DailyPost 2560
STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP IN GOVERNMENT
Strategy has been the buzzword for long in the corporate and management world for long. The human resource/s that make it happen is called strategic leadership. Strategic leadership is the process by which the strategy, which is the accepted vision is translated into reality, through various skills, tools and processes. In the recent corporate history, three tech entrepreneurs and leaders have defined elements of strategic leadership based the opportunities available and their own strength and have able to create and rum IT behemoths of a kind never happened in human history. Crazier still, they have managed to its robust sustenance and scalability.
They turn out to be the winner in every technology age. The strategic leadership of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Steve Jobs has so far become legendary. But what about the government and more so in the Indian context. Do we have such a clarity? Interestingly, who will be don the mantle of providing of strategic leadership? The politician or the bureaucrat. The bureaucrat at the rudimentary level has some idea of leadership, vision etc but can he translate it into strategic leadership is a million-dollar question. The political leadership translating to strategic leadership through political manifestoes, to whim and fancy schemes and projects does not seem to be happening.
We can pick up some of the successful projects and initiatives and euphemistically term it as strategic leadership is a different story. To break it down to understandable logic; the vision is of political leadership, the blueprint of the nature required, might or might not be there. The bureaucrat is supposed to don the mantle of strategic leadership and deliver against all odds in the ecosystem. Sometimes, it might just backfire to his own peril. The pliable human resources have to identified and then only it can be pushed through. In the topsy turvy world of democracy, governments come and go, what happens to strategic leadership then.
Whosoever may be the person, group or mechanism, any organization can have one functional strategic leadership. It cannot be broken into smithereens with every successive government. Leave aside strategic, it is no leadership at all. We have great examples of Kurien or M S Swaminathan but that be some odd and exceptional examples. That will not be able to pull off a nation into different trajectory. Some bureaucrats also deliver on occasions / projects / initiatives but that are also like flashes in the pan. When will we have strategic leadership with the ability to influence others to voluntarily make *day to day decisions that enhance the long term viability,*y while maintaining short term goals/operations and financial stability.
BEREFT OF STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP, MANAGIING COMPLEXITY AND DELIVERING SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.