Jul 22, 2020
The “Communicator” As A “Leader”
All great leaders of men and women, are great communicators. But are all great communicators great leaders? Does the gift of vocal skills give us an indication of a person’s ability to absorb complex situations, have empathy with his/her team or people he/she leads, stand on key / crucial issues, moral compass and belief in ethics?
Or does great verbal communication ability, ie speech making, simplifying the message through common words, phrases, idioms and examples, make a political leader a darling of followers and masses while hiding deep flaws in their persona? Does the ability in a great political communicator, to make us feel angry, warm & happy and “play with our emotions” pull a wool over our eyes and make us believe what we want to believe rather than critically examine the leader for their innate qualities?
The first generation of India’s political leaders were some of its most brilliant sons. Educated in western ways; honed by struggles against the British regime, arrests, raised on ideology and dream for a free India; bonded by deep collaborative work needed for freedom struggle against an “external” enemy. Some of them were great communicators as well — using both English/Hindi and local languages to fire up people’s imaginations.
The next generation of leaders in India were the “dynasts” — loved by people not because of their sterling achievements, intellectual abilities, demonstrated track record of administration or public work but because of love and respect for their parents. Their “most favoured” status and the struggle to establish political “hold” ensured they started lining their pockets and building up political war-chests to fight elections, hire lawyers, buy media influence and intimidate opponents.
The third generation of leaders were products of “socialist” movement and anti-dynast movement. Caste, sub-caste became their main political ideology and they were thrust into political leadership by a fawning “caste” demography and caste alliances mathematics. These leaders built fortunes for themselves and their families but the fortunes of their constituents hardly changed — when you are elected basis mathematics, you spend all your time optimising the equations!
And then came the generation of great “communicators”. Leaders who could talk a great talk. Give mesmerising speeches — in rallies, on TV, on radio and opine from mangoes to border issues with nonchalant bravado. Leaders who could accuse “incumbents” of corruption (resonated strongly), appeasement (resonated too), poor development (got that right too), and spoke of inclusive agenda and universal development (made everybody even their cynics happy).
However, we soon found out that while these leaders were indeed great “communicators” they were poor “collaborators” and they treat other “communicators” and “implementors” on their own team suspiciously. They employ armies to sing paeans to them on a daily basis as social media echoes to “my leader greatest” trends and fills the small hearts of these leaders with praise, eulogies and master-stokes.
The words like historical, first time ever, best ever, most humble, in 70 years filled up our daily lives via social media and media parroted their claims (or were made to) to remind us how great “communicators” they were. And dazzle us with great speeches, interviews, monologues so that we may ignore their failures to build their own teams, stay clear of sycophants, remove incompetent insiders, collaborate with external stake-holders and deliver on their promises.
So choose your leaders wisely. While the finger-pointing, smooth talking brilliant opposition leader may look like a great national candidate, he may turn out to capture not only your imagination with brilliant oratory, they also many of your freedoms through narrow minded pursuit of personal glory. Those who “act” inordinately humble and sensitive in public life may be excruciatingly arrogant and insensitive in private with scant regard for democratic traditions.
The pursuit of “me” by the great orator may unleash their fanboys and troll armies, to go after critics — accusing them of imaginary failures, juicy gossip and plain vulgarity to brow-beat any opposing voices into submission.
There is a reason why our ancestors and elders talk about a “Philosopher King” and not an “Orator King”. The world has seen the example of the one of the world’s finest public speakers, remember!
