Prelude: Analyzing how many officers and Politicians are themselves responsible for corruption, chaos and communalism in the Country and why there is a need for extreme Upright Leadership to head these Organizations

 

I am reminded of the famous quote “ Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance.

Everything else requires leadership – By Peter Drucker”

 

Q1  Why are we having a pathetic, weak, spineless,  leadership in almost all organization in the country now ? 

Dear readers, I am sure like me you would have also pondered on a few questions on the current state of leadership wrt few officers in many government organizations ?

Have you ever wondered why officers of the country premiere institutions are in the news for corruption, nepotism, favoritism, and cover-ups?    Even many leaders of the banking circle and Armed, judiciary and legal fraternity have failed the nation with their utterances and few actions that defies logic.       

In fact, this decade in the history of India will be regarded as the years of institutional credibility crisis with many politicians unleashing havoc on functioning of SC, CBI, RBI, CEC, CVC, Armed Forces and the corporate world  including SEBI  with utter disregard to their  governance  under constitution of India . 

Q2     What is the Role of Politicians in the evolution of pathetic leadership?

Coming back to my earlier question that why politicians are interfering? 

The answer is obvious, It is because the politicians are afraid of exceptional leadership in Police or CBI    and other IAS allied services / RBI / Armed Forces who will tell them the constitutional rules and prevent their dominance on their functioning as per rules. 

That is why the politicians prefer corrupt Police officers or government officers to  get placed in prominent positions with promotions at expense of honest officers in IPS or IAS or Armed Forces who are shunted out. 

It also disheartens me that educated IPS and IAS are at mercy of illiterate, corrupt and communal political leaders.   These politicians tweak promotion boards and  weakened the system by placing pathetic leadership at the top in most of the organizations to serve them and not the country. 

We have seen now how institutions have crumbled one after another in the last few years. 

That is why the reforms never take place as per desired requirements of current times. .     

Q3:   My next pondering question is how these corrupt officers rose to senior positions to take over these institutions?   

These officers  are not somebody who is freshly passed out from Academies or graduates from MBA schools.  It is surprising that the corrupt  have gone up by the selection board or selection panels for the promotion board of the respective organization and they also escaped the scrutiny of these corrupt traits in appraisals by so many supervisors in their career.  

The realization to answer was sickening for me, these supervisors who promoted these corrupt officers, it seems were also corrupt,  promoting a like-minded corrupt junior.      

The Corrupt top brass of Armed Forces/ IPS/ IAS was promoted due to a successive earlier generation of corrupt officers who singled them out for being Yes Man!      

Unfortunately, there is also a lot of inter-breeding with the same traits within closed organizations /ecosystems. It often results in the odd good person being ignored like in Police, a good inspector cannot survive.  

A corrupt cop by political patronage rises up and he will  be a mentor for the corrupt junior cops to do his dirty work.  That is why it leads to the successive generation of leaders  in Police  being worse than the previous ones.    This has led to a completely rotten and chaotic state over time in all such setups especially handled by IPS /IAS and others.   

As an example  there were couple of Army and Navy  Ex Chiefs  who  were the accused in Adarsh Scam as per media news report.  They must have been assessed by so many reviewing supervisors,  and how is it possible that the traits of these Generals  when they  were  junior officers remained dormant or were not visible at all when he was a young officer.  

The harsh truth is somewhere down the line, the definition of exceptional leadership to lead

 premier institutions has been diluted, and replaced by routine or bad corrupt leadership.      

The writing on the wall is clear, the rot starts typically at top leadership in most of the organization and for placing him there, the onus is on an earlier batch of liked minded corrupt senior officers and politicians. 

Q3:   Now let us ask ourselves another question , Is it the era of ‘Yes Sir’ blind working culture to keep getting promoted?

As mentioned earlier, many meritious officers are overlooked and sacrificed by misrepresenting them as unfit just because they stood up to illogical orders of some corrupt senior officer.  

The corrupt bosses hierarchy also feels, any daring change /  getting in more the efficient subordinate may jeopardize their gains or careers so they settle for a routine leader who will be a blind yes man.   

That is why  over ambitious officers are now hesitant in taking a stand on wrong and corrupt biased issues ordered by the uneducated political leaders who are themselves rioter, murderers, financial fraudsters,  liars, fixers.  

The main criteria of selection of top honchos in any organization by politicians are somebody who will be a puppet.

The politicians like to lord over these organizations without any questions asked.  The politicians are today aware that they will surely find officers and managers who are ready to sell their souls for promotions and placements. 

If a junior leader makes noise, he is weeded out or accused of not aligning with policies or whatever excuses.  Anybody who can stand up to wrong happening is sacrificed and labelled with any negative adjectives that make them misunderstood and misrepresented so that he is stopped in taking over the organization where he may start controlling systems in an effective manner.   

It hence also goes without any doubt that selection of senior topmost positions in IAS, IPS and even Armed Forces are mainly at the mercy of political approvals and many good officers are side-lined at middle or senior rung level,  with lobbies working against them. 

The ‘yes sir’ culture, unfortunately, does not stop even at the highest post where there is no next rank left to achieve.   The rot is after retirement benefits also. That is why we have found many Generals and Top brass of other setups silent on several issues affecting the organizations as they see a political career at the expense of not displeasing the politicians. 

 For them, it is a small thing,  the organization and innocent people be sacrificed.   They are not bothered what happens to the people under them. That is why we have an odd senior Generals not participating in OROP rallies but are on street protesting arrest of a news anchor who invites them for spewing hate speeches.   These retired Generals want to become now Governor of some states. 

This culture has also eroded many political, business and corporate families.  We have seen how big corporate houses are  grappling with some leadership issues of their own.

In other words, our country is today plagued with routine leadership of  YES SIR culture be it in IPS/IAS/ Armed forces/ Business or Political setups. 

Q4.  What are the fallout of such leadership at helm of affairs ?

Ans .  Things don't go as planned, or preparedness to handle a VUCA threat is never there. They are too busy enjoying their own privileges.   

• In Kargil war, the top brass was making a Zoo in Leh and playing Golf while Pakistan was occupying the Kargil heights.  
• In recent Covid, the civil administration was busy in preparing Donal Trump visit to India while Covid was spreading , no one bothered to stake stock of Oxygen and other supplies readiness in hospital even though there were enough warnings coming from China.

 One of the main reason is   Iceberg of Ignorance.

 

A study was done by Sidney Yoshida – called “The  iceberg of ignorance” – found that senior-level management is often so far removed from day-to-day business operations that they fail to understand the systems and processes that affect people, their own employees and customers.

This is true for most of the organizations be it Politics, IAS, IPS,  Civil Administration, Media, and Corporate in the last decades or so.   The middle and top brass is totally oblivious of what  exactly they are supposed to do.  As a result, there is total  anguish, and pain on seeing the fall of accepted leadership standards in organizations we all have served or loved.  

So lets us analyze reasons  why these organization have crashed  or not performing  as per their credibility and having the best of lot who clear these competitive exams and why then these best lot of officers don’t reach the top to head the respective organizations barring a few good one who somehow make they their way to the top

 

 

 

(a) Closed system Vs Open System.

 In the current era, the organizations usually the ones found in government service, and the sick corporate companies are losing credibility of their own existence. They are ignoring that the world is now not only surviving but racing ahead in a VUCA world ( Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous). This situation of unexpected chaos aided with corruption and infighting on communal issues can be deemed VUCA or disorder also called Entropy.

        

Entropy disorder abounds in a closed system organization as there is no transparency or sharing of information, that leads to less accountability.      On the contrary, an organization like ISRO or other profitable corporate companies that are open to an external stimulus can be better controlled.  Any open system of functioning is more flexible in handling VUCA,  with the sharing of communication and information. They can hence easily reduce entropy and chaos

 

Our all lofty institution handled by   IAS, IPS, Judiciary, Armed Forces, PSUs have remained closed systems and feudal much like the British left them.  

It will not be wrong to say that the whole government machinery comprises of closed systems haven’t reformed since independence and leading to high entropy. Leaders in IAS and IPS and other setup have crippled the system eating away our development funds, to taking bribes, to incite hate, and allowing lynching of innocents.   

One of the main reasons is that they all owe their allegiance to crooked politicians and not to the country. In fact, at times I feel it is contrary that  they control politicians as most of the politicians are uneducated corrupt and don’t know how to beat the system rules to plunder the country, these officials advise them with loopholes to beat the system.

(b) Role of the Society in the evolution of pathetic leadership

 

Many people say that leadership is a reflection of our society whereas actually, it is vice versa. The working of pathetic leadership starts seeping into a society where kids also follow bad leadership, as they are easily often misguided. Sane truth voice at all lever of leadership in any setup or even from school to college is also being snuffed out.     Like any common man, it also disturbs me when I read on double standards of branding honest people, students, and academicians negatively when they want to stand for truth.    

There are hence now attempts within the society by a few to redefine the leadership based on communalism ideology, religious fanaticism,  favoritism, corruption, and nepotism. Everything related to leadership is now viewed from such a point of view and somehow twisted to nationalism in name of the country. There is a  big divide between right and left, and there is no scope of any citizen to speak the truth as a  neutral citizen and be a progressive leader. Being secular and liberal is considered weak and anti-Indian.

The young people also see crooks accused of religious terrorism using the backing of political parties and winning elections to become lawmakers. These leaders are making a mockery of the same police that is supposed to arrest them, but alas it is now to provide security to these criminal lawmakers.       The kids now wonder, why to waste time and money, isn't it better to start as a local gangster and then be a local Corporator, MLA, or a Minister to control the educated lots in  IAS, IPS, and even Armed Forces.

 

(c) Role of  Social  media in the evolution of pathetic leadership

 

That is why today the society is trying to judge everybody on Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp with a twisted mindset without wanting to know the truth of the matter. The younger lot is now encouraged with hate speeches over religion, politics, and demography divide to imbibe communal hatred. It is painful to see polarization among many educated people now following leaders of pseudo-nationalist movement groups.  They are all ranting against other communities in social media and news channels to prove patriotism.

 

However, it also concerns me what our future generation will look up to be a good leader in IPS, IAS or other institutions or corporate leaders who is deep into corruption with politicians?        The kids are now only seeing pathetic leaders with a weak conscience, only too keen to occupy the high post is mostly all institutions.    These leaders don’t mind coming in the news for all the wrong news.

 

 

 (d) Role of  News media in the evolution of pathetic leadership.

The public discourse on Indian Television news channels like Republic, Times, etc is further                    damaging the minds of the public, causing communal divide and uncontrolled polarization.   

The        young people are confused lot on the definition of leadership, they think it is only related         to             pseudo-        nationalism on social media or what Arnab and Navika or Shivshnkar spew             venom every evening on     TV news.  

 

This journalist trick is to hire a few people from Pakistan to speak against India and ask our own few retired veterans  to counter it every evening.     They will in between cleverly spin new agendas and lies with hate against communities and other leaders. These channels have hence become tools to spread hate and fake news.       

 

 Such channels and social media discourse has not even spared the dead leaders who fought for us during the freedom struggle. We have seen during the election, how these dead leaders have been used by the crooked politicians to divert the attention from the unaccountability of the living  leaders who are indulging in chaos and corruption.     Our generation was taught by our parents to get inspired by past leaders who got us freedom struggle. Today generation are taught to hate those leaders and make those charlatans who never participated in freedom struggle and in fact killed Gandhiji ie Nathuram Godse or Veer 

     

Why this book is important for the new age Leaders

That is why I decided to write this book to remind people of many good leaders who have made a difference in the world.

    

These leaders whose Avatars we should adopt would be like a Mango Tree growing in a desert,  someone who can control VUCA and is able to transform closed, obsolete systems (organizations) into open ones. I have hence shared about these unsung heroes in their fight against wrongdoing, and I hope my book does justice to them and they are remembered by readers to inspire them.  My such good characters in real-life stories surmounted many obstacles of nepotism, favoritism, and witch-hunting in their life to come out as the real winner as a leader.

    There have been a host of issues that are plaguing the country and organization, and show how strong leaders can make a difference. I believe leadership attributes change with every generation and we may say with confidence that we are on the cusp of an entirely new era.     It is too early to claim that the next Mao or Hitler may well be a bot (or its programmer) but the old-style certainly doesn’t work anymore.

 Leadership has to be upgraded and rebooted now. What it will be, what are the attributes and traits, this book will try to find answers with ten Avatars a part of your DNA. Today a situational leadership has to be a mix of many Avatars, and that is why I have divided my chapters into these ten avatars.

 The new generation of a leader getting trained in MBA or training academy of IAS or IPS or Armed forces must read about these brave hearts who have carried on against all the odds. It is due to these leaders the country is chugging along. May God bless them and protect them! SALUTE TO THESE BRAVE HEARTS

They all are my role models leaders standing out of a usual crowd of failed leaders. The VUCA world needs you all  today more than ever  by adopting these ten  Avatars as discussed in the book

Happy reading

Vikram

Acknowledgment

 
Photographs courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/QuantumWorldAwakenYourMind

Photographs of Iceberg of  ignorance:    https: // www.torbenrick.eu