The Hindu Business Line : How to be leaderless, Indian style!

The maturity of any developed organisation or society is definitely seen in its capacity for self-regulation. This is the ideal to which all countries that simultaneously adopt democracy and free market economic policies aspire. In such communities, leadership is defined in a special and modern sense never found in recorded history.

At sea without a leader

In an era beyond kings and queens, leaders can still be thought of as made rather than born; it is only to an extent — but not entirely. Leadership today is simply a set of functions, a job to be done, which any person can aspire to, given some competencies and preparation. Most important of all, leadership does not refer to purely personality-related or character traits. It is open to anyone, hence the emphasis everywhere on equality of access to opportunity.

Management literature, as well as studies of democratic societies confirm that this century is nothing if not egalitarian, an age of organisations which have to be run by participation and consensus rather than by fiat and hereditary or purely class-based right to power.

Despite all of this, what we see in our everyday lives is quite the contrary. It is almost as if as soon as we seek to form any group or informal association, without a leader we are all at sea. All our attempts to practise this philosophy in our social institutions have proved problematic. Let me explain.

Put any three reasonably educated Indians together in a group setting without hierarchy, as in a recreation club, neighbourhood welfare association, or cricket team, and what do you get? Before you could say Mahatma Gandhiji, at least two positions are created: President and Secretary; soon they debate whether to make the remaining third person also an office-holder, a treasurer. Of course, no sooner do more members start coming in, than questions arise on terms of office and when elections are due. A chartered accountant or lawyer friend is then roped in to frame the bye-laws.

Power bearers

Fierce legal argument breaks out on the clauses, as if one's life depended, for example, on the use of a `may' or `shall' — which once got Jawaharlal Nehru into hot water, on the place of English in India's language policy, fifty years ago! Never mind that all this group might be concerned with is getting regular water supplies or playing a friendly game of cricket with the next neighbourhood or colony, the debates still rage as if United Nations resolutions were in dispute.

Pretty soon more bearers of office such as vice-president and joint-secretary are proposed — and accepted as one way of keeping the most vociferous and troublesome members in check.

What makes us forget all about our original intent and purpose and make every move a combative one, whatever the milieu? Surely it cannot be that serious-minded and educated people have no other work to occupy them? Everyone is indeed very busy these days; and when it comes to doing public work, which is usually thankless, the temptation is always to let the eager beavers get on with it. As Eliza's father says in My Fair Lady, "with a little bit of luck, someone else will do the blinking work"! However, come meeting time and resolving any issues that require a consensus, the difficulties seem insurmountable. Exercise of power becomes a major issue, never mind the fact that all leaderless groups of equals by definition are meant to work as task forces, where the task is far more important than procedure or political power. All such trivial bodies assume a seriousness and self-importance that rival the coordination committee guiding our central coalition government. And the results are remarkably similar.

Pious promises are made, platitudes about integrity, rule of law and proper procedure are trotted out in the first meeting or two — and all is quickly forgotten, as corridors begin buzzing with rumours of hidden agendas and attempts to grab power, and so on!

Lost without honours

My theory on this is simply that we have been brought up wrongly from the start. Everything about our education, media, politics and even family life seems to stress hierarchy, and finding one's place in the pecking order above all else.

So much store is set by relative `grading' in every sphere of life that being without a high and low one feels totally lost. People similarly feel a compulsion to retain designations after retirement and to wear even honorary doctorates on their sleeve, on display, as it were.

Otherwise, the average Indian is extremely uncomfortable, as if dropped in an alien landscape without signposts, where they speak an unknown language. The more educated he is, the more this discomfiture. And this, in the world's greatest democracy!

(Feedback can be sent to srchander23@netscape.net)