Insecure Leaders

Leadership, in my view, is all about creating a vision of what's possible and then creating conditions for your people to achieve it. There are tomes written on the art, craft and science of Leadership and I don't pretend to better this body of knowledge. What I do want to talk about is the pernicious effects of an Insecure Leader on the organization.


I believe that an Insecure Leader not only limits the distance a company can cover, he also vitiates the journey. And on this tedious, long and slow trek, he stunts his people's growth. Taken together it's a grim scenario.


An Insecure Leader believes that he knows best. Convinced in his omnipotence, he retains all decision making with him. He believes that there is 'one best way' to drive business and he knows it. And he limits his organization's potential by this outlook and his capacity. If everything has to be routed through one person, there are bound to be bottlenecks. If the process to achieve outcomes is mandated, people's inherent diversity is insulted. And although ideas often emanate from an individual flash of brilliance, they grow & develop through open discussion. An Insecure Leader prevents this democratic mutation from genesis to maturity.

People working under an Insecure Leader do not develop, unless you count learning what not to do, as important learning (which it is, but then learning by inversion is hardly fun). He doesn't invest in developing people because he fears that he'll lose his edge if he teaches them his insights. What's more he wants people to just execute his ideas, and hires people who are 'coordinators' and 'executives' and keeps them that way. There is no need to invest in developing people, since they are inherently dispensable.

It's in the culture and environment that an Insecure Leader has the worst effect. He promotes confusion and mistrust by keeping the complete picture in his mind and revealing bits and pieces to his people. He believes that fundamentally, people are out there to deceive & shirk and he has to control & police to get results. All authorization and approval rests with him. There are tonnes of unneccessary checks and counter-checks. And in the end, everyone is busy filling out forms, getting signatures leaving little time for growing the business.

Organizations that are stuck with Insecure Leaders do not go far. Because their potential is limited by his life span.

The Last Meter

If you haven't witnessed the Last Meter you have either never driven on Indian roads or you are visually impaired. Since you're reading this, I suspect it's the former.

The Last Meter is the space that is occupied by vehicles that can't discipline themselves to stop when the light turns yellow but are too slow to cross the junction. They stay in the common junction area butting out of their end of the road and creating a bottleneck for vehicles coming from the right.

The Last Meter is the single biggest reason for traffic anarchy on Indian roads. It is also the most infuriating. Why it happens is a matter of conjecture. I'll take a shot at explaining it and invite you to add your two bits.

One reason could be genuine. While the 18 year old strapping stud might think he has the energy to beat the signal before it turns red, the 20 year old Maruti 800 that he's saddled with, simply doesn't oblige. Too slow to cross and too late to stop, it kind of ends up hanging in the middle. It can't go back unless it wants to maim the street urchin selling strawberries. It can't go forward or the guy coming from the right will jump out of his car and do what he's currently threatening to!

The second reason is Auto rickshaws. These are cockroaches of the road. Their ethic is that it's not important where the body is, it's enough to just jut in their snout. The snout of the auto rickshaw has higher legal claim on space than the handkerchief of a Mumbai local traveller. And the Auto rickshaw-wallahs are genuinely illiterate. Chaos is their culture. Order is anathema. Every other vehicle on the road is the enemy. It's a war out there and they are trying to secure all the trenches.

The third is the absence of roads themselves. If you don't know where it ends, you don't know that you're in the Last Meter. You might delude yourself into thinking that you are doing no wrong, that the guy coming from the right is in fact maliciously coming straight at you - you are just waiting for the signal to turn green! 'Why is he making those angry gestures' you might wonder! There is no white line to signal start of the junction, no lane for pedestrians to cross at the junction - no wonder traffic is Darwinian in its mood and method.

Lastly, I wonder whether people even know that they are creating the Last Meter. Or are they just thinking of escaping the hell that's Mumbai roads vs. worrying about the hell that they are creating. What's more, even if they were well meaning, do they know what the right way is? At a time, when driving license is a matter of Rs. 500 and a contact, who even knows traffic rules. In fact it's a wonder that people stop at all at a red signal. It won't be unimaginable for them to run at red like raging bulls - in fact some actually do that!

The Last Meter is symptomatic of India. There are no clear boundaries and no clear rules. Everything is negotiable - from the traffic signal to the traffic cop. Well, if the Nuke deal can comfortably rest on the Last Meter, how can you blame the poor guy with the Maruti 800?!

Temptation

From the time I set foot in India, I have been tempted to record my experiences. The title of 'Diary of a returning NRI' sounded interesting and appealing.

I'm resisting the urge.

Writing being the cathartic instrument that it is, might trap me into complaining about events, people and places that assault the senses. And it'll be too easy to lose the big picture.

Writing being the selective exercise that it is, amplifies the extremes. Add that to my resident cynicism and what you get is an exaggerated version of the negatives.

Too often, we start believing what we write, not writing what we believe.

As far as India is concerned, I want to hold on to my belief about its future and my passion for its present. The Diary of a returning NRI will be written by someone else or it'll come in version 2 - with the benefit of retrospect.