Point of View:

Signs of leadership

BY DR. RUWANTISSA Abeyratne

SIR FRANCIS Bacon once said that when a question was asked of Demosthenes, what is the chief part of an orator? He replied, action What next? action, and what next again?, action.

An orator communicates with the people and lets them know of his ideas. Bacon goes on to say that boldness in civil business has done wonders in popular States, but with senates and princes less, meaning that people of a State find boldness a fascinating and strong feature of a leader.

One of the greatest challenges faced by today's leadership is not so much the dilemma to choose between the alternative of making and not making, but of unmaking.

As the old fable goes, the great Saturn, growing weary of sitting alone, and with no one but Heaven and Uranus watching him, created an oyster and repeated this act several times, bringing forth a race of oysters.

Watching this monotonous reluctance of Saturns conservatism, Uranus cried out, a new work, O Saturn! The old is not good again , to which Saturn replied that he feared he shall not do, but undo, and therefore he kept to safe acts.

Later, Saturn thought and thought, and the words of Uranus came to him like a burning ray of the Sun, and he created Jupiter. After that Saturn lapsed into his usual sloth and fear, and the world froze. To save the world, Jupiter slay his father, Saturn.

The saga of Saturn and Uranus could well be the earliest parable of the clash between conservatism and radicalism, but it nonetheless brings to bear its value to the real life situation we are faced with in modern governance.

Should a new leader fear undoing, and continue with what already prevails, or should he make bold as to transcend the divide between centripetal and centrifugal forces, choosing innovation as the essential energy against the inordinate pause of reluctance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson says innovation is leaving one, and entering another. In this context, should a modern leader leave the outworn parameters of his political theory, which has been tried, tested and has failed due to individual interests, or should he leave the parochial bounds and broaden his horizons and those of his people by embracing other forces that might strengthen and enervate the potential of his country to counter the anxiety of the people?

Bertrand Russell was of the view that our age is the most parochial since Homer, and it is in the chronological sense and not the geographical sense that we are parochial.

Speaking of the contemporary human, Russell says that the money rewards and widespread fame which prominence make possible place temptation in the way of able men which are obstacles to honesty and are difficult to resist.

To be brought to the limelight, pointed out and mentioned constantly in the press and offered easy means of making money is irresistible to any human, making it difficult for him to keep doing what he thinks is best for his people, making him easily subordinate good judgment to the general opinion.

Of course, at a time like the present we need leaders who are not any where near the likeness of Saturn and Russells' contemporary human.

The question then is, who do we want for a leader? Do we want someone like Roosevelt, with his astonishing virtuosity and passion for life, who could take two different decisions in splendid style on different subjects which were totally disparate in philosophy?

Or do we need a Churchill, who knew well both light and darkness in politics and had the patience to live through the agonised brooding of his society and slow recovery?

So what sort of leader should we have ? I believe he should be a person who has a brightly coloured vision of history, who knows what the people want.

He should be a person, as Mark Twain said, who should attack those who persecute the sick child, settle upon its eyes, its face, its hands, and gnaw and pester and sting; worry and fret and madden the worn and tried mother who watches by the child and who humbly prays for mercy and relief with the pathetic faith of the deceived and un-teachable.

Decent governance is honesty and caring. Caring for those who repose their confidence in the leadership. Leadership as though people expected it of their leader and courage that transcends the faintness of heart of the weak.

As Walt Whitman said in the Leaves of Grass, No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year; Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano; But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a rifle on your shoulder; With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands with a knife in the belt at your side.

Also as a leader who would see your gait and see your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing weapons, robust year hear your determined voice, launched forth again and again; year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipped cannon; I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted.

Some of the illustrious leaders in the violent past century are Harry S Truman, George Marshall, and Jean Monnet who looked beyond the ravages and devastation of the Second World War and its inevitable corollaries in the form of underlying hostilities between nations, emboldening themselves to envision a Europe in which regional competition would transcend adversarial boundaries and traditional rivalries.

They foresaw that large-scale economic cooperation would facilitate not only post-war recovery but also long-term prosperity and international peace.

No one leads by fiat in the modern world. A leader must have vision and have ideas through which that vision might be defined. It is critical that a leader approaches his role through ideas that mobilize him and galvanize him to join in an action for shared benefit.

Every leader must explain the concept behind a decision or act, and that idea may well take on a life of its own, even to the point of exceeding the control of its originator.

The most significant revelation of leadership came in 1994, when former president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, reflected on a decade of intensive involvement with political leaders all over the world. One of the most significant findings of Gorbachev was that to a large extent, leaders saw "brute force" as their ultimate validation.

His observation, based on abundant experience, highlights a long-standing, historically deadly inclination of leaders of many kinds from many places to interpret their mandate as being strong, tough, aggressive, even violent. For all too many, this is indeed the essence of leadership.

Some leaders have been known around the world to stimulate ethnic and communal conflict than diminish it. The critical determinants of leadership for prevention of violence between human groups and nations are thoughtful reflection and experience with which leaders earn respect for their dedicated efforts on behalf of peace with justice.

A shining example of a successful leader is Nelson Mandela, a great leader who has personal credibility and solidarity with the people he led and an abiding ability to nurture the best in others.

Two other charismatic leaders, the Dalai Lama, and the late Mother Teresa, drew on the best resources available: intellectual, technical, and moral as well as material resources; they were thoughtful, well informed, active, creative, and respectful to others in helping to clarify great dangers and ways of coping and providing a moral and operational basis for dealing constructively with international problems.

A characteristic of our times which impacts leadership is that we live in the media age, and our politics increasingly take the shape of media politics. Most of us obtain our political information from watching television.

Politicians, aware of this fact of political life, shape their campaigns for office and their actions in office to make the TV cameras work for them rather than against them. More and more our political system seems to operate on the adage that if it wasn't seen on TV, it didn't happen.

A leader of our times has to give the people two kinds of leadership: in giving guidance or direction, as in the phrase "the President has provided excellent leadership" and potential leadership that carries the capacity or ability to lead, as in the phrase "he could have exercised effective leadership".

Therefore, a leader is firstly a person who influences people to strive willingly for group objectives.

The simplest way to measure the effectiveness of leadership involves evaluating the size of the following that the leader can muster.

To measure leadership more specifically, one may assess the extent of influence on the followers, that is, the amount of leading. This may involve testing the results of leadership activities against a goal, vision, or objective.

Leadership is often evaluated normatively, along the lines introduced by James MacGregor Burns who claimed that a leader will unite followers in a shared vision that will improve an organisation and society at large.

Burns calls leadership that delivers "true" value, integrity, and trust transformational leadership. He distinguishes such leadership from "mere" transactional leadership that gets power by doing whatever will get more followers.

Transformational leadership requires an evaluation of quality, independent of the market demand that exhibits in the number of followers.

The functional leadership model conceives of leadership as a set of behaviours that helps a group perform a task, reach their goal, or perform their function. In this model, effective leaders encourage functional behaviours and discourage dysfunctional ones.

In the goal model of leadership, developed jointly by Martin Evans and Robert House and based on the "Expectancy Theory of Motivation", a leader has the function of clearing the path toward the goal(s) of the group, by meeting the needs of subordinates.

Some commentators have used the metaphor of a conductor to describe the quality of the leadership process. An effective leader resembles an orchestra conductor in some ways. He/she has to somehow get a group of potentially diverse and talented people - many of whom have strong personalities - to work together toward a common output.

Will the conductor harness and blend all the gifts his or her players possess? Will the players accept the degree of creative expression they have? Will the audience enjoy the sound they make? The conductor may have a determining influence on all of that.

Individual skills of an able leader are talent and technical/specific skill at some task at hand; initiative and entrepreneurial drive; charismatic inspiration and attractiveness to others and the ability to leverage this esteem to motivate others.

Preoccupation with a role and - a dedication that consumes much of leaders' life - service to a cause is also a characteristic of a good leader, along with a clear sense of purpose or mission.

A good leader is always results-oriented, directing every action towards a mission, while prioritizing activities to spend time where results most accrue.

Arguably the most valuable asset of a good leader is optimism, as rarely do pessimists become leaders With optimism comes the ability to encourage and nurture those that report to them, and to delegate in such a way as people will grow with regard to the management of human resources, a true leader will have the ability to choose winners, whilst having the foresight and understanding that - unlike with skills, one cannot in general teach attitude.

A leader will also understand what others say, rather than listen to how they say things, making empathy a strong characteristic. A Harvard-based study has identified that along with traits, motives would also play a role in moulding a leader.

According to the study, successful leaders will tend to have a high need for power, a low need for affiliation, and a high level of self control.

An alternative approach posits an interesting hypothesis, based on the assumption that different situations call for different characteristics. According to this hypothesis no single optimal psychographic profile of a leader exists.

However, the leadership-style must match the appropriate level of follower-ship-development. In this model, leadership behaviour becomes a function not only of the characteristics of the leader, but of the characteristics of followers as well.

The bottom line is that, in times such as ours, where trust and belief in a leader is placed by the people with cautious circumspection, in order to gain the trust of the people he hopes to lead, a leader must bear his soul and his honesty.

He should not be secretive with regard to his personal assets and transactions of a public nature. He should have a past record of truthfulness and integrity.

Above all the quintessential leader must be looked upon as a trustworthy and honourable human, bold enough to take the measures needed to lead people from anxiety to safety and prosperity.

(The author is Coordinator, Air Transport Programmes, International Civil Aviation Organization.)