Two men besought a leader so that he would assign them the responsibilities of positions which would have allowed them power over people. The leader mentioned one of the most fundamentally crucial facts about leadership in his refusal to yield to their appeal. “We never appoint anyone who aspires to be a leader,” he observed. That indeed was a clever and succinct way of encapsulating in a single sentence the single most important principle of choosing leaders.
It is not easy to understand the sentence, however, since only a discerning mind can comprehend the truth contained in it. It is quite clear that this leader believed that a true leader is one who does not, rather paradoxically, hanker after positions and authority. It is essential that one assays this assertion with a little more care.
Who does not want to be a leader these days? It is a most common human tendency to develop a narcissistic self-confidence which convinces one that he is the one who should lead to bring an end to all the sufferings in the world. Think about all the people you know who give you lists of things they would do if given an opportunity to become the ruler of the nation for one day.
Very rarely do you see a person who does not possess the instinctive pride and overconfidence in his own abilities to think, judge and act. Humility is a quality which should be innately present in a leader. He would be the last person to go and tell people: “Vote for me because I am the solution to all your problems.”
Alas, not only in Bangladesh, but worldwide today, you see people who actually have grown so much arrogance as to declare that people will make a mistake if they choose a leader other than him! The reader should not make the mistake of thinking I am demanding that a leader must be lacking in self-confidence.
What I am stressing on is that a leader must be humble and conscious of the fact that he is not infallible and is a human being after all. Arrogance should not be an integrated part of a true leader’s character. Only a humble person does not make the grave mistake of imagining that the world should revolve around him and that he is the salvation the world has been waiting for.
The other kind of person who is intimidated by thoughts of leadership is the one who knows the gravity of the responsibilities to be shouldered by him. Of course, you have those barbaric satanic crooks who are interested little in the duties attached to leadership, and it is only about securing the rights to all the privileges and prerogatives it comes with.
Everyone wants to be the man for whom the busy Dhaka traffic in the afternoon would stop to let him pass first. Those who are sincere and are aware of the tremendous levels of responsibility pertaining to leadership, would focus apprehensively on the difficulty of it and worry about whether he would be able to carry out his duties with propriety or not.
A fool, on the other hand, would see nothing in leadership except the big villa which he would be allowed to stay in and the pleasure of having people obey you like sycophants. Too much enthusiasm about leadership is a conspicuous indication of the fact that you are probably unaware of the colossal demands of the sacred responsibility and are just fascinated by the glamour of the job.
Now the reader should try to judge our leaders in the light of the theory propounded in the preceding paragraphs. Do our leaders seem to possess the vital quality of humility? The answer to that question is, sadly, no. We have abundant arrogance, on the other hand. Do they seem to be conscious of the heaviness of the burden called responsibility they seem to be so enthusiastic in bearing?
This is a question which also can be answered with a “no”. The results of immature and puerile leadership are being manifested in our lives today. It would not be inapposite to end this piece with a pertinent anecdote.
A famous leader once was asked to appoint his son as the successor. And his reaction to such a suggestion was both shocking and enlightening. He said: “Why would I do that to my own son?” Talk about being aware of responsibilities.