When Boris needed to break with the past, not the rules

Boris Johnson has a colourful history of breaking the rules. He was sacked as a journalist for making stuff up and as an MP for lying about an affair. He built an extension without planning permission, broke ministerial code for failing to declare supplementary earnings and unlawfully prorogated the UK Parliament.

That said, rule-breaking had undeniably served him well given his appointment to the most powerful job in the world’s fifth-largest economy. But then in 2020, Covid struck, and that changed everything. The trouble is, it didn’t change Boris. He didn’t heed that mantra of ‘what got you here won’t get you there’. He didn’t understand that, however successful you’ve been so far, there will always come a point at which you need to adapt in order to keep going.

When you make the rule that prevents children from being with their mother on her 100th birthday, and then continues to keep them from her, you’d better abide by it yourself. Especially if you want to keep making the rules.

But in Boris’s mind, lockdown was just another set of rules that he didn’t need to stick to.

Something in his mind should have told him that he was enforcing the most draconian, liberty-sucking, mental health damaging, wealth-destroying rules ever dictated by the PM in modern peacetime. And that should have rung a bell inside his head that as he had just changed the rules of the game, he himself should adapt to how the game was now being played. But it’s really hard to know when to abandon a winning formula and change what got you here. To do that, you need the three things that constitute adaptability – curiosity, courage and speed.

Boris lacked the curiosity to comprehend the consequences of his actions. He lacked the courage to hold himself and his team to account. And he lacked the speed to manage the situation, apologising only when cornered and only admitting at the eleventh hour that if he had his time again he’d do things differently.

Whether or not Boris survives his latest rule-breaking, he has undoubtedly risked his dream job completely unnecessarily. He has many character traits that make him a stand-out leader on the world stage. But in a world that’s changing fast, he’s missing the one that matters most.

Rich Alderton of High performance Change specialises in adaptability intelligence, so why not get in touch to arrange a consultation?