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Leadership is one of the most researched and written about topics. A search of
the word ‘Leadership’ Google throws out about 414,000,000 results. A similar
search on Google on ‘political leadership’ throws about 29,600,000 results.
Success or failure of any leader in the public arena draws continuous interest
and attention. Innumerable numbers of books, articles and thesis reports have
been published in this field of study. But every event in the public domain
arouses a fresh public, academic and research interest.
An attempt by Baba Ramdev to evolve and lead a mass movement against corruption
in the country is one such case of public interest recently in India. The author
makes an attempt to analyze the leadership processes in this context. Even
though the movement is considered as a political process with a number of
political implications, the author restricts his analysis only to the leadership
processes keeping aside all the political dimensions. The purpose of this
article is only to draw and learn any possible lessons and not to praise or
criticize Ramdev as a leader of the movement.
Leader of any mass movement needs to convey and live by strong vision and
values: This becomes all the more critical if he/she has to lead in a public
domain. The vision and values of the leader seen with a missionary zeal would
attract followers. Even though Ramdev’s stated objective of fighting against
corruption was appealing to various segments of the population, he could not
inspire and attract persons beyond his disciples as a yoga teacher.
Genuine and committed followers rally around a leader fighting for their
cause with no visible or perceived personal interest or motive: Thus even
though ‘cause of fighting against corruption’, is a noble cause of common
interest to various strata of society at large as a super-ordinate goal, Ramdev
was perceived (rightly or wrongly) as a person interested in personal
brand-building for his business and that he has political ambitions. In case,
any leader is perceived as trying to hijack a common cause for personal
brand-building, the followers lose trust in the leader and thus in the movement.
It is common knowledge that success of a Leader depends on followers: In
this case, his followers were predominantly dominated by middleclass men and
women from rural and semi-urban areas from a few states of northern India. They
were mainly disciples from his yoga classes both in person and on TV channels.
They seem to have transferred or extended the faith they have in him as yoga
teacher to Ramdev as a person leading a movement against corruption. Beyond such
transfer of faith, they do not seem to have any strong ideological connect. In
the absence of any strong ideological commitment, the followers dispersed, at
the first instance of crisis, which in this case was a ‘lathi-charge’ by the
police. Ramdev lacked the inspirational pull to attract and retain followers for
the movement.
Success of a leader depends on command over task on hand: He/She requires
knowledge and expertise of the task on hand. Ramdev seemed to lack understanding
of intricacies of the governance and political processes. The only tool he had
was the perceived mass support of his yoga followers, and the potency of going
on a fast, given the success in the case of Anna Hazare. The point he missed was
the contexts were different. A success in a given context (Anna) is not a
guarantee for similar success in another context. Ramdev hails from a
non-political background. The task of negotiating successfully against maneuvers
from some politicians of the team with members from lawyers’ has been too
difficult for him to handle alone. He could not cope with the surprise moves of
the ‘carrot and stick approach’ of the powerful and experienced government team.
Shared Leadership Essential: Today with multiple complexities, for
leading any mass movement, it is essential to have counsel from a core team of
competent advisors with strong belief and commitment to the same cause. The team
can not only act as ‘a think-tank’, but can also actively share responsibility
in implementation. What Baba Ramdev was addressing was by no means a mean issue.
It is addressing head on an issue like deep-rooted corruption in the nation and
a demand to bring back to the nation the billions of dollars of black money
stashed in foreign banks. Such a movement would threaten a number of persons
with vested interests. All such elements were probably eagerly waiting for
Ramdev to make wrong moves in order to malign him and weaken the movement. In
cases of such a complex situation, in order to avoid any wrong moves and to be
on right track, the leader invariably needs counsel at critical junctures, and
thus a shared leadership. History shows that even a powerful leader like Gandhi
Ji depended on shared leadership for collective thought and action in critical
issues. Baba Ramdev probably failed to attract and nurture a core team. He was
missing essential counsel from such a team at every stage. He was a champion for
a cause, thinker, organizer of resources, spokesperson, negotiator and a person
on fast. Thus with multiple roles from one person, and with no shared leadership
developed, the movement was not only deprived of in-depth thinking but it also
it added a lot of emotional stress on the leader.
A leader is respected by the emotional maturity he/she displays: When
Ramdev made a statement of raising a brigade of 11,000 armed persons to fight,
even if he meant for self defense, it was seen in conflict with values of
non-violence. He adopted the Gandhian method of non-violent fast as an act of
political protest and how can he speak of raising an army? Similarly at one
stage he was almost on the verge of entering into a deal with government but
ended up accusing them of plotting to kidnap and kill him. With such emotional
outbursts in contradiction to his actions, his rating as a leader was eroded in
no time.
A leader demonstrates clarity of purpose and agenda: Ramdev seemed to be
missing a clear goal. Maybe his personal goal was clear but the stated goal for
the agitation was not. He had a list of several demands, some of which were not
practical, which also eroded his credibility as a practical leader. For example,
his demand for the death sentence for those convicted in cases of corruption was
ridiculed as impractical.
A leader who deserts his/her followers loses their trust: Followers will
respect and trust as a leader, a person who will stand by them and not desert
them in a crisis situation. A true leader will never run away from the crisis
situation leaving his followers to face the crisis. Even if he does it for
self-protection for his life, it will be seen as running away for selfish
reasons. When there was police action at midnight, an alleged attempt by him to
run away to the railway station disguised in a woman’s dress did not win him any
accolades as a leader. In such a moment, a true leader would have addressed the
police saying, “Arrest me but don’t hurt my people especially the women and
children”. After all, they were all there in the middle of the night with trust
in him. He would have become more popular by a surrender to police seeking
sparing of his followers rather than seen as attempting to run away deserting
his them. He would have been seen as a self-less leader who puts his followers’
safety as more important than his own.
Ability to manage the media is critical today: In the current context, if
one aims to be a leader in the public domain, one has to have niceties to manage
the media. Due to cut throat competition between channels for ‘TRP ratings’,
most of the TV channels today thrive by mercilessly sensationalizing every
potential issue. Any leader in the public domain should not only avoid falling
prey to the media’s attempts in blowing up his/her mistakes, but should
negotiate ones’ way through, thus cleverly building public opinion for the
movement. Ramdev seem to have lost in this regard. When there is so much media
glare while fighting on an issue of corruption, any iota of doubt on his own
personal track record, image and credibility would give scope for the media to
expose him. It was possibly these ‘loose ends in his leadership processes’ that
came in handy for opponents in killing the movement.
In Conclusion
It can be said that Baba Ramdev started the movement against corruption well,
but failed as a leader to take it forward probably because of contradictions at
a personal level, and contradictions on what the real agenda and purpose was and
due to lack of certain leadership skills needed in the current context. May be
he was a successful yoga teacher and an entrepreneur and not a mass leader.
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