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Leaders Or Followers

The 20th century B schools and the management gurus have always focused on the need to identify and nurture quality leadership.Leadership has become a buzz word in todays world.Every B school,every corporate house and every damn country is focused on creating quality leaders for tomorrow.
However in the process of creating leaders ,changing our education system and trying to assimilate creativity and independence in each of the citizen aren't we going to run into a problem of plenty soon.A recent recruiter at my college campus remarked:
"Its becoming increasing difficult to the new age generation.Everyone is a leader...who's a team member....people are expecting to lead global team within a span of 2yrs...we are seriously looking for followers now"
The situation is not hard to see.With the increasing dominance of capitalism across the globe and the aspirations which it so characterizes becoming part of the gen next ...we are in a problem of excess of quality leadership.
There are plenty of examples all around.Look at the political scene..parties like BJP are sinking to new lows not because they dont have quality leaders but becasue they dont have quality followers.If there is one most important think which distinguishes BJP and congress today..it is the willingness of the Congressmen to be led by the Nehru-Gandhi family.On a wider spectrum politics is becoming a dirty gane because everyone wants to lead...corporate boardrooms are increasingly becoming battleground for prestigious positions.
So what is the solution to come out of this problem.Do we simply start killing everything we did to create this breed of new generation leaders or can we ensure a system that produces just the optimum number of leaders.
Well one of the basic problems that has resulted in such a wide interest in leadership positions is the disproportionate benefits associated with leadership.CEO's make more money in a day than most workers would make in a full year...state heads have more power,and perks than simple implementers..leadership is taking a greater portion of the ie than it rightly deserves.For one,the success of any organization depends on its ability to excellently execute each of its core function.A leader is responsible for coordinating and strategist these functions.The function no doubt is important but arent we just overvaluing them.Shouldn't the importance of function be same as execution of othe key organizational function.A typical MBA grad earns in multiples of researchers salary whose technology drives the compnay.Can we allow the situation to continue.We already lost our best brains to leadership...things need to change.
There is a serious need to revalue leadership or we might find our ship sinking as the BJP is finding its....

Cliched Altruism

Yesterday evening as I returned to my hostel room,a person with long beard and wearing a khaki shirt came to my room.As he opened the door and I saw him holding a printed booklet with pink slips in his hand ,I knew what it was all about.Its Diwali time and numerous NGO's ,student bodies around Kharagpur,infact across India are scuttling to celebrate the festival of lights with down trodden,the less fortunate and numerous other phrases used.At this point of year suddenly everybody starts recognising society is not equal...its about inequalities,unfairness,poverty and hunger.As they say
"Life is the left ass of a black woment...neither fair nor right"
And everybody wants to play a part in it..small maybe by donating,by atleast giving the joy of festival of lights with the lesser fortunate sections of society.No this is not a post where I ask you all to do this,quite the contrary,I beg to differ and I am not ashamed of it.I feel all this activity of celebrating diwali with downtrodden,donating clothes etc is nothing more than a cliche,an economically and socially useless activity,done with nothing more than a sole aim of showcasing or advertisng your human side.Infact celebrating Diwali like this when you say astute the whole year around is quite similar to a political party distributing free sarees on an election day.Busy exectives the whole year around plot how to snatch jobs from workers,how to pollute the enviornment and by donating in such causes are they trying to buy their soul from God or what?
Let me pen down the reasons why I find this astute activity of celebrating Diwali with poor etc nothing more than double standards and a socially disastorous activtity
The purpose of any social activity in the society should be to reduce the boundaries,the narowing down of rich poor gap.I dont see how Diwali celebrations achieve this.Giving sweets to a child one day only to leave him begging the other day for a square meal is the worst form of torture you can do.Its dehumanising...infact your donating,or go out to celebrate diwali is nothing more than a picnic for you that satisfies your soul..you are not that bad.Yes if anything all those person who do these activities do it forthemselves and not for the damned society.
The money spent on such activities could be easily diverted on other better activities that creates sustainable solutions ..for example donating books to local school libraries,arranging evening classes,initiating microfinancing schemes to creates sustainable employment .Infact the focus of all social activities in our country should be on education and poverty allevation through encouraging small and mid size enterprised.This will help in reducing unemploymemnt,increasing awarness and ultimately reducing the poor section of our country
I guess but we would continue donating for such useless celebrations,I did too because it makes us socially acceptable,participation in such activities whether delievering any results or not looks a tad good on our CV,helps corporate their so called CSR activities and make it a marketing gimic and ultimately its about a concept called cliched "altruism"..the new buzz word

Corruption Gandhi and The Congress

On 30th Of January,1948 when Mahatma Gandhi was going to say his evening prayers,a so called terrorist Nathuram Godse fell to Mahatmas feet,picked himself up and shot bullets in the old mans chest.Mahatmas last words were "Hey Ram".Today as India and the world celebrate 140th birth anniversary of the man who lived to dignify truth ,poor and down trodden,we wonder what would he be saying had he been alive.I am pretty sure he would still say "Hey Ram".Mahatma wanted India to be free of not only the British but the evils that had trodded her for centuries-hunger,poverty,unemployment,caste etc.However more than 60 years after Independence ,we have hardly achieved any of the great mans dreams.This 2nd October Congress decided to give the ultimate honour to Mahatma by naming its flagship NREGA scheme after gandhi.
Had mahatma been alive he wouldn't only have refused to be associated with NREGA but would have been saddened how a scheme intended to achieve the twin aims of development rural infrastructure and reducing rural unemployment failed at the faint hearts of Indian babus and bastard politicians.A recent investigation in the NREGA scheme revealed the following startling facts:
1)40% NREGA funds are siphoned
2)The corruption is so deep that some districts show old projects as new ones to release funds-talk about Indians being uncreative
3)Most NREGA workers get less than half of their promised salaries that also more than two months late
Clearly NREGA has been a failure.When a social scheme of the scale of NREGA was to be implemented in India-corruption was but expected,but this has however gone beyond the domains of ordinary.The Congress government played a masterstroke on the backdrop of the newly released reports by naming the scheme after Mahatma Gandhi.After all Congress ,the very party Mahatma hoped would lift India out of its problems in its current avtar is nothing more than a power hungry family raised business that has creating perceptions ,one of its core strengths.And yes it might get votes for naming scheme after Bapu or convincing people it is the only party who understands the so called "aam aadmi".(in Congress dictionary aam aadmi probably means the aam babus ,the aam politicians,the aam Mamtas and the aam Rahuls).However is this what will fulfil the dream of Bapu to make India a country of equals,a country which lived in its villages,managed by its own people who were self less or at least honest.
Maybe all of bapus values cannot be followed in the present time period but we can at least try to be more honest and design schemes which reach the masses.The NREGA scheme has flaws in its basic designs,It needs to be revamped and relaunched.
There is no denying of the fact that India needs serious infrastructure investment in Rural sector but unlike NREGA providing infrastructure shouldn't be coupled with providing minimum employment.Ins ted the panchayts and local admnistrators should work to chalk out an action plan for providing sustainable growth and employment to people .While NREGA would last till the scheme an action focused plan would contribute to the overall economic and social growth of nation..
Besides the funding should not be directly by the government ,as the system is inefficient and leads to high leakages.Instead it should be in the form of micro financing small businesses ,providing soft loans to panchayts and infrastructure development on BOT basis.The district administrators ,penchants should have their KRA's clearly defined and their promotions and further commitment of fresh capital should be based on measured growth in social and economic indicators.Also direct government spending if any should be on research,providing quality primary education and promoting fresh ideas and businesses in rural area.The motive should be to promote small businesses which act as feeder to large companies or which have the potential to become big (like Amul or other cooperatives) and thus provide sustainable creation of employment.At this point I remember a famous quote
"Feed a poor man and he is hungry the next day..teach him to fish and you feed him forever"
Clearly our focus should be on the latter part of quotation.World over policies like subsidies,free electricity have failed what is succeeded is direct involvement of govt. in development programs with active local participation and reduced bureaucratic hurdles.
If the above were implemented our netas wont really have to worry so much on creating perceptions ..votes would insted be flowing in ballot boxes...wish Mahatma was there to guide our poor souls..at least his principles are.