedics; professions consistently acknowledged as being high stress professions.   

Some of the pressure comes from long working hours, political accountability, often unrealistic public expectations, and managing situations like the Covid pandemic, global conflicts, the climate crisis and so on. These days, instant news-sharing on social media also plays a significant role in creating stress and harm. The ability for anyone to easily communicate with those in power or communicate their thoughts about those in power just adds more pressure. When email was first introduced in 1971, I would perhaps get two to three emails a day. These days I can get 50 to 100+ emails a day, and some of which are hurtful and verge on harassment. The same with social media. When Twitter (X) started in 2006, I would get just a few tweets a day, now it can often be 30 – 40 tweets, and again, some are not pleasant to read. I’m not famous, and only have a modest following on social media. I cannot imagine what it must be like for those folk constantly in the public eye.

I don’t know how we might improve this situation. I do know it certainly wouldn’t involve donating a pair of peafowl to each political leader. However, peacocks can teach us something. They have 15-20 different and distinct calls. Most are aimed at warning other peacocks of impending danger. Perhaps we all need to be more attentive when our politicians call out for help - folk like Pedro Sanchez - and collectively find ways of supporting them as people first and politicians second. In a very turbulent world, we need more of our political leaders to be physically and mentally well.

  

*I was amused to read that the biggest political peacock (or possibly turkey?) of recent times, Boris Johnson, was turned away from his local polling station after forgetting to bring acceptable photo ID with him. It was his government that introduced the ‘no ID, no vote’ policy in 2022.