India needs leadership
Every day i live and see around me i feel the pain of lack of leadership, (i just read the eighth habit by stephen covey so i may sound delirious). lots of books have described leadership qualities and how to inculcate them or identify them. to my mind the most important are the ability to instill confidence , courage and values. bear with me while i explain.
Confidence is the ability to go forward, without this nothing can be done. a leader must instill confidence to the extent that the people whom he is leading are convinced and willingly see the leaders vision as achievable.
Courage is the ability to go forward even when the situation is not suitable, or the environment reacts unfavourably to the forward momentum. without courage the advantage of confidence is short lived.
Values is the ability to judge from within using a set of core principles. without values the confidence and courage will more likely generate momentum towards disaster.
in this context where are the leaders today ? our leader generate courage in the pack to do anything with confidence that they will get away, however the lacking thing is values.
do you remember the lynching of a company ceo by its workers? to my mind it is purely the lack of leadership that brought about the situation had the ceo been able to instill values into his company then perhaps this would have helped in averting the situation.
similar examples can be drawn from political events like mob attacks on inanimate and living objects.
why is it that the path to destroy will always inspire more followers than the path to creation ? the answer is that destruction takes very little time therefore little courage is required, the spark of leadership is enough. however creation is a long journey and needs a lot of courage and confidence this needs a leadership flame that can keep burning for a lot longer.
let us now take the every day examples that i face which brought me to write this article.
i saw some workers laying pavement dividers , they were moving the heavy blocks by hand. if there was a leader in the industry then he would definitely have thought of better faster and cheaper(less time consuming) ways to get this done. why because the more time it takes the more it costs not just in absolute cost for the job but also in terms of inconvenience to the users of the facility. invariably the existing facility is also destroyed so the hardship is double during the building period.
now multiply that with everything that is going on around you, see how many projects are under execution at the current point in time and you will know the amount of agony that users (citizens ) are suffering.
a leader would have judged the value in creating convenience and would have planned it.
the flyover in peddar road was rightly blocked by residents, you cannot create something by destroying without a backup plan.
while mumbai is busy creating roads for the millions of cars , what about the pavements ? no one is thinking about them. i work at a place 10km from my house and have found that walking is the best form of transport in the current situation.
however there is no pavement on a large stratch of the road, and where there is a pavement there are wires dangling from electric poles or manholes without covers.
is there anyone responsible for supervising(not governing) the city ? you cannot expect ordinary citizens to be supervisors all the time. even if they notice it the procedure to report is unknown or cumbersome.
Packed busses are stuck on roads due to traffic generated by hundreds of cars with a single occupant. the cost in petrol and diesel alone would be more than the cost of putting 200 % extra busses on the road and banning single occupant cars from the roads.
now look around you and see the state of affairs in every single department that is handled by the leaders of india. every thing is done with an objective to ensure that voter recall is there.
they plan only for the next election not for the future of india.
While we wait to welcome a leader with the above qualities, time is passing and will not reverse.
i suggest we at least begin with ourselves, let us inculcate values into our life with courage and confidence.
let us be at least the leader in our life for ourself. stop yourself from taking shortcuts that destroy values. i know that it is difficult to take a stand when you are in the middle of a crowd that is moving, simply because you will be taken for a fool or foolhardy.
it is time for a leadership movement called “Take a stand”
