More than three decades have passed since my very first trip to Nepal as part of an international programme that placed me for a summer at Gyanodaya Bal Batika Secondary Boarding School then in Sanepa, Lalitpur. I would return to the country often. Visits to Nepal over the years would include catch-ups with great friends and site visits, and government meetings as part of my role as United States ambassador to the Asian Development Bank.

My next trip to Kathmandu would likely have included a follow-up on a Milken Institute roundtable I was involved in last year on Nepal’s equity markets as well as a chance to see firsthand some of the Nepali companies championed by the Dolma Impact Fund, a private equity fund on whose advisory board I sit.

These and other trips are on hold for now. My last trip from Asia was to the United States this spring for memorial services for Harold Burson, the late founder of the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. It was during an extended break from Burson's firm, now named BCW Global, that I first travelled to Nepal.

In the early 2000s, I became part of the United States team at Burson-Marsteller that worked with the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office as it worked to communicate Hong Kong’s efforts to battle the deadly spread of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome—a disease linked to the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). According to the World Health Organisation, SARS appeared in November 2002 in southern China's Guangdong Province, just across the border from Hong Kong. The first confirmed case of SARS in Hong Kong was in March 2003, and the city would go on to bear a disproportionate brunt of the deaths and economic impact outside of mainland China.

Now as Covid-19—the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2—continues to take its toll worldwide, let us not forget the wisdom of people like Burson. His timeless wisdom holds true today for all as we battle the direct and indirect consequences of the ongoing pandemic. Here are five points I shared at his memorial service that has relevance to the present and would-be leaders in Nepal.

With much of the world’s population in some form of ‘staying at home’ or ‘working from home’, tensions driven by close proximity for days on end are likely to raise tempers and chances for conflict. Certainly, be mindful, but let us also remember the power of kindness. Burson might have been a pioneering CEO at a firm with thousands of employees, but he made time to offer up a kind word, a handwritten note of thanks or an encouraging email.

Corporate titans and US presidents—most famously that other great communicator Ronald Reagan—took to Burson. Every leader develops his or her style. And for Burson, leadership also meant a steely humbleness. Think Yoda, more than General Douglas MacArthur. And that is something that leaders today, including in China where the coronavirus first emerged, might also take to heart. Past success in battling this latest coronavirus is certainly no predictor of future outcomes, and leaders will not want to declare ‘mission accomplished’ too soon.

In building a global business, Burson was no stranger to success or failure. He knew though that accountability was not a punishment or simply about water under the bridge. Through accountability comes change and progress. As Fay Feeney, CEO of advisory firm Risk for Good, tells me, ‘Accountability is an assurance that an individual or an organisation will be evaluated in their performance or behaviour related to something for which they are responsible’. And they will be stronger for it.

A basic tenet of public relations, attributed to American humorist Will Rogers, could well have been attributed to Burson. ‘It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute’. That is echoed in legendary investor Warren Buffett’s oft-quoted statement, ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’d do things differently’. In one minute or five, reputation—like trust—can be lost quickly. And trust, Burson taught me, like a good reputation must be earned over time. And that is true for nations too. Ongoing doubts over the accuracy of Covid-19 case data from China is due in no small part to longstanding doubts about the accuracy over Chinese economic reports.

So, how to earn trust in the age of coronavirus? The solution, Burson might have said, could well be quite simple. That is, tell the truth. And more than that, allow others to tell and report the truth. These words of wisdom ring particularly true at a time when China has thrown out American reporters from the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post, and imposed new restrictions on free speech in Hong Kong.

This past February 15, Burson would have celebrated his 99th birthday. Imagine. Burson was already 64 when I first started working with him way back in 1986, underscoring how each of us too can impact a life at any age. And as I think about it more, Burson’s story is not fully over. He will live on to 100 and beyond through his ideas, his values and through all of us—whether family, friend, client or colleague—if each of us embraces his decency, his humanity, his wisdom. Be kind. Be humble. Be accountable. Earn trust. Tell the truth. They might sound like old-fashioned words of wisdom from a century past. The year-to-date and an ongoing pandemic, however, tell us they are 20th-century lessons that must not be forgotten in the 21st—in Nepal and elsewhere.