Trying to be a leader

American psychologist and journalist, Daniel Goleman has also talked about leadership, dividing it into 6 main categories, with its strengths and weaknesses. Going through his study, I stopped on a paragraph which I found very interesting: “A true efficient leader must be ready to hear the opinions of all the members of the group that he leads, even when they express criticism or complaints. Ignoring this aspect causes a situation of intolerable tension and could sabotage the joint effort. But, if a leader is open to dialogue, despite of being authoritarian, he is capable of assessing the opinions of his collaborators. This way, not only will he be able to obtain an endless number of ideas, but he will also win trust and respect, two crucial elements of leadership.”

This came to my mind as I was sitting in a café, where I witnessed an ugly scene of arrogance, which can be often be seen displayed by people in charge of different sectors. A lady, who was owner of the café, summoned the staff in a meeting and amid the customers who were outraged by this scene, she unleashed her fury through insults and ironic remarks. Although Albanians are not very fond of work, there are many other ways to exert leadership, to be in charge and to communicate requests and complaints to subordinates. Above all, I think that this sort of pressure must never be displayed in public. A person in the position of leader has no right to insult the dignity of a subordinate and above all, he must preserve his manners. This is not only done to act in a more civil manner, but also to have a greater efficiency. But why does the opposite often happen?

Whoever has worked abroad, has been equipped with two extra qualities. First, discipline at work and punctuality and secondly, manners when dealing with a subordinate. Why doesn’t Albania, where free market economy has only been around for three decades, have this sort of leadership and standards?

As it happens in many other aspects, leadership in the management of a business or in the administration, lacks vision and above all, the past experiences are not forgotten very easily. There’s a chain reaction from the time an individual has been a subordinate until the time when he has been appointed as leader. The leader can also go through a Stockholm Syndrome, with its own features.

A leader, who has made fast achievements in his career and has become a leader, will certainly offer a bad treatment to his subordinates if he has received the same treatment when he was in this position. A strict and demanding leader doesn’t mean that he should be unfair, rude and make prejudices. By using physiological violence against his subordinates or spreading panic among them, nothing more than a total lack of good will for things to go well, is benefited within a company. In many cases, those leaders who have been oppressed, underpaid, misused, act the same as their “butchers”, or even worst, as soon as they become leaders.

But all of this has led people, who are often more educated and more competent than their leader, to be put under pressure by these types of leaders and to lose their respect and just do their job with the hope that something good will come tomorrow. As it happens in many domains, competent and fair leaders are strict, but they are also well-mannered, because life has shown that what goes around, comes around.