MVR Menon Blog
Date: 21.06.2022
How
can political parties eliminate incompetent leaders to safeguard their public
image and attract followers?
As defined, "Leadership is the process of influencing the
activities of an individual or a group of individuals for goal achievement in a
given situation." "The leadership process comprises three factors—the
leader, the follower, and other variables".
I think incompetent leaders are a liability to all political
organizations.
Incompetent leaders carry with them negative energy, which reflects on
the team they are supposed to motivate and lead. Party workers, followers, and
subordinates with very low levels of engagement, trust, confidence, and
productivity will be the result of their leadership.
Such leaders are supported by religion, caste, charisma,
overconfidence, allegiance to a big leader or a group, gender bias, and even
narcissism, denying opportunities to people who demonstrate the qualities of an
effective leader: confidence, sensitivity, humility, integrity, loyalty,
neutrality, and competence.
The main purpose of a political party is to secure power so that it
can implement its stated programs. They need capable and efficient leaders to
accomplish this task. Political parties should take the utmost care in
selecting their leaders for different positions. Before bestowing on them
responsible party posts, they have to decide what they expect from their
leaders. After the appointment, there should be a mechanism to check whether
they meet those expectations or not.
They can have a routine practice of assessment of capabilities by
asking the leaders to make self-assessments through a questionnaire. The
questions should include pointers to their performance, style of leadership,
social service activities, influence in their constituency, networking
capabilities, engagement with voters, wealth created during the period of
assessment, membership drive undertaken, and success rates of winning in elections
of their own or party candidates from their area.
The feedback collected should be measured to determine their leadership
style, performance, ideology, and effectiveness. It is a herculean task
involving time and effort. But such vetting of a leader’s capabilities or its
absence will provide the utility of that person in continuing in party
positions. If they are found lacking in leadership qualities, they should be
relieved of their posts and asked to go back to their constituents and gain
their confidence.
Political parties with inefficient leaders have to face electoral
decline and will be distanced from voters who repeatedly reject their leaders
through the ballot. The problem with many political parties is not a lack of
resources, supporters, sympathizers, or vote base, but their selection of
leaders with proven capabilities in key posts makes them unattractive to
voters.
If the parties want to improve the competence and effectiveness of
their leaders, the top leaders should first improve their own judging and
selecting capabilities and choose efficient leaders from the booth level onwards,
leaving out leaders who have no drive to win elections.
MVR Menon/+91 9445333388
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