Build a Culture of Leadership Intelligences with Us

The buzz about Anna Hazare is still ringing in our ears here in monsoon-soaked Hyderabad, even after he has settled back in his village in Maharashtra. Throughout his Delhi fast—which ironically provided prime fodder for primetime TV—we saw people wearing caps that said “I am Anna.” Many friends on Facebook have a badge that says “I am Anna.”

Really? Am I Anna? Are you Anna? What does it take to be “Anna”? What does it take to be a leader?

If you want to be a leader, please emblazon this on your soul: “The first person I should lead is myself.” There is no new truth in this. Great leaders and wise men have always demonstrated it. Let me use an Indian example since the setting is Indian. About a year ago, my taxi driver in Hyderabad told me the following story about Gandhi. A woman approached Gandhi at a public meeting, and requested him to tell her grandson to not eat sugar. “Coming from you, that request will be definitely heeded by my grandson,” she said. Gandhi pondered for a moment and asked her to come back after a few weeks bringing the boy again. She came back—as asked—a few weeks later with the boy. And this time, Gandhi called the boy close and said, “Don’t eat sugar.” The boy nodded vigorously and the woman and her grandson went away. An associate asked Gandhi, “But Gandhiji, you could have told him the same thing some weeks ago. Why did you make her come back?” Gandhi replied, “I had to stop eating sugar before I could ask him to do so.”

Stories such as these permeate the fabric of Indian society. And yet, we do not make them our own. We let them float in and out of social consciousness, making no attempt to ground the stories in ourselves.

So, to come back, what do we mean when we say, “I am Anna”? It is very easy to say “That official is corrupt,” or “This politician is even more corrupt.” Have we noticed how corrupt we are? What do we do to get things moving in a government office? Are we willing to say, “Even if my file does not move, I will not pay a bribe?” Let us begin the anti-corruption campaign there. Let us first remove the corruption within ourselves.

And a closing thought: The corruption that involves money is bad, but the corruption that concerns the soul is worse. Are we handling either in our personal lives? True leadership should be rooted in the micro for it to rise to the macro.

In India, the tension is very tangible and the air has a prickly feeling to it on the day of the India-Pakistan 2011 World Cup semi-final cricket match. The match has been called many things from the worn-out cliché “mother of all battles” to Sir Viv Richards’ expression “war without weapons.” The analogy of war is not even sub-cutaneous leave alone subliminal. But in some ways this is worse than war—there can be uneasy truces that can stop a war and long spells of cold tension that threaten but never erupt. In this semifinal match, there is no such comfort—one team has to win and the other has to lose. This is the knockout stage. In a game like cricket, there in never a guarantee of who will win and who will lose. What is guaranteed is that one team stays and the other goes.This brings me to the issue of leadership. First, though, a story of two great kings from almost two thousand years ago. Many of us heard it as a folktale when we were growing up in India, but it has been recently recounted by Guy Maclean Rogers in Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness (New York: Random House, 2004). The story is told that when Alexander of Greece invaded India in 326 BCE, he came up against the mighty army of the Indian king, Puru. On the banks of the Jhelum, a fierce battle took place—Greek historians later called it the Battle of Hydaspes, the Greek name for Jhelum. Alexander’s fast and fierce cavalry were pitted against Puru’s mighty elephant brigades. Alexander won the bloody battle, suffering considerable losses himself, and the vanquished Puru was brought to him. It is said that Alexander asked Puru how he would like to be treated, and the defeated King Puru, standing tall, replied, “Like a king.” Impressed by Puru’s leadership and courage even in defeat, Alexander made him an ally, returned his kingdom to him, and even gave him with some additional regions to rule.All too often, we measure leadership by the yardstick of success. Yes, success is important, but it is in the face of loss, that the quality of leadership is most demonstrated. Great leaders show courage, valor, and grit during a battle, but whether they win or lose, they demonstrate dignity and honor. Above all, however, when the battle is over, whether they have won or lost, great leaders have the humility to deeply acknowledge that all of humankind is fragile and that we always live in the shadow of this knowledge. The captains of the two teams—but more importantly, the people of both Pakistan and India—should remember this lesson of leadership after their semi-final match in the 2011 Cricket World Cup. They should play, and win or lose with dignity and honor and act with the knowledge that the result of the match only proves that cricket—like life—is an uncertain game.Baba Prasad