Leaders

Ultimately we are all but leaders, managing certain teams. A senior official has his team of employees, an ordinary person interacts with his own unique niche of individuals throughout the day. Whosoever it be, none can achieve worthwhile quality of life or leisure for creative endeavours unless one delegates a part of his duties to his team members. However such delegation does not liberate him from the responsibility of the outcomes : had it been so, a leader would be reduced to a cog in the wheel. The constant stress of such responsibility both refines the personality and limits the growth of the leader, depending on how he manages the stress. Of course experience aids him to better manage such stress, but attitude often gets the better of experience.

Thus I consider attitude to be a defining pillar of leadership, integrity being the other pillar. Infact attitude is the main difference between a depressed and an elated person, between being the controller and the controlled, between disease and health, between heaven and hell! Life becomes a million times easier with the right attitude. Who else can better appreciate this fact than a leader. His attitude towards his line and staff personnel, towards seniors, towards exigencies, and towards daily tasks outlines the comfort and output at work. A man with the right attitude can adapt to any situation, handle any emergency, tackle the troublesome and encourage the apathetic. Very soon, he simply becomes a decision-maker: he decides, commands and simply monitors some key performance indicators. In case the output is unfavourable, he has two options : either appease or penalise. In the earlier stages of his career, he appeases, but once he realises his penalising powers, once he understands the illegality of routine actions of his team, in other words once he catches their weaknesses, once he catches the bull by the horn, he can silence rebellion and tame the natural tendency of his team not to work. The leader needs to target the Achilles heel: as Machiavelli said : It is better to be feared than loved, for people love at their own will but fear at the will of the prince. No bull can be sustainably tamed otherwise.

Today the politicians have caught that key nerve. They bear the stick (Danda) in today’s India. The situation is fast changing though, and therefore they fear change. They fear technology. They fear transparency. They fear proportional representation. They fear online voting. The constitution saves them from such changes. In the name of legislative power, they ensure these vital aspects of the law are never amended. They create an illusive cult of fear in people to stifle the spirit of inquiry and change. Such is the fear among the masses that any little incentive is received with delight. This sustains a culture of freebies, sustenance livelihood and curtailed ambitions. Creative and progressive interventions are often seen as a burden rather than a desired move.

Any society where change is a tedious process, is out of date. A leaders’s task, alongwith maintaining stability, is to usher progressive change. Change will be uncomfortable for most, at both the sending and receiving ends, but it has to be effected any way. Present day politicians therefore can never be good leaders. Leaders thus have to emerge in administration. A few diplomatic yet integral, uncompromising bureaucrats can use a variety of public administration tools to deliver justice in the truest sense.

Again attitude is the deciding trait. A proper attitude is the best guide of a leader through murky and rudderless waters of his unpredictable work-life. Surely there are risks, but if they are worth taking within safety limits, take them. That’s the only way a leader can rise up the rungs of maturity.