Leadership, Values and Ethics

(The P.S first – I know I have been away for quite some time from this space. I tried my level best, but could not spend time in writing posts. The excuse is the usual one – Life had been very hectic!! I have been wanting to write this topic for quite sometime…)

Take a look at this video:

This video is about an attempted coup that happened in Spain on 23rd Feb 1981 (and hence this coup is referred to as the 23-F coup; you can read all about this coup here). Summary of the video – the army stormed the parliament and the defense minister – Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado – was angry and against the coup. He reproaches the man who seems to be the leader of the armed gang. Now the gang leader starts shooting (towards the roof) and while the rest of the parliament members show submission, the minister stands his ground. He is not moved by the sound of the gun. He is still angry, but later decides to go back to his place.

I saw this video as part of a bigger documentary that was exhibited in our term 5 course – Leadership, Values and Ethics. The approach was very different in this course – rather than just talk about the different attributes of leadership, or choose a case to understand the concepts, Prof Manikutty chose to explain the concepts via literary works. We read literature about Joan of Arc, Making of the Mahatma (film), All my sons, Yuvanta etc and discussed the actions of the central characters from a leadership perspective. (The Prof has co-authored a book “Essence of Leadership: Explorations from Literature” using the same approach. IMHO – A very interesting read).

Most of the class discussions were around the theme – does the end satisfy the mean? When does a leader need to stick to his/her ideal? When should a leader retreat to survive the day and aim for a future win? I was very happy with the approach and the knowledge that I gained.

Though this particular coup was not discussed in the class, what held my attention was that this particular minister did not budge even when the guns were fired! All he had was a couple of seconds to decide his course of action and he decided to stick to his aggression in-spite of the firing!! I say we all face similar situations in our professional (and personal) life. The leader in us is always given a chance to stick to the ideal, stick to the conviction that we hold; But, at a moment of crisis do we stick to the decision or choose an easier exit? For example, all of us come across a situation when we can choose between one of the following:

1. Have the courage to own our decision and explain why our sub-ordinate’s rating is below average OR
2. Just blame it on the system and that bell-curve and our management for the below par rating…

The problem is that we have reasons and proofs as to why both the answers are correct. Was Gandhi (the ‘Mahatma’)  right in calling off the Non-Cooperation movement after the incident at Chauri Chaura? Instead of suspending the movement once it turned violent should Gandhi have kept the pressure that could have helped India gain independence much earlier? Either way, Gandhi chose to stick to his ideal that the fight for independence cannot involve violence. It should have taken a very high resolve and a total conviction about the means of achieving the end.

Let me end this post with this video that came to my mind when I wrote that leadership involves sticking to one’s ideals even in the middle of a crisis and it also involves knowing when to give up the ideal for a future gain!! (Regarding this incident, no one knows the identity of this man and whether he survived to see another day…)

Another PS: I recently got a feedback that my posts are rather long!! I resolved to make this my shortest post, but I failed – miserably… The learning continues…. 🙂