Leadership

What is leadership? Most of us can recognize a leader or leadership qualities when we see them. Yet we would be hard pressed to define leadership conclusively. Perhaps this is because different people have different ideas of what constitutes leadership. Leadership can occur in almost any situation. We tend to think of it in grand terms. Someone who leads a nation through a difficult time or gives a grand vision - a destiny you could say - to fulfill. However, leadership occurs in more modest environs as well. Corporate leadership is a well documented phenomenon. Most of the large corporations in the world today were built up through corporate leadership. Many of the improvements in the quality of life were built up through someone taking up an issue and working for improvement in that area.

If defining leadership is hard to pin down, then perhaps we can look at some of the characteristics of leadership. In my view, leaders have a vision for the future towards which they work for. It is a vision that they can inspire in other people as well. Someone who has vision but is unable to inspire it in others fails to become a leader. Leaders need not be charismatic in the strict definition of the word. They do need to bring others round to their vision and that has to be more than strictly utilitarian. Some of the best corporate leaders like Jack Welch and Bill Gates have had very clear ideas of where they want their organizations to be.

More later.

On Leadership

Where have the leaders gone? Why are we (and by we, I mean nearly every nation) being led by people who in earlier generations would have been considered pygmies? Tony Blair - a leader? Come on! George W. Bush - a leader? Don't make me laugh. Sarkozy, Berlusconi, Putin; these people cannot be labeled as leaders. The developing countries are led by non-entities except in cases where they are being led by criminals. There are a few exceptions. Obama may shape up to be a leader although the jury is out on that right now. At least he has the ability to inspire people which is one of the hallmarks of a leader.

It was not always thus. The world has experienced leadership - true leadership in living memory. It is said that the moment brings forth the man. Look back into the past. At both moments of existential crises for nations and moments of great importance to them, true leaders have stepped forth - men who inspired their nations through difficult and uncertain times. Abraham Lincoln during the US civil war, Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, Winston Churchill during World War II, George Marshall who helped formulate the Marshall Plan which helped Europe to rebuild after being devastated, Mohandas K. Gandhi - an instrumental figure in the Indian independence movement, Mohammad Ali Jinnah who almost single-handedly created a country, Kemal Ataturk who foiled plans to dismember Turkey and helped the country onto a modern path and many others. There are also negative leaders: men who inspired their nations and then led them onto a destructive path. People like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin - a man who played a destructive role in that he caused the deaths of approximately 20 million in his reign but who also played a positive role in that he inspired his people to resist German invasion in World War II.

So, my original question: where have the leaders gone? The caliber of the political leadership since the 70s has gone into a serious decline. The people who have come to power are not leaders. They have not inspired their nations to new heights or to new ventures. They are pygmies who are obsessed with day to day management and the public opinion. It is a reflection of the times that when someone is thrown from power, or even when that person is in power, his/her ratings in the opinion polls is seriously taken as a measure of success. In fifty years time, no one will remember what the opinion polls said about say Tony Blair. Instead he will have been judged on his record, his actions during power. Personally I doubt anyone will think of Blair as a leader. Today, we are faced with serious economic, ecologic, cultural and political crises. Many of them are large enough to cause massive disruption individually and we are faced with a whole host of them all at once. The times call for inspiring leadership. Someone who will galvanize and inspire the population. What do we have instead? Mostly moral pygmies who inspire nothing but distrust and contempt.

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