Visionary leadership

Imagine if leadership was thrust upon such a person. The quest for a visionary leader is as old as mankind. Whenever a journey needs to be undertaken, the ship will need a captain. It does not matter what the adventure, be it a small family affair or the future of a generation.
A cricket team needs a captain, a school a principal, an army a general, a corporation a CEO, and a country simply a leader. In all cases, by necessity, the vacancies are filled but not always with a visionary leader. History identifies that all successful ventures necessarily had a visionary leading from the front.
The proponents of team work might vehemently object to this statement and will refer to it as a fleeting remark, but even they cannot deny that history only remember its leaders. You hear of Alexander and his armies, Saladin and his armies, Jack Welch and GM, Bill Gates and Microsoft, but history does not have time to eulogise the entire team. Even today it is Imran Khan's team which won the world cup in 1992, and to be honest I will have to struggle to remember the rest of the eleven. I apologise for that.
We need not look beyond our borders to confirm this hypothesis; at the very outset we are eternally grateful to the Quaid's vision for Pakistan. Risking severe criticism, I now venture a fleeting statement: Any and every institution which stands at the pinnacle of success today in Pakistan, owes it all to a visionary leader who was the catalyst responsible for its direction, drive and commitment to objectives.
Today every developed nation, every global corporation, every institution of fame and any famous family will proudly narrate the story of its visionary leader, its dynamic CEO, its brilliant Patron and its Patriarch who lead them to fame and fortune. What than is a leader? According to Napoleon Bonaparte "A leader is a dealer of hope" or we could go with the boring definition Wikipedia offers "A leader is one who influences others". There can be numerous definitions of a leader but simply he is the guy who leads the rest, the Ruler!
And who is a visionary leader? He is a person who thinks about or plans the future with imagination and wisdom. A tall order indeed! Where do you find a person who can influence others and is also wise and imaginative? Well most every institution has evolved a succession process. In a family structure it is generally the eldest surviving member who yields authority.
In terms of institutions it is a selection process by the seniors and or sponsors based on performance and related experience. The quality of selection being dependent upon how stringent and transparent is the process. The corporate sector broadly follows the same process however lately corporations have moved towards announcing succession earlier thereby allowing the crown prince to learn the ropes before the King passes the baton.
Clearly none of the above guarantee success, if any process ends up with providing visionary leadership, it is pure luck! However this may not necessarily be a problem for developed or matured institutions that have already transited to a higher plain, courtesy a visionary leader. For such entities a leader who can consolidate and manage is sufficient for a few decades until competition or technology again leaves them behind. The rest of them will need to twiddle and fiddle their thumbs waiting for a visionary leader to come and take control.
Funnily enough things get more complicated when you get to the macro level, the State. Today there are various processes to select national leadership. These include Kingdoms, Dictatorship, Communism, and Democracy. The first three are authoritarian rules and therefore the succession is purely selection by the ruling elite. Democracy is however an elective process which recognises the right of the entire population to select their visionary leader. Again none can guarantee success but remarkably at this level there are no marks for experience, qualification or past performance.
My personal opinion is that of all the above processes, democracy has the least chance of finding a visionary leader. Take Pakistan's example, even if a visionary leader was contesting the election, how would he go around proving it to at least 60% of the voting population of around 190 million people? And it has nothing to do with literacy alone, to even have a chance each of his grandparents will need to be from one of the provinces and the spouses family will need to cover the other minorities. Additionally the candidate has to be rich to meet the costs of getting elected. Food for thought, we do not find democracy at any other institutional, corporate, team or family level. Probably Allama Iqbal was on to something when he observed that, "Jamhoriat main bando ko gina jata hai, tola nahi jata".
In his book "The Armchair Economist" published in 1993, Stephen Landsburg raises a pertinent question as to why people go to vote when they should know that one vote will not make a difference. Maybe it is an ego boosting feeling that the ruling elite are dependent on our vote. That be the case guess how many diligently exercise this right.
Irrespective of the debate on whether leaders are born, or thrust or achieve the status, history does indentify that rarely has democracy been able to elect a visionary leadership. Most visionary leaders apparently have emerged either from dictatorship; military take over, revolution or pure chaos. In modern times the developed countries probably don't even strive for a visionary leader, they are just happy with the status quo. In fact in mature economies lacking aspirations for world diplomacy, leadership probably is in reality public service. As in the case of the corporate world it is the developing nations which wait for a visionary leader.
Notwithstanding the shortcomings in the selection or election process, if fate does provide a country with a visionary leader how does the populace find out that they have been blessed. Unfortunately time is the only judge and it takes a few decades for even a corporation to become a global force, one can only conjecture the time needed for Pakistan. In the 20th century, arguably, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the most successful president of the USA overseeing the great depression and a World War. He held the position for 12 years, so why does the American constitution only allow for two terms totalling 8 years?
Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping between themselves ruled China for 40 years, Lee Kuan Yeow Singapore for 3 decades, Mahathir Malaysia for 22 years and is probably still there in spirit, Suharto Indonesia 31 years, Indra Gandhi India for 16 years before she was assassinated, Joseph Stalin USSR for 3 decades and I need not elaborate on the Middle East considering that this information has been drilled into our minds day and night for the last few weeks. With this evidence how incorrect would it be to postulate the following theory:
Comparing Pakistan with other countries in the East, it is concluded that Pakistan has not achieved economic success and stability since it has not been ruled continuously for 30 years by one person. Maybe there is some truth in this theorem, it probably takes a leader a decade to learn the ropes and assume control before he can establish and implement his vision. In Pakistan this is around the maximum time we have given our leadership.
However recent incidents also indicate that before or around the 25th years to the leader should disappear since around that time people tend to forget all the good that he did and onwards label him as a despotic dictator. It probably could be that the generation which he led has aged and the new generation just wants change.
The concept of successive terms also seems faulty since it encourages "window dressing" near the election. How is continuity of policies ensured if a new leader is elected every four years? So what than is the solution, what if a ruler is elected for 25 years and he really is not the visionary leader we hoped and prayed for? Good questions for which this article neither has the intent or space to tackle.
The objective was to initiate and solicit a debate on the best system to elect or select a ruler and if it is only fate and pure luck, than what should be the term. Critically, for all you know, the current leadership may be the one we were waiting for and will only find out a decade after we have removed them!
'To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favourable wind.'
- Seneca Roman Stoic Philosopher