Do‚ have and be: The present time calls for everyone to become a leader

May 21, 2025

It is very common in our country to blame leaders for  failure or inefficiency. It is also a usual practice in organisations to make leaders responsible for anything that goes wrong. This blaming suggests that leadership is limited to few powerful positions that can make big decisions and differences in the lives of many people. It also implies that the rest are powerless.

This is partially right, but mostly wrong. It is true that leadership is powerful and can significantly impact people’s lives. But today, it is wrong to think that leadership is limited to top positions. And to think that you are powerless before leadership is wrong and harmful. It only weakens you and kills your potentials of becoming a leader.

We inherited this blaming notion from the leadership concepts of previous ages. In the traditional age, leadership was confined to few people. This meant that people at large could not be leaders. Leadership was mostly based on birth rights and age or some other predetermined factors that were beyond one’s control. Leadership was also associated with divinity. Kingship and priesthood was fully based on birth. Some positions in society used to be handed over to most senior people, based on the idea that seniors had gained much experience and could decide better. We can still see this practice in traditional organisations, like Guthis.

In the modern age, leadership became a matter of competencies and charismatic qualities. Competencies could be education, technical know-how or personal attributes. For higher leadership positions, charisma was expected. People who could demonstrate extraordinary qualities in difficult times were hailed as great leaders. They had large number of followers. We know many charismatic   world leaders of modern age. During troubled times, their followers  turned to them for  charismatic solutions.

Post-modern age has opened up leadership to everyone. It is now not destined to certain family backgrounds, nor designed to special personality traits. Everyone has equal potentiality to be leaders.

The traditional model of leadership was ‘be, have and do’. This means to be a leader, first you need to be born or put to a leadership position. They are predestined with superior qualities and power over others.  Then they do the job of leadership.

Present day leaders are judged by impact of their work. They are not expected to show one-time-charisma, but stability in their work and commitment. The leader-follower pattern is outdated. The present time calls for everyone to become a leader in their own way. It believes that the more people awaken the leadership qualities dormant inside them, the richer the world will become.

(R. Manandhar is the lead facilitator at Kabule – The Wise Leader. He has been a regular columnist on leadership for ten years in The Himalayan Times, Nepal's largest-selling English daily. This article was originally published in the paper’s 'Leadership League' column. He can be contacted at kabule2020@gmail.com.)