Permit Me to Die Before You Bury Me: Stop Managing People Like Problems

A man said something I haven’t been able to unhear. While everyone in the studio argued, I kept thinking — how did we get so comfortable deciding who counts? When someone has to beg not to be written off while they’re still breathing, you realise this was never about policy ... it was about who we’re willing to erase.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

I heard this line on ITV News the other night — a man’s voice, loud and pleading: “Permit me to die before you bury me".

It stopped me mid-sip. What a thing to say!

To ask — not for safety or shelter but for the dignity to live before being written off.

It was during one of those political debates — asylum seekers, immigrant visas, and the argument over whether people should be housed in army barracks. As the shouting carried on — left versus right, policy versus politics — this desperate voice cut through the noise.

The Debate That Forgot the People

It’s strange how we debate humanity like it’s a budget line. They spoke about “them” — as if “they” were a problem to be solved. 

Numbers. Quotas. Impact. Cost.

No names, faces, or stories. 

We do this everywhere > in politics, organisations and boardrooms. We talk about people as if they’re chess pieces and call it leadership. Leadership without humanity? That’s just management dressed up in empathy’s clothing.

I Remember the Barracks

That debate dragged up a feeling I thought I’d buried — and a memory I hadn’t faced in a very long time

Back in apartheid South Africa, I travelled with students from all over the country to a small coastal town for an 'interracial social experiment'. We tried to check into a hotel, and the moment we arrived — I’ll never forget it — there were protesters outside. Angry faces, ugly signs, and a whole lot of noise. We weren’t welcome.

The hotel didn’t want “trouble,” so they called the church. The church called the army. And that’s how we were escorted out — not for anything we did, but for the colour of our skin.

We were taken to the army barracks and slept there for two nights. We bathed in the sea and ate what we could. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was safe. And sometimes, safety was enough.

So when I hear people on the news talk about housing asylum seekers in army barracks, I feel it deep in my bones because I know what that feels like ...

Can you imagine what it feels like to be contained — not welcomed or protected, just managed?

... to be watched, controlled, tolerated, but never seen?!

That’s why the word ‘barracks’ probably hits me differently — the feeling of it never left!

The Difference Between Control and Courage

Take everything away and what stays is simple > leadership has come up short.

And when your safety, movement, and even your dignity have been held by people who live far outside your reality, it leaves a mark you don’t easily forget.

Short-term thinking loves control and optics.

Visionary leaders know better — every decision lands on a human being before it lands on a policy page.

I felt this again after a client shared what she’d witnessed at the 80th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 80) and Climate Week NYC. Leaders refused to frame migration as a crisis. Instead, they focused on talent, contribution, renewal — the possibility that unfolds when people are included rather than pushed aside.

They weren’t dressing up outdated systems — they were calling out the beliefs that kept those systems alive. Hearing that took a weight off my chest and reminded me what leadership looks like when courage leads the conversation.

When you’ve lived inside the consequences of exclusion — say, you’ve been escorted out of a town by soldiers, sleeping in barracks because your skin was seen as a threat — you don’t forget!

AND ... you remember what happens when leaders choose humanity over fear. That’s why the decisions leaders make now matter more than they realise.

Seeing People First

When you stop seeing people, you stop leading. It’s as simple — and as complicated — as that. Strip away someone’s story, name, purpose, and you start to believe the narrative they’re a burden instead of a possibility.

That’s how societies, teams, and even families lose their humanity — one unchecked bias at a time.

I’ve encountered both kinds of leadership: fear that buries people under bureaucracy, and humanity that brings people back to life. The first only looks powerful. The second is powerful.

Before You Bury Them

That man’s words — “Permit me to die before you bury me” — have echoed in my head ever since. The impact wasn’t limited to asylum; it exposed something deeper about all of us — what happens when control takes centre stage and human care and decency drop out of the frame.

And I keep thinking — the difference between me and that man isn’t worthiness. It’s luck, geography, and timing.

Years ago, a group of soldiers looked at a group of students and saw our humanity before anything else.

So before we let fear, politics, and privilege swallow people whole, maybe we need to pause long enough to see them, listen, and remember.

Desperate DOES NOT mean dangerous.

Unhoused DOES NOT mean unqualified.

And survival IS NOT a threat.

Human leadership begins with sight, compassion, and the courage to see people long before the world tries to bury them.

Sometimes I think back to those barracks — the echo of boots on concrete, the salt in the air, the uncertainty of it all — and I remember how small the world can make you feel when it decides you don’t belong.

I remember how quiet everything becomes when it tries to erase you and how much of that ache stays lodged inside you, carried for years in a silence you learn to live with.

And THAT'S WHY we deserve better than fear dressed up as authority. One act of courage is enough to pull an entire life back into colour.

#HumanLeadership #SeeThePerson #CourageOverControl #DignityFirst