On leadership

I have for a long time been confused by the term “leadership qualities”. What are these qualities?

When I look at leaders, I find that some leaders have an aloof personality, with steely glint in the eye and grim jawline. I think that’s a sign of leadership, but then I discover very popular leaders who have none of these. I then think, maybe, being able to pump flesh, do high-fives with a thousand people in a stadium, give rousing speeches, is the hallmark of a leader. Then I discover leaders who have had a million followers without having oratorical skills or the common touch. Every time I think I’ve found some characteristic which distinguishes leaders from non-leaders, I soon discover that there have been exceptionally successful leaders who have had this characteristic and others who have not.

So I gave up. And I started thinking of the whole thing from the wrong end of the stick. What is a leader?

Followership

What if I define a leader not as someone who has specific leadership qualities, but one who has the outcome of those qualities? In other words, a leader is someone who has … followers. This was a stunning volte face for me. Don’t look for leadership qualities. Look for people who trigger “followership” among a large group of people and make that the definition of a leader. And things begin to fall into a more sensible pattern.

Why do people follow a leader? I can see two reasons. One: the leader makes them feel good about themselves. Two: it makes them feel safe. In Category One are leaders who trigger empowerment and confidence in people who till then had thought that the world had passed them by. Mohandas Gandhi made millions of the downtrodden and subjugated of India feel good about themselves, gave them pride and purpose. In the 21st century, there have been many leaders who have led political movements in their countries where people who had thought they had been left behind by the successful mainstream suddenly discovered their feel of self-worth restored. And in Category Two are a lot of leaders in battle, whose soldiers felt that their leaders would never abandon them in the deadliest battlefields. They knew they could be killed in battle, but they could trust the loyalty of their leaders. They felt safe, in a strange way.

Therefore, it seems strangely sensible to me that I define leadership as just one quality: it makes a large group of people feel good about themselves, or safe, or both, when they follow this person. A leader is defined by the existence of a large number of followers.

Once I define leadership like this, it brings up many thoughts.

No brave heroes needed

It’s possible that, now and then, there have been great leaders who have just provided succour to their followers. They did not demonstrate super-powers of bravery or strength. They just cared, and they remained fiercely loyal to their followers. One may say that just remaining loyal to followers in the face of adversity requires a lot of courage, but that courage, in my eyes, is secondary. What matters is that the leader does not abandon his followers, or throw them under the proverbial bus, even when cowering from the blows of the oppressor’s boot. So, it’s incidental that followers are loyal to their leader, but it’s imperative that a true leader be loyal to his followers.

Why do we follow?

What makes a follower? Why do we feel safer following someone else into danger? Therein lies one of the insights of the human mind. Most of us are built to follow; this is the core reason why society is a stable state. Society gives us rules and boundaries and tells us that we will get the support of the population if we conform. As one wise man once told me, “Society is built for the protection of the weak, not the empowerment of the strong.” Once this realisation sinks in, we can easily see that a stable society is largely made up of followers, at one level or another. If members of society did not feel this strong need to follow, society itself would not be stable, because its members would not conform. Therefore, leaders are a psychological need of members of society, like food and shelter.

My friend Sameer Gupta said something which captured some of these thoughts very well: Followers find leaders because they think that the leader will take them where they’d like to go.

Cunning men and women have understood this, and have exploited the need.

A real leader

In my eyes, a genuine leader is one who has no need for followers. Almost all leaders I see around me fail this test. Political leaders are the first to fail, because they are driven by a lust for power and popularity — they would commit suicide if their followers left. Even intellectual leaders usually fail my test, because they are driven by a need for recognition and admiration, which is another form of a need for followers.

When I visualise a person who has genuine leadership qualities, as per my definition, the image which comes to mind is a man alone, silent, on a hilltop. He has no followers, no recognition. In other words, his existence is devoid of all those qualities which society recognizes in order to recognize great leaders. He may actually never be recognized by society as a leader.

So, I’ve landed up at a place where people are divided into three groups: those who have a deep psychological need to follow, those who have a deep psychological need to lead and acquire followers, and those who are completely indifferent to both. The second category is what society hails as great leaders, and the third are great leaders in my eyes. As someone once said, “The master needs the slave as badly as the slave needs the master. They define each other, they define themselves in juxtaposition of each other.” In that sense, the first group and the second group are deeply co-dependent. Only the third group is free.

Therefore, while I revere some of those great souls who have been great leaders, like Swami Vivekananda or Sam Bahadur, I am in general somewhat chary of “great leaders” who seem to sway the masses. The leaders I revere, I like to believe, can walk alone.

Leaders in business

Do we see genuine leaders in the world of business, in the world of samsaara? I think we do. We see business builders who have a sense of purpose and build a business entirely guided by their internal compass. Some achieve material success, others remain less known. In my eyes, their indifference to material success and “scale” and “achievement” makes them leaders. From what I know of Steve Jobs, he was probably one of these leaders.

In my earlier taxonomy of people being in three groups, I sometimes feel that the first group is made of people who, in the world of business, seek employment and stable jobs. The second group of people seek material “greatness” and “unicorn” status. The third group work quietly, and some become “successful” and “famous”, others don’t.