MEaN Leadership: ME a Narcissist??

Throughout history, narcissist leaders have emerged as the effective leaders who have shaped both the history and geography of the present world in terms of political power and conquest of states. Freud identified three types of personalities: erotic, obsessive, and narcissistic. Each one of us has the elements of all three depending on the context and situation. Freud stated that the narcissist personality is the hardest to analyze, having compelling vision for achievement and need for admiration and praise by the followers, so much so that they can live without food for days but not without admiration and adulation.

Narcissist have a passionate desire for authority and power and once they are in a powerful position the narcissist personality blooms to the maximum, fueled by the ‘spirit of power ‘. Narcissism is like fire, if it can be controlled, it can light up the darkest nights but once out of control it can burn the house, company and the soul. Leadership experts Manfred Kets de Vries and Michael Maccoby, therefore talk about ‘productive narcissists’, who can be useful for the government or business to achieve the mission of the organization. The key to their usefulness is the art to ‘manage’ them for productive results. All heroes in the real or cinematic world have high degree of narcissism; the following video portrays beautifully the narcissist traits(or rather Narcissist Personality Disorder Traits) of the famous character Sherlock Holmes.

  

Are Bureaucrats Narcissists?

Taking the analogy from popular research on Leadership that leadership is 30% innate and 70% dependent on the environmental factors, narcissism should also have the same characteristics. The 30% innate trait for narcissism in Bureaucrats can be debated but the remaining 70 % environment in Bureaucracy is too conducive for narcissism. A top job in bureaucracy has inbuilt followers who on a daily basis impart a dose of admiration and adulation to the boss, so much so that the bureaucrats have the narcissist feeling that whatever good that is going on in the organization is just because of their leadership and there is no one better than me in the whole world. Infact it seems that this attitude is somewhat useful and even necessary for the system to run smoothly and it even compensates for the absence of 30% innate basis of leadership, in some bureaucrats. It is pertinent to point out, all Bureaucrats need a healthy dose of narcissism for survival in a very competitive environment. In the words of Manfred Kets de Vries, “Narcissism is the engine that drives leadership”, a fact that is well collaborated in Bureaucracy.

7 Star Effective Leadership-SEISMIC Leadership

The question that ‘Leadership is innate or can be developed as a skill ?’ is open to debate but certain characteristics are common to great leaders around the world. Some characteristics may be more naturally present in the personality of a leader, however some of these characteristics can be developed and strengthened. The greatness of any leader is measured simply by the number of followers he ar she has. John Maxwell, author of “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” defines leadership as “influence, nothing more, nothing less”. He goes on to say: “He who thinks he leads but has no-one following him, is simply taking a walk.” But Hitler also had many followers in his time, does that makes Hitler a great leader. The answer is no because true leadership has to governed by moral imperatives. Effective Leadership has to be rooted in the moral authenticity. The Bhagwat Gita emphasizes that “The real strength of a person or group lies not in the quality and variety of skills possessed by them rather on the pursued ideals, motives, principles and character”.  Effective leadership has to follow the principle of Dharma or Righteousness in thought, action and deed.

In my opinion Effective leadership has to make positive ripples in the society and mankind that is why I call effective leadership as SEISMIC Leadership. The traits of effective SEISMIC leadership are as follows-

1.    Sacrosanct – Sacrosanct leadership is based on moral and humanity imperatives. The bond between the leader and the followers has to be based on the trust and commitment.

2.    Extroversion – Communication is the most important tool of the leader to influence the people.

3.    Introversion- It is very important for the leader to articulate his ideals and principles after proper analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the people he is following. Introspection and meditation are one of the most important traits of an effective leader.

4.    Situational – Leadership is primarily situational and contextual.

5.    Motivational – Effective leader should be able to lead the people from the front and make use of the strengths of the team.

6.    Institutional- Ultimately leadership has to build institutions so that there is continuity and legacy.

7.    Consistent – Leaders have to be consistent, if you fail even once your leadership is under attack.

Butler, D., & Herman, R. (1999). Effective Ministerial Leadership Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 9 (3), 229-239 DOI:10.1002/nml.9302

Bush, R. (2002). Effective Nonprofit Management: The Leadership Factor Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 12 (3), 327-333 DOI: 10.1002/nml.12308

3 Reasons Why India does not need a Lokpal Bill-Right Now

Although crusaders like Anna Hazare working on the sentiments of the Indian population are calling for a strong lokpal Bill, the fact is that anyone who calls for a strong institution like Lokpal has not read the provisions of the Indian Constitution. The three provisions that act as a anti corruption measures are

1.      The Right to Information Act 2005

2.      Article 32 of the Indian Constitution

3.      Article 226 of the Indian Constitution

The Right to Information Act 2005 http://www.righttoinformation.gov.in/rti-act.pdf  empowers the citizens of India to seek information on the government offices(Public Authority) processes, procedures and decisions in a timely manner. It is pertinent to point out that it is a special law with overriding effect on general laws. Under Section 2(h) of the Act ‘public authority’ means any body or institution or authority constituted or established

(a) by or under the Constitution of India

(b) by any law made by the Parliament

(c) by any law made by the State Legislature

(d) by any notification issued by the appropriate government and includes

(1) body owned, controlled or substantially financed

(2) NGOs established ,financed (directly or indirectly) by the Government

The Objective of the Act is stated in the preamble of the act which is quoted below-

“An Act to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities, in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority, the constitution of a Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. 

WHEREAS the Constitution of India has established democratic Republic;  AND WHEREAS democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information which are vital to its functioning and also to contain corruption and to hold Governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed; 

AND WHEREAS revelation of information in actual practice is likely to conflict with other public interests including efficient operations of the Governments, optimum use of limited fiscal resources and the preservation of confidentiality of sensitive information;

AND WHEREAS it is necessary to harmonise these conflicting interests while preserving the paramountcy of the democratic ideal;  ”

Article 32 of the constitution of India is referred to as the ‘constitutional remedy’ for the enforcement of the fundamental rights of the Indian citizens, guaranteed under Part-III of the Indian Constitution. The provisions of the fundamental rights are meaningless unless the citizens have adequate safeguards to ensure enforcement through writ in a court of law, More so, a writ lies only against a person if it is a statutory body or performs a public function or discharges a public or a statutory duty, or a “State” within the meaning of Article 12 of the  Constitution. (Vide Anandi Mukta Sadguru Trust Vs. V.R. Rudani AIR 1989 SC 1607; VST Industries Ltd. Vs. VST Industries Workers’ Union & Anr. (2001) 1 SCC 298; and State of Assam Vs. Barak Upatyaka U.D. Karamchari Sanstha AIR 2009 SC 2249)[1]. This article 32 of the Indian constitution is included in the fundamental right and therefore cannot be denied to any person. This article has been called as the heart and the soul of the Indian Constitution.

A Public Interest Litigation can be filed before the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution or before the High Court of a State under Article 226 of the Constitution under their respective Writ Jurisdictions. There are mainly five types of Writs –

(i)   Writ of Habeaus Corpus,

(ii)   Writ of Mandamus,

(iii)   Writ of Quo-Warranto,

(iv)   Writ of Prohibition, and

(v)    Writ of Certiorari.

(I)   Writ of Habeas Corpus:

Of these, the most important is the writ of Mandamus which has been used as a effective tool by the concerned citizens of India. Mandamus is a Latin word, which means "We Command". Mandamus is an order from a superior court to a lower court or tribunal or public authority to perform an act, which falls within its duty. It is issued to secure the performance of public duties and to enforce private rights withheld by the public authorities. Simply, it is a writ issued to a public official to do a thing which is a part of his official duty, but, which, he has failed to do, so far.

This does not argue that Judicial process in India is free from defects, infact, the most important area that needs focus for reducing Corruption in India is Judicial Reforms. It is strange that in a country where there are more than one million lawyers and 80,000 law graduates pass each year, there is a shortage of judicial officers and huge backlog of court cases. “Over three million cases are pending in India's 21 high courts, and an astounding 26.3 million cases are pending in subordinate courts across the country. At the same time, there are almost a quarter million under-trials languishing in jails across the country. Of these, some 2,069 have been in jail for more than five years, even as their guilt or innocence is yet to be ascertained[2].” This calls for urgent measures to increase judicial officers so that corruption cases are brought to conclusion through fast track courts

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[1] http://legalperspectives.blogspot.com/2010/04/remedy-under-article-32-law-revisited.html

[2] ‘Nearly 30 million cases pending in courts’, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, May 23, 2007

Just Cities: Changing History through Geography

Primarily, Urban Planning has been judged on the criteria of Efficiency and Effectiveness, but in the article,’ Planning and the Just City’ by Susan S. Fainstein, the criterion of equity is introduced and it is argued that the ultimate goal of planners and city managers should be that of a “Just City”.  Just cities can provide the benchmark of the 21^st century cities and maybe we need to have a ‘Just city index’ instead of ‘Livabilty cities index’, to bring the focus of urban planners to this goal. It is well documented that it is the poor who make sacrifices in the urban setting in the name of creating Global cities, Creative cities, whatever is the fad at that period of time, the poor are the most neglected segment in the realm of urban planning. The obsession of the urban planners to create cities with focus on growth and economic development puts the poor and disadvantaged at the margin of development mainly because they don’t have the lobbying power to influence the planning process. It is time that urban planners should also take their share of responsibility for the shrinking middle class and the growth of the rich class, although much of it is due to inherent characteristics of Capitalism. Democracy which was supposed to promote equity has failed miserably to do, in the domain of urban planning, with the ‘property-owning democracy ‘ calling the shots and those who don’t own the property or don’t have tenure rights on the place they live, have no say in the planning process even if they constitute significant numbers. The threat of the global warming and the harmful ecological effects of development has created another objective of ‘Sustainable Development’ for the planners, here also the greatest effect of the ecological damage is going to be borne by the poor and the marginalized.

Growth with Equity and Sustainability

Scott Campbell, in an artcle “Green Cities, Growing Cities,  Just Cities?  Urban Planning and the Contradictions of Sustainable Development”, published in Journal of the American Planning Association (Summer, 1996) argues that planners face three conflicting interests: to grow the economy, distribute this growth fairly, and in the process not degrade the ecosystem.

The urban conflict of land is due to the commodification of land. Shelter one of the basic needs of humans has been converted by greed to Speculation. The competing claims on the ownership of property are inherent in the capitalism, blurring the boundary between private interest and public good. Property is defined as a private commodity but is dependent on government policies like zoning, public housing, etc, to ensure the beneficial aspects of the property, this contradictory nature of property is classified as “property contradiction” by Richard Fogleson(1986).

The Road-Map to Just Cities

Agreed that the goal of urban planning should be creation of Just Cities, but how to go about it?  What are the strategies?  Many cities of the world have followed the path of ‘Creative Destruction’ in which the equity concept was never taken into account and the underlying concept was that the winners will compensate the losers, but history has shown that it is geography that has won in terms of opportunity and a loser in the long run is never able to come to the top inspite of best of the efforts by the governments. The equity intervention by deconcentrating poverty can bring more people to work and increase the productivity of the city and lead to economic growth. Redistribution of income has been one of the objectives of the public policies in many cities but there is greater need for ‘Spatial redistribution’ which leads to better economic, social, and political redistribution and ultimately fair economic growth. Social Housing can be one of the major instrument for promoting equity in cities, housing not only gives the much desired shelter but it gives poor an asset and a stake in the society, contributing to greater happiness and satisfaction. Social Housing should be planned on the principle of mixed land use to create not only vibrancy and dynamism in cities but can also be a great instrument of unity within diversity.

Inspite of the best intentions and efforts of the urban planners, the goal of Just Cities may remain elusive, because ultimately the future of cities depends on the ‘political will’ and ‘administrative mindset’. With the rise of communicative planning, the bargaining power of the rich has increased because they are better organized, informed and own all the medium of communication, with the poor and marginalized thrown out of this communication process. So bottom up planning process may not represent the interests of the poor unless special efforts are made by the concerned leadership.

Tebeau M (2010). Sculpted landscapes: art & place in Cleveland's Cultural Gardens, 1916-2006. Journal of social history, 44 (2), 327-50 PMID: 21197805

Creative Class vs Native Class

In the article ‘Cities and Creative Class’, the author Richard Florida seeks to identify the rise of the ‘Creative Class’ , a new social class which are basically knowledge workers, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or creative content. Richard Florida argues that the character of the cities is defined by this creative class and reverses the traditional approach of Urban development by propagating that it is the ‘place’ rather than ‘corporation’ that matters to this creative class people. Florida’s hypothesis is substantiated by many regions of the world where urban forms are dominated by the small cities which are not historical in nature and have origin which is recent in nature and dominated by technology and talent attracting large capital investment by Multi-National Corporations e.g. Silicon Valley and Orange County in California and Bavaria in Germany. Rise of such cities have brought into focus the concept of creative cities and policies in many parts of the world are so directed to generate such creative magnets for talent pool and foster economic growth. Deindustrialization of the western manufacturing cities, the rise of the service industry and globalization of the world all account for the growth of such creative cites and the dependence on technology and Innovation for economic growth make them significant in the history and geography of the world. In strict technological sense the parameter of creativity of such cities is judged by the number of patents registered by the Companies and creative people residing in the city.

Since creativity is created by the created by the individuals, the natural corollary is that innovation can take place anywhere especially in the present age of technology, but from Richard Florida’s point of view Creativity needs an environment to thrive, that is Creativity is cultural and contagious, so cities invests in urban interventions to attract the creative souls of the world. The counter argument is put by Glaeser, Kolko and Saiz, 2001 who state that instead, the productive advantage that one area has over another is driven mostly by the people. Urban success comes from being an attractive “consumer city” for high skill people[1]. Their advice for the mayors of the cities is to focus on the basic commodities desired by those with skills rather than creating a funky, hip, gay friendly bohemian town.

Taking the Creative Class argument to the next level, Richard Florida in his 2006 book, ‘The Flight of the Creative Class’, states that this global competition for creative talent will be the defining economic issue of the 21st century[2]. Florida argues that post 9/11 American policies have become less supportive for attracting this creative class which can have serious consequences for the US in terms of their economic growth and global supremacy. In the latest book ‘The Great Reset’, Richard Florida states that the economic recession in America calls for new policies to foster economic growth in cities by working on the ‘spatial fix’, an idea he borrowed from the economic geographer, David Harvey. He calls Americans to shun their love for home ownership and argues for rent based urban form that can have more creative class mobility. Richard Florida says “The places that thrive today ,are those with the highest velocity of ideas, the highest density of talented and creative people, and the highest rate of metabolism[3].”

Top Down or Bottom Up

One wonders, how this City Doctor, Richard Florida’s prescription of top down approach towards the development of cities, with focus on the elite creative class, will affect the health of the cities. What can be the potential side effects of this Creative class therapy?  Does focusing too much on the culture of creativity and high influx of creative immigrants make the cities and their real estate markets unrealistically high making the cities unsustainable in the long run. If the issue is the attractiveness of cities, Do people rank this creative class space as the top priority in deciding the cities to live in or Are interested in more fundamental factors such as security, health, education, infrastructure and political environment.

Native Class

In my opinion governments should focus on the ‘Native Class’ rather than the Creative Class for the simple reason that the native people make the city not the immigrants and cities should not be designed for the mobile creative class. Creative class people are disloyal to the cities in the sense that if the cities fail to excite them then they move to new cities resulting in the flight of capital and creative people, so why concentrate so much on this class? Secondly the mandate to govern is not given to the government by the immigrants but by the native class so policies should be tailored as per the aspirations of the native class. An Indian Banker who is not loyal to India cannot be loyal to USA, so the moment he sees a recession he is the first person to leave US and return to India, so why focus on him? Why make policies to attract him? His only motive is to earn money and he will do it where he sees opportunity. So why ‘create’ Creative cities for such opportunist creative class?

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[1] Review of Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class, Edward L. Glaeser

[2] http://www.creativeclass.com/richard_florida/books/the_flight_of_the_creative_class, accessed 14 March, 2012.

[3] http://www.fastcompany.com/1637457/richard-floridas-creative-destruction, accessed 14 March, 2012.

Market Imperfections of Global Cities

In the article by Fainstein ‘Inequality in global city-regions, the writer talks about the growing inequality in the global cities in the world. This inequality is quite paradoxical in the sense that this tag of global city in a sense based on high economic growth which the Capitalism aspires for, but the fruits of this Capitalism are not distributed among the cross section of the population. It is not this growth makes poor more poor rather the rich become rich at a fast race compared to the poor which results in the vast inequality seen in the Global cities.

The notion of ‘Global Cities’ was put on the global map by Friedmann (1986), Castells (1989) and Sassen (1991, 1994) based on the notion of that these cities function as nodes in the global economy with London, New York and Tokyo cited as prime examples. Derudder’s (2006) summary of the Global Cities literature lists corporate organization and infrastructure as the two key empirical criteria for Global City status[1]. Fainstein makes a very important point that apart from these common characteristics, these global cities show growing income disparity in the population of these cities with the middle class shrinking and the bottom class growing which has serious bearings on the character of these cities.  Another important point that the author makes is the importance of the nation-state against a growing popular belief that the nation-state has become redundant in this age of globalization. The vulnerability of the poor and the disadvantaged becomes more pronounced as the economic growth takes place, calling for the state to have better equitable policies.

The Global city tag is on the top of the wish list of many city managers and Mayors, primarily seeing it as panacea for all urban ills. This notion of global city capitalism emphasizes the role of knowledge, information, global networks and global finance for capital accumulation and profit generation. This new phase of capitalism represents a transformation from country-based economic systems to city-based ones[2]. The knowledge economy of these global cities makes the poor living there more vulnerable in terms of income, job opportunities and job security. One of the major alarming consequences of this divided dual cities is the fact that this social and economic polarization of the population results in the spatial polarization in the urban form of these global cities with clear cut division where the rich live and where the poor live, resulting in the ‘Gated Communities’.

Economist measure income disparities in population by ‘Gini Coefficient’, which is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality (where everyone has the same income) and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality (where one person has all the income — and everyone else has zero income). What is surprising is that some of the developed countries of the world have a high score in Gini coefficient implying greater income inequality in their cities. One of the plausible reasons for the high income inequality is the presence of headquarters of large multinational corporations especially financial firms, where the executives draw huge salaries but even if that fact is discounted the bottom half of the population does not get the equal fruits of economic growth compared to the upper half.

Inequality, growth and Cities

This presence of inequality of income in both the developed national and developing or under developed nations raises doubts about the effectiveness of the development in the rich countries and leads to many questions “What bearings does the income inequality has on the growth of cities? What is the casual relationship between the level of income inequality and the pace of economic growth? Is the USA’s low GDP growth due to large income inequality in its Cities? Or Income inequality is a market imperfection that the market takes care in the long run and what are its implications for public policy especially in the Urban Planning?

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[1] ‘Global Cities in the South: Deepening social and spatial polarization in Cape Town’, Charlotte Lemanski 2006

[2] Social Polarisation and Poverty in the Global City The Case of Hong Kong, Kim-ming Lee, China Report January 2007 vol. 43 no. 1 1-30                             

Corruption in India-Jan Lok Bill

The Jan Lokpal Bill was introduced in the parliament on August 4, 2011. The Bill provides for the establishment of an Ombudsman or Lokpal for enquiring into complaints of corruption against certain public servants. In a country where there are more than 34,700 laws, do we need a new law to fight Corruption? What about even if we pass the Jan Lokpal Bill and there is no proper implementation? These questions need to be answered in order to dig deep on the issue of corruption in India. Can Jan Lokpal Bill be a panacea for all ills?  Presently there are anti corruption agencies like Lokayuktas, Central Vigilance Commision (CVC), Central Bureau of Investigation, etc who are doing a fine job and needs to be strengthen and not bulldozed by a oligarchic structure of Lokpal institution. Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy calls Jan Lokpal Bill a very regressive kind of law which concentrates the power in the hands of few members which she calls a ‘Parallel Oligarchy’. Corruption is a manifestation of temptation and what if the members can’t resist the temptation and become corrupt themselves. In a country of 1.3 billion where everyone wants to be a God and Hero, concentrating power can have dangerous authoritarian consequences. Another point to be emphasized is that Corruption needs to be defined in a more broader concept against the prevelant westernized definition. In the land of Gandhi, anyone taking more than his need, is in a way governed by Greed and is therefore corrupt. The private sector needs to brought under the ambit of anti corruptions measures.

Why suddenly the issue of Corruption and Jan Lokpal cropped up now? Was there not corruption before? The interest the corruption rhetoric is generating needs to be probed further. In the last 2 years the conviction and jail of big fish in the corruption field is a phenomenon not seen in India before and when things are rolling in the right direction why this movement against corruption in the form of Jan Lokpal Bill. Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy says that these movements are funded by NGOs who are funded by the Western agencies like Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and World Bank for further penetration of International Capital. I would like to quote from an article in Frontline by Prabhat Patnaik- “The transition from democracy to what some have called “corporatocracy”,…. which is an integral part of the rise to hegemony of globalised finance capital. The Hazare group's assault on parliamentary institutions and exclusive emphasis on corruption within the state machinery, to the exclusion of the corporate sector and civil society groups, could well turn out to be, albeit unwittingly, a part of this agenda of converting our democracy into a ‘corporatocracy’.”[1]

Does so called ‘Team Anna’ represents the whole India? Its certainly not a peoples movement, many people came to see a kind of a reality show and feeded by RSS and Bhartiya Janata Party cadres. One of main consequences of this Hindu right wing open support to the Anna Andolan has been that the Muslims have boycotted this movement. This is going to do a major damage to the Secular fabric of the country and the issue of Corruption. Muslims who by nature of their poor representation in the Services and their low education profile are in fact more potent victims of corruption than their Hindu counterparts. Imagine what harm this movement has done that now Hindus and Muslims are divided on the issue of fighting corruption in India.

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[1] ‘Fuzzy Movement’, Prabhat Patnaik, Frontline Vol.28, Issue 19, 2011