LEADERSHIP
Time to Take Charge
‘The great pause’ caused by the coronavirus is
an opportunity for emerging leaders
BY Bill Mueller
SHUTTERSTOCK ILLUSTRATION
Life won’t return to the way it
was. We all know this painful
truth. We hear stories of sleepless
nights agonizing over how to keep
food in the fridge and rent paid. Of
finding work in a world where work
stopped. Students graduating into the
unknown. Lives interrupted.
Yet some have become inventive
and aspirational during “the great
pause” — not shrinking into it but
striking back. For these people, the fact
that life won’t return to normal offers
hope. Though change brings disorientation
and hardship, it also means that
old patterns of suffering and injustice
can be changed. The pages of Comstock’s
magazine are filled with examples
of people who had a dream and
were not held back by age, authority or
position. Great leaders inspire others to
become better by following them.
I’ve met many leaders — presidents
and prime ministers, secretaries of
state, army generals, senators, CEOs,
sports heroes, mayors, and community
and religious leaders — and each left
an impression. What I was not expecting
in these encounters was that, pretty
much without exception, each leader
was “a little bit not right.”
There exists some trait, an obsession,
a capacity or a defect within them
24 comstocksmag.com | July 2020