VACATING TODAY'S POST TO GROOM TOMORROW'S LEADER

IT is useful to ponder whether leaders make history or history makes leaders.

- R GOPALAKRISHNAN

What is sure is that history does not recognise leaders in the way that leaders think they are making history. If it were possible to speak with the dead, imagine what Jack Welch or Jawaharlal Nehru would say about my statement. It is tough to get to the top. It is tougher to stay on top. But it is the toughest to vacate the top. Leaders who experience scrambling up, and then staying on top sometimes falter on this toughest of tests.

I once travelled as an assistant for a top leader during his tour of India. Being young and curious, I asked how he could be sure that he had selected the right leader after him. He responded, "I do not know not until the successor to the person I selected has performed." At that time, his response seemed puzzling. The coin dropped for me much later. Maybe one leader's performance is a flash, maybe his successor's too, but if the third generation is performing, then the system of leadership planning has probably been institutionalised. This anecdote symbolises how a long-term view must be taken when it comes to leadership planning, renewal and succession.

Recall that Chandragupta Maurya created the Mauryan empire, his son Bindusara strengthened it and Bindusara's son Ashoka expanded it rapidly before adopting pacifist Buddhism. Ashoka stayed 37 years in his role; the decline and end of the Mauryan empire began with his death.