Do leaders need to have ‘vision’?
Why does vision at times become the difference for us between a great leader and an ordinary one?
There is no controversy over a leader having a vision. In fact, when we moan about lack of great leadership we complain of lack of vision. We want our leaders to be ‘visionary’. There is something about the word vision that is charismatic.
Is it kosher to talk about vision without understanding what we mean by it? Especially, what do we demand of our political leader when we insist that he have a vision? Is it just another name for ‘programme’ or ‘party manifesto’?
We know that party manifestoes and programmes are more honoured in breach than in observance. If we are no longer enthusiastic about manifestoes, why do we insist on vision? Why does vision at times become the difference for us between a great leader and an ordinary one?
One thing is certain. Vision relates to the future. It is embedded in human memory. It recalls the prophets and seers of ancient history. At some level in our subconscious, we attach the divine with the great leader. Do we want a Gilgamesh?
But the desire for a greatly manipulative leader representing the power of good is there. Before the world became interdependent and free trade made it subservient to the same laws handed down by the World Bank, the IMF, WTO and other lending institutions, the vision was essentially a map of conquest and domination.
Vision is the undying longing for utopia. A great leader has to promise utopia to persuade the masses to submit to his leadership. In India, Nehru’s vision was a left-wing controlled economy making things easy for the poor masses. It didn’t work.
What worked was the non-utopian non-vision of Manmohan Singh, who came from an international organisation actually set up to kill visions. The truth is, all the laws are in place for the internal and external management of the state. The economist is now found everywhere trundling out his macroeconomic prescriptions that no one can question.
Vision is dead. So if the PPP says it will give roti, kapra and makan, no one takes it seriously. But when Bhutto gave us this vision we swallowed it. His follow-up was nationalisation, which went badly wrong.
Muslims have to be utopian because of the vision of the city-state which is a part of their sharia. The irreducible programme that emerges from it is the welfare (falahi) state that Imran Khan, too, is presenting as his vision. On ground, it means a lot of subsidising that the IMF will not allow or your trading partners will not accept.
Vision is either followed by regimentation and tyranny, or economic disaster. The big leader is more likely to unleash this tyranny — which could be actually consensual because of his charisma — while the ordinary forgettable leader will accept safe prescriptions and leave behind a viable state.
After the emergence of an interdependent world with an agreed template of laws about economic behaviour, the West is not supposed to have great ‘visionary’ leaders. The nation-state with its warrior leaders is no longer required. Populism based on vision is dead too. Paunchy central bankers growling over public spending are more acceptable.
Let’s not demand vision. Let’s demand that prosaic recipes like law and order and writ of the state be applied, that taxation be taken seriously and impunity, either on the basis of religion or sheer extra-legal power, is removed. Follow Lee Kuan Yew, the non-visionary model ruler of today.
For Pakistan, no vision is required. In fact, some of the vision that we embraced at independence about what kind of state we would build should be modified. Let’s not demand vision from our leaders.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 20th, 2011.
Is it kosher to talk about vision without understanding what we mean by it? Especially, what do we demand of our political leader when we insist that he have a vision? Is it just another name for ‘programme’ or ‘party manifesto’?
We know that party manifestoes and programmes are more honoured in breach than in observance. If we are no longer enthusiastic about manifestoes, why do we insist on vision? Why does vision at times become the difference for us between a great leader and an ordinary one?
One thing is certain. Vision relates to the future. It is embedded in human memory. It recalls the prophets and seers of ancient history. At some level in our subconscious, we attach the divine with the great leader. Do we want a Gilgamesh?
But the desire for a greatly manipulative leader representing the power of good is there. Before the world became interdependent and free trade made it subservient to the same laws handed down by the World Bank, the IMF, WTO and other lending institutions, the vision was essentially a map of conquest and domination.
Vision is the undying longing for utopia. A great leader has to promise utopia to persuade the masses to submit to his leadership. In India, Nehru’s vision was a left-wing controlled economy making things easy for the poor masses. It didn’t work.
What worked was the non-utopian non-vision of Manmohan Singh, who came from an international organisation actually set up to kill visions. The truth is, all the laws are in place for the internal and external management of the state. The economist is now found everywhere trundling out his macroeconomic prescriptions that no one can question.
Vision is dead. So if the PPP says it will give roti, kapra and makan, no one takes it seriously. But when Bhutto gave us this vision we swallowed it. His follow-up was nationalisation, which went badly wrong.
Muslims have to be utopian because of the vision of the city-state which is a part of their sharia. The irreducible programme that emerges from it is the welfare (falahi) state that Imran Khan, too, is presenting as his vision. On ground, it means a lot of subsidising that the IMF will not allow or your trading partners will not accept.
Vision is either followed by regimentation and tyranny, or economic disaster. The big leader is more likely to unleash this tyranny — which could be actually consensual because of his charisma — while the ordinary forgettable leader will accept safe prescriptions and leave behind a viable state.
After the emergence of an interdependent world with an agreed template of laws about economic behaviour, the West is not supposed to have great ‘visionary’ leaders. The nation-state with its warrior leaders is no longer required. Populism based on vision is dead too. Paunchy central bankers growling over public spending are more acceptable.
Let’s not demand vision. Let’s demand that prosaic recipes like law and order and writ of the state be applied, that taxation be taken seriously and impunity, either on the basis of religion or sheer extra-legal power, is removed. Follow Lee Kuan Yew, the non-visionary model ruler of today.
For Pakistan, no vision is required. In fact, some of the vision that we embraced at independence about what kind of state we would build should be modified. Let’s not demand vision from our leaders.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 20th, 2011.