Mal Fletcher comments on the quality of political leadership in the Brexit process.

Prime Minister May and her cabinet could certainly be clearer on what they hope to achieve in the long run and their vision for Britain's future.

But I daresay that even Winston Churchill, for all his magnetism and leadership skill, would have found this Brexit process difficult to navigate.

In times of massive and rapid change, we are right to demand from political leaders a voice of clarity, transparency and hope.

But we must also remain patient and be prepared to endure the drip, drip, drip of public rhetoric, if it helps politicos to guage public response to their ideas.

In politics, leaders will often give speeches designed to test ideas, as opposed to firmly and finally nailing them to the doors.

We must swallow our sense of frustration, accomodating their need to cast proverbial bread upon the waters, waiting to see what harvest it returns.

I think it was the infamous Jim Hacker of Yes, Minister fame who once said: "I am the people's leader, I must follow them!"

He was both right and wrong. Hacker was wrong in the sense that leadership is usually about moving people beyond their comfort zones. But he was right in that a conducter must face an orchestra to conduct it well.

Leadership must always hold in tension a vision for the end destination and a keen sense of the capacity of people to accept change.

In the Brexit process there will be no completely happy-ever-after-ending. There never is, in anything involving human beings, despite our best intentions.

I think most Brits accept that the final deal will not suit all of the people all of the time.

For most, it will present areas of genuine concern even if, as seems likely, the sense of unease is tempered by a palpable relief once the deal is actually done.

For one thing, Brexit will inevitably involve economic challenges, certainly in the short term. We must accept that and make space to accommodate it.

That said, we must look beyond the discomfort, trusting that in time the benefits of Britain's innate inventiveness and international connections will help her to readjust, refocus and rejuvenate.