Overly convenient falsehoods and inconvenient truths: Not what leaders thought they would learn()

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent global economic meltdown severely challenged the world. What leadership lessons did we learn? What should we have learned? As global managers and international human-resource-management thought leaders, have we undervalued the role of humility? Have we overemphasized leaders’ impact while markedly underestimating the often-decisive influence of context? Have we embraced convenient illusions and rejected inconvenient truths? Whereas we are excellent at learning, are we equally good at unlearning—at dropping prior approaches and assumptions that either no longer work or have proven false? Have we succeeded in transcending the limiting vocabulary of economic efficiency and embraced a wider range of values and priorities to guide our most important strategies? How skilled are we at learning from each other, when ’the other’ differs markedly from us in what they look like, in the languages they speak, and in their most cherished beliefs? What roles are historic parochialism, ethnocentrism, and exceptionalism continuing to play in the 21st century? There is no single heroic expert who can give us the answers or guide us in reaching the future we yearn for. Rather, we need the best thinking, reflection, and creativity of all of us. This article opens that conversation with insights drawn from countries’ successes and failures during the pandemic. It then examines the process of learning—and unlearning—both during the pandemic and as it relates to the wider range of challenges currently confronting society. The article is an invitation to all of us to learn from each other by repeatedly unlearning convenient falsehoods and embracing novel, but inconvenient truths. It is an agenda that we avoid at our peril.