My question today is simple....how can we get a good leader in our country??
Strangely enough on every second day I hear a very famous quotation from Tipu Sultan ''So gedaron ka leader agar aik sher ko bana do to woh sub sher ki manind lartay hain, or so sheron ka salar agar aik geedar ko bana do to woh sheron ko bhi geedar kar daita hai''.
A very real reflection of what is the importance of a potent leadership in any field or walk of life. But with all the thousands of world renowned scholars and researchers spending hours on researching the top qualities of a leader and ways to improve the effectiveness of good leadership, I thought why not to look parallel to the different ideologies about leadership and then we can decide how we can get a good leader in our country.
But again, as I always believe in, we should not escalate the problems, but look for the solutions. I understand half the solution of any problem is recognizing the route cause behind that issue, yet it is very much a necessity that once divulging yourself in the problem always look for the bigger picture and keep your eyes transfixed on the solution.
What is Leadership??
There is no textbook definition as to what is leadership; we always deduct the meaning of the word leadership by indicating the most consistent attributes of successful leaders. In the simplest of words by Oxford Dictionary ''leadership is the art of leading others to achieve a goal or objective''.
Does this ring any bells as to why we are lacking leadership in our country???? Read it again and I bet you will get to the rock bottom of this problem in an instant. Yes...there it says....simply you would never know if someone is leadership material or not until you don’t give them an objective to achieve. Only then they will stand a chance to lead others and earn the title of a leader.
Now let’s put this definition to a historical test......
The best example for every aspect of life we have is the Example of Our Holy Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H). As a leader he influenced not only people around him, but generations to come after him still follow in the leadership examples set by Hazrat Muhammad (P.B.U.H). So how did he manage to become the greatest leader of all time from the reclusive cave of Hira? With no formal education to his name he became the teacher of a nation? Yes the reason behind that was the objective, the goal that was set upon him by the Almighty himself. The utter determination to achieve that goal was the reason why Allah (s.w.t) himself elevated him to the level of his beloved.
Take the followers of Prophet (P.B.U.H), how come ordinary human beings became so powerful that they were able to lead their Armies against the mightiest superpowers of their time and emerge as the winners. Masna bin Haris, Saad Bin Abi Waqas, Abu Ubaidah Jarrah and countless other ordinary humans have rewritten the human history on their own. What made them great leaders?? It was their clear concise thinking about what they want to achieve, their goals were set in front of them and they were dedicated in giving their best to achieve it.
Now come to the Modern leaders. Jinnah, again an exemplary character with extra ordinary brilliance, but do you notice that the real leadership abilities of Jinnah only came to light after Allama Iqbal came up with a clear direction of what needs to be achieved. Jinnah was quietly back in London in late 1920's. But it was the provision of a vivid objective by Allama Iqbal in 1930 that catapulted Jinnah to shine as an expert leader and he was able to lead his people to that objective.
Martin Luther King, the great American Civil Rights Activist, considered being one the most charismatic leaders of men of all time. But it was not until the time in 1958 when Rosa Parks settled a goal for all the coloured community by refusing to give her seat up for a white passenger, the idea of equality on all levels was born, and then Martin was able to achieve it.
Keeping in mind these were individuals who did not inherit any army, land or political party, they were people who grew up as normally as any one of us in the society and yet their determination to achieve their goals made them immortals in the history.
And the list can go on and on.....but the point I want to make here is the fact that leadership never evolves from thin air, the basic requirement of a successful leader is a clear, concise and idealistic thinking that sets an objective or a goal and lets person to act and achieve it.
And here I think lies the solution for our country. I definitely feel that the scenario in which we do not have an honest, credible and dynamic leader is not due to the feudalism, hereditary political parties, floods, anarchism, America or anything else.
The only reason why we see such a severe drought is that we have not produced any Social Scholars of modernised thinking lately. The dreamers, the Hakeem ul Ummats who have their deep roots in the society who know the secrets of rise and fall of nations and those who have the courage to come up with dreams. What we have produced are all accidental thinkers who do not resort the deep knowledge of national mechanics and cannot read the symptoms of an ailing nations.
Think of it in the last 20 years, think of the greats who have died in the last 20 years (watch the video of strings titliyaan if you want to get an idea that how many jewels we have lost lately) and the trouble is that there is no one to replace them. At the moment we do not have any great Poet, Prose Writer, Authentic Aalim (sorry not the uneducated Molvis with different coloured turbans), Journalist and researchers.
So how do we get thought leaders????
I think there is absolutely no specific way to build a thought leader, the only possible thing to do is just to strive for excellence, like you need not to be in a place of power or responsibility to promote an ideology, but you have to be excellent at what you do. By profession Allama Iqbal was a lawyer, Faiz was a bureaucrat and so many other professions, but the only reason people paid any heed to them was the fact that they were best at what they were doing.
And yes any one of us, anyone, can be the inspiration for may be someone else to make the difference in this country.
