Do we really have a crisis of national leadership?

Do we really have a crisis of national leadership?

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Do the leaders of this nation have the ability
to lead the country out of the present economic and political
crises? Will they be able to use the power entrusted to them to
impel their respective followers into collective action to pull
the country out of the present economic and political quagmire?

I have asked these questions many times, and I am never sure
if I know the answer. Every time I want so much to believe that
somehow we will be able to cure ourselves from our various
disorders and affections. But then, every time, the stark reality
around me tells me that we have not made the slightest progress
in this respect, and that our condition has been worsening
steadily.

What is wrong with our leaders and their leadership? And what
is wrong with us as followers?

According to James MacGregor Burns, "leadership is nothing if
not linked to collective purpose." This is, perhaps, one axiom
that we can use to identify the sources of our present leadership
crisis.

What is our collective purpose?

Within the context of our current reform movement I think it
is the restoration and further cultivation of democracy,
eradication of corruption, collusion and nepotistic practices,
and restoration of respect toward the law. Do our leaders
genuinely try to lead us toward this direction?

Not every one of them, I think. Some of our leaders have,
through their various acts and pronouncements, created the
impression that they are not really pursuing this collective
purpose, but that they are moving in the opposite direction.

Instead of fighting against nepotism and cronyism, they are
practicing and reinforcing these two evils. Instead of restoring
democracy, they are acting in a repressive manner. Instead of
fighting corruption, they close their eyes to the ongoing
corruption, or even take part in some of them.

I think it is primarily the presence of these types of leaders
that makes us unable to move definitively in the direction of
genuine reform.

Why does this happen? Because we have no guiding concepts
concerning leader and leadership. According to MacGregor Burns,
the lack of such knowledge causes us to be unable to "make the
vital distinctions between types of leaders".

The absence of knowledge concerning the foundation of leaders
and leadership makes us unable to "distinguish leaders from
rulers, from power wielders, and from despots". He went further
by saying that in the worst case, the absence of such knowledge
will cause us to be unable to tell the difference between leader
and "tyrant", who he defines as a person who after gaining power
will crush all opposition.

It is time that we examine more critically the pronouncements
and actions of those who claim to be leaders of this nation. We
must eliminate irresponsible or mediocre people from our list of
national leaders. We must examine carefully the various styles of
leadership exemplified by our leaders and decide which one to
follow and which one we shall disregard.

What we need during this period of reform is leaders who have
the ability to guide us toward collective actions that will
transform our society from the present chaotic condition to an
orderly and more humane one. The ideal type of leadership for
this purpose is, according to MacGregor Burns again,
"transforming leadership", which he defines as a leadership in
which the leader recognizes the needs or demands of the
followers, identifies the potential motives of the followers,
seeks to satisfy higher needs, and engages the full person of the
followers.

Before we proceed to identify leaders with this type of
leadership, however, we must first pay attention to Burns'
caution concerning the true meaning of "leadership". He writes
that leadership is the opposite of brute power, and that
leadership is also distinct from mere power-holding. Based on
this clarification, we can start identifying pseudo-leaders among
the myriad of people who claim to be "leaders of the reform
movement".

Another type of leadership identified by Burns is
"transactional leadership". In this type of leadership, "leaders
approach followers with an eye to exchanging one thing for
another", for example money and or organizational positions in
exchange of support or votes. According to Burns, such
transactions comprise the bulk of relationships among leaders and
followers within political parties, legislative bodies, and
corporate organizations.

I think we can use this classification of leadership by Burns
as our guide in our present condition. We can conclude, I think,
that if we really want to pull ourselves out of our present muddy
condition, we have to be selective in our choice of leaders.

We must first realize that we are free to select our leaders.
We do not have to accept government bureaucrats, or even
ministers, as our leaders.

I think here lies one of our mistakes. We have always assumed,
thus far, that high-ranking bureaucrats, ministers, and military
generals are national leaders and that we have to take their
words seriously and follow their directives faithfully.

Such people have power, yes, but the possession of power alone
does not automatically make one a leader. It can also make one,
as Burns points out, a despot or a tyrant. And I do not think
that there is any sane Indonesian among us who wants to have a
despot or a tyrant as our leader.

If we relate Burns' classification of leadership to
Galbraith's classification of power, we can conclude, I think,
that transforming leaders rely primarily on conditioned power in
their efforts to guide their followers move toward collectively
aspired goals.

Transactional leaders, on the other hand, rely mainly on
compensatory power to win support from their followers. And
pseudo-leaders -- despots and tyrants -- rely heavily on consign
power to coerce others become their "followers".

It is really up to us, and not only to our leaders, whether we
shall continue our efforts to build a democratic society and
clean it from corruption, collusion, nepotism and cronyism, or
whether we will accept the present condition as the end of our
journey toward an abortive reform.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.