Leadership Counts

In the backdrop of the coming Lok Sabha elections, where we are going to elect our leaders or representatives, the topic of leadership becomes important. Leadership does really count especially when it comes to producing significant results, whether in the government or private sector. Organizations that produce good results are usually those where this is guided and mentored by good leaders. Not surprisingly though, the non-government sector is doing much better. In Nagaland too, the trend is quite clear that better institutions are being created in the private sector. We have good examples of many leaders from amongst the Naga community who are making a real difference to the work that they are doing. Whether in education, Church, civil society, business, music etc. we have leaders who are role models and leading by example. This shows that Nagas are capable of producing good leaders and thereby institutions of excellence. In other words one can also say that good leaders are produced outside of the government. Why is this so? Leadership is all about trust and for this to happen, a leader has to be transparent, honest and reliable. Another quality of a leader that we should expect is for them to be a role model and to lead by example. Perhaps by its very nature of being a corrupting influence, the government system is unable to nurture such kind of leadership.   

There is no dearth of leaders in our midst; including in the government sector but what we don’t have is leaders of quality who are committed to the people. Today’s leaders claim to espouse the cause of the people. They are good at making all sorts of assurance, especially during the time of elections, but they soon forget and instead work for the self. Majority of our leaders have amassed wealth beyond their known source of income. Because of this, the common people are suffering. There is a wide gap between the haves and the have not’s.  As someone said, becoming a leader can be a ‘real power trip’. They take pleasure in controlling both people and information. In India we are well aware of the ‘Officials Secrets Act’ (OSA) which has come to facilitate clandestine deals, arbitrary decisions, manipulations and embezzlements. By legalizing secrecy in administration and thereby leadership, the OSA remains a barrier towards having an open and accountable government. And once our leaders start to be secretive or hoard information for their vested interests there is going to be not just corruption but a trust deficit with the people.

Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of world renowned company General Electric in his book ‘Winning’, makes an enlightened observation about leadership. According to him, “before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself” but “when you become a leader, success is all about growing others”. In essence what this implies is that good leadership is all about caring passionately about your people—about their growth and success and not necessarily about yourself anymore. If this is the test of leadership, how many of our so called leaders will qualify to be true leaders in the sense that they will sacrifice their self for the people. Looked at it differently, this will mean all round development, truthful implementation of all the schemes and programmes worth crores of rupees for the benefit of people, good roads all year round, regular supply of electricity, access to proper health care, fair system of taxation (by the UG groups), equality of opportunity especially when it comes to education, jobs and other social benefits. In fact if our leaders do indeed work for the people, many of the grievances we see today would have been addressed. In reality however, we know that this is not so. No matter what, good leadership does really count. It makes the much needed difference. The question is do people really have a choice to elect the right kind of leaders?