Ideal Leadership

The question was what kind of leader would you think are able to take good care of the financial system, the education system, health system and more importantly the poltical system that will keep everyone sane and not start any kind of war,especially those that could trigger a possible world war.

In India in the good old days of Kingdoms, there was a saying “Yatha Raja Tatha Praja”. It means the people of kingdom are alike the King. In today’s democratic world the saying now has become “Yatha Praja Tatha Raja”. This means our rulers will be the people like us. It is also said in democracy people get the leadership they deserve. This is because we vote and bring ask them to lead us. So if there has to be any ideal kind of leadership the change has to come from all of us. It is not too difficult as it may sound, if we start one at a time.

Now coming to answering your question, the first quality, I feel in an ideal leader will be not to consider the citizens as fools who need the guardianship of their leader. This is the mistake maximum number of leaders commit. All of us who are in the voting age are sane and have a mind of our own.

Second quality I feel is people centred thinking. By this I do not mean the usual rhetoric on the part of the leaders. It really means that the leader understands, at least tries to understand the motivations, aspiration of people. It also means that people are involved in as many stages of policy crafting as possible. It is a tall order considering the mammoth systems we have at the country level, but with technology and pervasive digital platforms does not seem to be an impossible proposition.

Third quality in a leader is empathy. Empathy towards fellow human beings. This is by far the most the important quality, I look forward to.

To look at the other side of the spectrum, we as people should not look towards our leaders for every small problem we have and then blame them for it always. We as people should also consider our leader to be a fellow human being and not a super man who is above everything. We should allow them lee ways and should pardon their human failings. In this kind of an atmosphere of mutual trust, the leaders will not be compelled to hide things and their energies will be invested more productively.