Humanity being a privilege

One of the first books that I ever bought was a book on leadership called "Leadership IQ". I was on the cusp of adulthood and I was aspiring towards a leadership position when I grow up. But as I grew up, I begin to realise that a leader that there are so many qualities and values that a leader has to embody that he/she must almost be a saint before one can succeed.

But there was one thing that I realised as I grew even older one privilege that the have-nots or/ down-trodden have that the leaders or elites cannot have and that is humanity. Before I sound like a autocrat, let me spell out some values and qualities that one leader must have.

In the above-mentioned book, the book suggests that a leader must be a problem-solver, be committed, humble and selfless- all at the same time. There are even some other qualities that I missed out as there were too many.

These qualities are what a leader requires to be a successful leader even before we can talk about their technical abilities. And these include being a "selector" of good men/women, a negotiator, a healer of people, a protector of values among other things.

Let us talk about some of the values and qualities that were mentioned earlier.

 Being committed requires a resilience and steel in the character to stay steadfast in our values and goals that were set out earlier. This also means being steadfast to our people and trust them to do the job.

One must be humble so that we can get people to work with us. In the book, the author talks about " strategic humility" which means that being humble have a strategic advantage. In another book, "Good to Great" by another business/ management writer, he writes that top leaders are " unassuming and mild-mannered people" who focused more on the job on hand than his own ego/personal interest.

Lastly, being selfless, requires us to put others before self. In the above-mentioned book, it requires one to be customer-focused and focus on the benefits it brings to others rather than oneself. He also went to extol the values of working through others rather than concentrating everything on that singular charismatic leader.

These are values that the book writes on being a top leader and succeeding in the world. These seems to be values of a saint rather than a business leader or any leader for that matter.

There are another type of leaders that claimed to be working for the people or general good of the other's. These are the people with revolutionary ideas or people that seem only to aim in overthrowing or upsetting the existing order.

These people excludes people of a certain pedigree and also claims to be working for the down-trodden/ the have-nots and the oppressed. And there is one thing he/she has above all else is humanity. Let us bring to the earlier point on leaders not having the privilege of humanity.

The above qualities/ values that a leader must have in order to succeed, already requires he/she to be a humanitarian organization in itself but what a successful leader cannot always have is the privilege of constantly questioning the quality and work of it's people. He/she does not have the luxury or privilege of questioning the existing system to the benefit of one section of people over another. Even if it seems to be morally questionable.

Hence I say that humanity is a privilege of the downtrodden. Take for example, the revolutionary leader is able to come down to the level of the people he speaking and appear to be "at one with people" because the leader is leading the charge for the oppressed against the oppressors. There are no other ways to galvanize a group of "downtrodden" people against the "other's"- which in this case is the elites or "upper class" and many other names that has been called.

But as I reiterate again, the elites or leaders does not have the luxury of appearing humane to a certain group of people over the other's.

He/she must have faith in it's people and it's system to do the job provided he/she has been doing his job. He must be objective and have faith that the system will do it's job. He must not be swayed by personal biases and inclination otherwise, his status and position as a leader will be undermined.

He must also be committed to it's organization and believed that his/her entity can do the job. He/she must put the organization before oneself. He/she must embody the system, otherwise how would his people work for him. He must have faith in it's system, it's people and the value that it embodies.

That is why many leaders appear cold and calculating. This is because many leaders have to appear to represent it's organization sometimes even at the expense of it's personal judgement. And that is why "revolutionary" leaders always appear to be humane and "people's person". Simply because he is fighting the system which is supposed to be "cold" and "calculating".

I think we must think first before criticizing our leaders because in order to get into that position, he/she already had to make quite a number a personal sacrifices unseen to the public. It might seem quite glamorous to be seen with the who's who but I believed that they were simply doing their job and away from the public eye, they were still doing their job- otherwise, it would be impossible to reach that privilege position.

Being humane is sometimes a privilege that some of us have that other's don't.