The Hindu Business Line : Leadership anaemia

Who said that the current global economic convulsions are the result of financial market defaults? That is a simplistic answer. Solutions like pumping liquidity into the markets are like applying massive doses of cortisone to alleviate the pain of a massive injury. Such immediate interventions are necessary, no doubt, but they are mere Band-Aid solutions.

Alleviating Symptoms

President Bush's $700 billion injection of cash (the correct figure is actually around $829 billion after including the various firm-specific doles) into the system to buy, essentially, impaired mortgage-backed securities, is a temporary fix. So is the Indian loan waiver scheme, ban on short selling and the $19 billion infusion into the Indian capital markets. All they will do is to relieve the inflammation. The root cause lies elsewhere and unless it's rooted out the disease will return later with a vengeance.

What I'm about to say is of course something every person in authority will either gloss over or glibly push aside. That's because the finger always points excruciatingly to the top. The disease that caused the Wall Street meltdown is indeed the same pernicious disease that has haunted our country throughout its glorious history. It's like a virus that lies dormant in the immune system and then flares up from time to time when the conditions are ripe. What I'm talking about is leadership and its lack thereof!

The disease our society, and indeed the country, suffers from is leadership anaemia. Just as haemoglobin insufficiency can cause the human body to be enervated and susceptible to all kinds of infection, so too does leadership anaemia open up our body-politic to financial apocalypse, territorial violations, low intensity conflicts and that deadly thousand headed-hydra called terrorism.

Absence of leadership

Leadership anaemia is the absence, qualitatively and quantitatively, of leadership. The qualitative aspect includes character, competence, courage, unwavering focus on results and a total commitment to organisational capability building. The quantitative aspect refers to developing large numbers of leaders throughout the organisation and indeed in society and the country at large.

Contemporary India is a seething mass of discontented super-competent people suffering from almost terminal leadership anaemia. That's why we're an unending story of missed opportunities and a messed up polity. That's why we're racing along the runway of superpower capabilities and yet never quite taking off. And that sadly is also why we're the eternal soft state that's easy pickings for terrorists.

Chronic leadership anaemia weakens institutions relentlessly over a long period of time. Then, when a crisis occurs the incapacity to respond is no surprise at all. The Wall Street collapse is an example. Leadership anaemia ensured for years that "doing the right" thing was given short shrift; greed then took over and all the checks and balances of risk management were circumvented and subverted.

Avarice of The Paretian Few

The avarice of what I call the Paretian Few (top 5 per cent of income earners) prevailed over the long term interest of millions of small savers.

When the quantum of weak mortgages arrived at the tipping point the collapse of venerated institutions was inevitable. In the end, leadership anaemia created conditions for the greed-virus to multiply exponentially, thereby engineering the eventual financial cataclysm.

So the Wall Street horror was just the symptom of the disease of leadership anaemia. The disease had spread across the American landscape and into the Federal Reserve, the Security Exchange Commission and indeed all the regulators at every level. Every one of them was seriously remiss and have a lot to answer for. It was because they did not intervene in a timely and powerful manner to nip greed in the bud that the American taxpayer will now have to foot the crippling bill.

History has shown that challenges bring out the arguable "best" in America; Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and now the Wall Street Debacle. We can be sure that the American response will be swift and massive; whether it will be effective is another story altogether. An entire generation is certainly going to carry the scars of the leadership anaemia of the American financial system.

The Indian scene

For us in India leadership anaemia has attained epic proportions. Institution after institution has been weakened and compromised by greed to such an extent that national security is seriously endangered. People in authority had better pay heed now when it's almost too late.

The eternal and yet old-fashioned principles of honesty, integrity, competence and recognition of merit and merit only for personal and professional growth have to be re-installed as the inviolable guardians of national interest. This may all seem vague and many may even be pooh-poohed as idealistic and impractical. But one example gives us hope and hope can fuel action.

Leadership Legend

When Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma led his police assault team into that dreary flat in South Delhi on September 19, 2008, he joined the pantheon of the greatest of Indian heroes.

In that split moment Sharma ensured that his sick child notwithstanding, the absence of his bullet-proof vest notwithstanding, the heavily armed terrorists notwithstanding, the welfare and safety of his beloved country was safeguarded.

That he may have to pay with his life did not, for a moment, make him flinch from his leadership duties. Such is the stuff of legend and so Mohan Chand Sharma will live forever as an inspiration to Indians everywhere.. just like the brave officers and men of the armed and paramilitary forces strung across the country.

Those pseudo-leaders who placed wreaths at the hero's funeral must see, as all of us do, the crowning irony: honouring in death the principles of selflessness, courage and merit that constitute leadership. Sartorial elegance, silken speech or sophistry of argument don't qualify as leadership tenets.

Make NCC Compulsory

It is time that a new generation committed to these principles arises to take over the reigns of this country. The people at the helm are too far gone in the grip of leadership anaemia. A new paradigm of leadership needs to be created. For that, for starters, we must make the National Cadet Corps compulsory for our children.

The existing format of the NCC can of course be strengthened, broadened and corrected where necessary. A new concept of India needs to be collectively constructed and installed in the minds and hearts of the emerging generation. The NCC is an ideal vehicle to do just that.

Youngsters have to "own" a very different idea of India, different from the venalities that their fathers have propagated. India and Indian institutions will then occupy their rightful place in the comity of nations.

TheLonelyCEO@gmail.com

http://TheLonelyCEO.blogspot.com

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