Being a management consultant I spend most of my professional life learning, teaching and talking about leadership. So its but natural that I observe everything with a leadership lense, including politics. Our political leaders are truly amazing – they all seem to have studied in the same exclusive university ( yes even those who can’t actually read), which teaches them how to behave absolutely contrary to every leadership principle ever written. Considering that they can’t seem to agree on the most minor and trivial of matters, this unanimous agreement is in itself no small feat.
The fundamental principle of leadership is to have a clear and forward thinking Vision. It is that vision for a strong and robust future which drives all other actions of the leader. A vision is a collective goal for the organization and is for the betterment of the business as a whole. It is what ensures the perpetuity of the organization in the future. A company without a challenging and healthy vision finds itself stagnating and eventually disappearing. A leader’s own career growth is a personal goal and cannot be considered a Vision. However our politicians all seem to have just personal goals – winning more seats in the elections, gaining more leverage and bargaining power, making a profit on the investment made during the election campaign etc. Unfortunately none of them have a vision for this big organization called Pakistan. And since no one really knows where we are heading our leaders behave like headless chickens in times of crises.
The next step in effective leadership is of course to have a strategy to deliver the vision. The strategy needs to be broken down into key deliverables or KPI’s (Key Performance Indices). People are made accountable for delivering these KPI’s which need to be constantly monitored and remedial steps need to be taken if the strategy seems to be veering off the track. But of course since our political leaders have no vision the question of strategy does not come into play.
One of the basics we learn in leadership is that communication is the key to any organization’s success. Communication has to be such that it clarifies confusion, creates an atmosphere of trust and provides a vehicle for delivering the organizational strategy. Our politicians however go out of their way to give conflicting statements, create ambiguity, compound confusion and negate each other (even when they are in the same party). But of course since there is no Vision, there is no strategy to implement and hence no message to communicate. This is not to say that they do not communicate – oh yes they do, they miss no opportunity to open their mouths and put their rather large feet in it every time. I’ll grant them this - at least they are consistent.
Leaders must be role models. They do not exert power nor demand respect, they exert influence and command respect. People naturally gravitate towards those who they feel have a high level of integrity, are trust worthy and are natural problem solvers. Now let’s take our political leaders – integrity is always the last thing one expects of them, they change their alliances based on who can extend their power and who can help them get more ministries and they call this shifting of positions ‘in the greater national interest’. So can they please explain how the people they were openly abusing yesterday and branding as traitors suddenly become the custodians of national interest? Oh and each time they do an about turn they say ‘nothing is definite in politics’. And as for their ability to solve problems, well they do have an affinity with problems that’s for sure – the only issue is that they create problems rather than solve them.
All those Pakistani’s who are interested in learning about leadership and becoming good leaders, you don’t have to read any books, you don’t have to attend any courses (though that will make my job redundant). All you have to do is observe our politicians and DO EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE! You will become great leaders – guaranteed.
A final word to the politicians in our country – we are not stupid. We do know a whole lot more than you do hence we can’t really accept you as leaders, so don’t make the mistake of calling yourself that. You are politicians, merely technicians who are have learned their craft through apprenticeship, just like any plumber or mechanic, but you are not leaders. Our country now needs leaders not politicians.
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