David Donnan

This week we have seen our first tropical storm of the hurricane season. All week Beryl has been reaking havoc. As I was checking twitter the other day two tweets caught my eye and reminded me of two leadership principles.

The first was this:

It was apparent there was a de-lima. As Beryl took an intermission, Tybee was crowded with people hoping to enjoy a day at the beach. Unfortunately there were some extreme rip currents. What should be done? As a leader you want to encourage people to enjoy and visit your area, yet you want to be able to make sure they are safe. I did not want to be whoever was in charge of making the call on this one. The first thing I was reminded of is leadership is about making tough decisions.

The second tweet seemed to be a compromise. Apparently one red flag means you can still get in the water, but according to the news you can only get into up to knee deep. I know it is hard to put the entire idea into a 140 character tweet, but it made me wonder.  How do they enforce “knee deep”? Did the life guard or police pull people out who went in below knee deep? What if I was knee deep, but when a wave came in it went above my knees? The second thing I realized is there may not always be a clear answer. If it were easy leaders would not need to make the decisions. If the choice was clear anyone could make it.

Am I on track here? Let me know.