Blissful Life

Category: leadership

  • ‘Democracy’ is a Useless Word

    Democracy is a word that’s vague and has multiple meanings. It is often used as an excuse for not doing anything. The use of the word should raise suspicion about the intentions of the speaker.

    Most people when explaining democracy start with an even worse definition of the word: “government of the people, by the people, for the people“. This was uttered by an American politician in 1863. Like most political speeches, it is designed to sound profound but leaves enough room to play soccer within that definition, let alone misinterpret it according to convenience.

    The clearest word in that sentence is “government”. Democracy is seen there as a system on how to operate an extremely large group of people (known as a “country” or a “nation”). But the 4 remaining words — “of”, “by”, “for”, and “the people” — give us very little information about what democracy is.

    The words of the people can either mean it is a system of governing the people, which would make it redundant considering that there’s already government before it which means the same, or it could mean it is a system which is composed of people, which would make it mean the same as by the people.

    When it comes to by the people, we have to think about the history of when this was being used. It was used at a time when some people were considered royal, or of a different class, and these people were operating the government. In that context by refers to redistribution of power.

    For the people can also be understood in the same context as having a direction and purpose which is in the benefit of the people as opposed to only benefiting the royal class.

    By far the most disturbing word there is the people. It was 57 years later in 1920 that women could vote in national elections in the United States of America. So when Abraham Lincoln said “of the people, by the people, and for the people” it didn’t include women. And that’s the only definition of democracy that most of us can recite.

    To be fair, today’s NCERT textbook seems to be really trying to make us think past that useless definition. Quoting Ribiang and Lyngdoh Madam from it:

    Ribiang: But why do we need to work on a definition? The other day you quoted Abraham Lincoln to us: “Democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people”. We in Meghalaya always ruled ourselves. That is accepted by everyone. Why do we need to change that?

    Lyngdoh Madam: I am not saying we need to change it. I too find this definition very beautiful. But we don’t know if this is the best way of defining unless we think about it ourselves. We must not accept something just because it is famous, just because everyone accepts it.

    Such a fascinating call for critical thinking in Class IX social science textbook! The rest of the chapter is fantastic too and it talks about free & fair elections and constitutional rights. It ends by saying that there is an expanded notion of what’s democracy when people say sentences like: “We are a very democratic family. Whenever a decision has to be taken, we all sit down and arrive at a consensus. My opinion matters as much as my father’s.“

    When I say democracy is a useless word, I’m mostly concerned about this expanded scope of the word which is applied not at nation-state levels, but at smaller levels like organizations and groups. In discussing that, we will look at the meaning of the word in its form-of-government sense too.

    What people mean by democracy

    A large number of people mean “majority rule” when they say democracy. This is where you have fascists destroying institutions and putting political opponents behind bars. In smaller groups, this attitude translates to “let us put this to vote”. If a “democratic” organization makes decisions based on what wins a majority vote, it is a majoritarian organization.

    Some others explicitly call this out as majoritarianism and consider a democracy as one where the rights of the minority are upheld. There is greater emphasis on a previously agreed set of rights and protection of these rights. In smaller groups this operates as a “consensus-based decision making”. Every individual will have the right to veto a decision and there will be an attempt to form a consensus.

    We can already see how complicated the latter would be. Regardless of how much emphasis there is on consensus, it is easy for a dedicated individual to prevent consensus formation. Consensus formation requires a shared desire to reach consensus. And this becomes disproportionately more difficult in larger groups.

    There’s another reason why consensus is difficult.

    “Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realise that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic.”

    ~Dr B. R. Ambedkar

    If democracy is a decision making process, and it is a consensus based decision making process and not majoritarianism, then there’s a value system that’s required to be shared by everyone such that there is consensus. That value system is called constitutional morality.

    Constitutional morality is composed of values like liberty, equality, and fraternity. Non-majoritarian democracy can exist only when these values exist.

    Can non-majoritarian democracies exist?

    At the scale of a nation state, it is impossible to have a non-majoritarian democracy. Let’s take India even before Narendra Modi. The Aadhaar project, for example, came up in that India. It was vocally vetoed by several thousands of people. Even the Supreme Court eventually declared it unconstitutional. Yet, Aadhaar was made a reality by a government that wasn’t even called fascist.

    It is with that realization that the constitution of India goes to great detail about fundamental rights and how to protect them. While the decision making shall always be majoritarian, the fundamental rights and institutions like judiciary leave a loophole through which those left behind can negotiate.

    And as long as the majority has not gone fascist, these loopholes allow enough space for those others to live peacefully. And vice versa, the moment majority turns fascist, these other things crumple and the majoritarianism shows its true colors.

    In other words, a non-majoritarian democracy is a make-believe game played by a majoritarian democracy when there’s no crisis. The moment there’s a crisis, those who hold power will come out and sort things out in ways they want.

    At the scale of nation-states this happens through raw physical power, through police, army, gun, and machines. People are physically put in jail, or murdered. Some of this power is now operational through virtual spaces and can manifest as blocking website, taking down channel, and so on. But even these blocks are enforced through physical network infrastructure that’s operated by human beings.

    It is also interesting to note what happens when there is a military coup in a “democratic” nation. The constitution, the election, the institutions, the people, they’re all the same. But the guy with the gun is now ruling the country. How’s that possible?

    It is possible, because at its core, there’s nothing called a democratic government. There is raw physical power, and in a complicated series of social role-plays, this is often held by a power center which also happens to be elected by a majority. If the social role-plays are gone, then the whole thing collapses into its true form.

    Surely these don’t apply to small groups, right?

    One could be mistaken that smaller groups — like an online discussion group, or an NGO — do not have such central power. After all, how many times have we heard “this is a democratic space” being used in these contexts?

    Look at how decisions are made and enforced in these spaces, and you’ll see the same pattern as in nation-states. There is a complicated social role-play. But eventually the decision making power is vested with whoever legally controls the NGO, or whoever is the administrator of the group. If you can kick someone out, you hold the ultimate power in that space.

    So, all of the consensus process and “democratic decision-making” in these spaces are actually power delegated by the ultimate authority.

    For a thought-exercise, let us imagine that there is an online group, and through some technical glitch nobody can get kicked out of it. Isn’t that the ideal democratic group?

    As long as there are no decisions to make, this works out. And in a large number of online groups which are merely spaces for people to spend time talking to each other, there are no decisions to be made. And therefore this works out.

    But if there is the tiniest decision to be made, it no longer will work. Say someone says “let us change the group name”. Suddenly there’s the need for a decision making process. And till that is established first, the name will likely remain the same.

    Democracy is biased towards the status quo

    Akshay

    Let us do say the group is really interested in this problem. There are several possibilities.

    If everyone in the group likes a new name, the problem vanishes. The name gets changed. This is perfect consensus. But this rarely happens. This is easier to happen in very small groups. This is easier when the group is largely comprised of people thinking similarly or like each other.

    If a large number of people like a new name, but a few like the old name, the problem takes on a new dimension.

    • Those who are in the minority could face social pressure and agree to go with the new name — consensus through social pressure — and the name gets changed.
    • The group might decide that till everyone agrees on the name, it won’t be changed, and the name will remain the same.
    • The group might just decide that the majority vote will decide the new name — majoritarian democracy.

    Did you notice how I sneaked in “group might decide”. How will the group decide how to decide this problem? How will the group know whether to go with a majoritarian vote or a consensus process?

    This is where no group is void of power hierarchies.

    Even in a group where everyone is an administrator, those who joined first or those who are more senior in real world could hold more power. If, say, this is Beast Games and a hundred people were randomly picked into a group at once, there would still be differences in physical attributes that give some people more “power”. Someone might look more intimidating, someone might speak more persuasively. These “natural” leaders tend to gain power.

    The other possibility is that there are two or more leaders who emerge and they have different ideas as to what should happen. In this situation, if the stakes are high, the group will split into factions.

    But often what happens is that there is no high stakes, there’s not much to gain by splitting the group, and things will just continue based on the energy of the most vocal person/group. Those who disagree might either live with the choice, or just leave the group.

    Over time this will lead to the group degrading in what it seeks to achieve by retaining the energy and enthusiasm of a very small “core” active group. And they become the power center, and the group now has a power hierarchy.

    Let’s do a different thought experiment. What happens if one member of the group just unilaterally decides to change the name? Social norms prevent this from happening usually, but there can still be people who violate this. The following could happen:

    • The action can get reverted by someone else
    • The group just discusses it for a while and moves on (with the name remaining changed)

    What if the name change is indeed reverted, and the deviant person changes the name again?

    These might seem esoteric situations, but a lot of “norms” are violated consistently in various groups. And whether these are problematized depends on the people in the group. And whether these are addressed depends on the power hierarchies in the group.

    And remember we are operating in the ridiculous constraints of our thought experiment. In most groups, there’s real power that’s obvious and straightforward to see. And all decisions ultimately are enforced through these power structures. And the decision making process is consequently determined by these power structures.

    Just think about the work of Women in Cinema Collective in Kerala film industry. Most woman were facing harassment from men. This could be considered “violation of social norm”. And after a lot of hard work and deep politics things perhaps changed a tiny bit. WCC problematized the issue. But who can “address” it? Problematizing helps and is only the first step. But enforcement of justice is left to those who wield real power, which in case of Malayalam film industry is those who hold the money (or those who hold the guns).

    Democratic groups are groups playing social role-play under benevolence of power

    As in the nation-state, a group which describes itself as “democratic” is just a group which plays the social game of democracy under the supervision of benevolent power structures. The rules of the game are often ad-hoc, made by and imposed by the power structures.

    We might consider that human beings are social animals, and such social constructs are how we always operate. But in this essay what I’m trying to argue is that this fact — that a democracy is just a game of entertaining participants under the supervision of a kind dictator — is often not realized by the participants themselves. And that has to do with the vagueness and uselessness of the word democracy.

    Nobody is allowed to question what a democracy means. It falls like a command that stops all further discussions.

    • Does it mean that everyone will agree with everyone else?
    • If there are disagreements, how will those be resolved?
    • Are there some basic rules everyone is expected to follow?
    • If so, are these rules themselves amenable to change?

    What use is this analysis?

    You might see groups that don’t have answers to these questions that still exist. And then you might show that as examples of why these questions are irrelevant.

    And I will agree with you when it comes to certain groups.

    There are groups whose purpose is to be a space where a large number of people will put their attention. The idea is to just be a notice board where things can move. A ‘digital town square’ or a ‘digital public square’, an example of which is the now defunct Twitter.

    For such a space decision making is unnecessary. Anyone can post anything. Free speech is the only right to protect.

    But if any group claims to be anything more, like:

    • Pro-people, pro-poor
    • Action group
    • Movement group
    • For a fairer world
    • Safe space
    • Caring space

    If anything more than “a public square” is in the group’s description, then the use of the word “democracy” is a red flag.

    If you are pro-people or pro-poor, you have to do things and change things for people. You have to necessarily be an action group. And an action group needs to have clear decision making structures.

    If you are a safe space, you have to ensure that there’s psychological safety for everyone involved. And that requires very strict ground rules, quickly enforced, about how one can speak and what one can say.

    When people do not have the energy or commitment to make a space pro-people, or make it a caring safe space, they hide behind words like democracy. And this leads to the group becoming just a public square.

    A public square is not bad in itself. But being a good public square requires its own commitment. Again, if you lack energy for that commitment, just hide behind the word “democracy”.

    Democracy in that sense is a very useful word. It helps people avoid spending energy. When you’re confused about what to do with a group, just call it a democracy and be done with it.

  • Be Irreplaceable Workers And Replaceable Leaders

    A good worker is someone who produces so much value that they become irreplaceable.

     

    As Cal Newport writes in the book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” knowledge workers who have the most satisfying careers don’t just “follow their passion”. Instead, they build rare and valuable skills that they leverage to negotiate better career positions.

    If you want a satisfying career, become so good at what you do that they cannot ignore you and they cannot replace you. Become irreplaceable.

    But when you are a leader, you need to think differently. Leaders do whatever it takes to achieve their vision and make an impact. And one of the things that they have to necessarily do is to make more leaders and make themselves replaceable. If a movement has a single leader – a single point of failure, a bus factor of 1 – that movement is poised to fail when that leader falls. And like all humans, leaders fall.

    Good leaders don’t wait for their own end to think about replacing themselves. Good leaders think about replacing themselves from day 1. Because that’s the most sustainable way forward. That’s the way things scale out of control.

    If you want a successful movement, become replaceable and replace yourself as soon as you can.

    PS: I’ve deliberately not talked about the intersection between leaders and workers. I believe good leaders have to necessarily be good workers. That’s an implementation detail I will cover in a future blog post.

  • On Leadership

    One can be a leader only when one desires something to happen in the world. This something can be called “change”. Leaders want to change the world (or a part of it) in some way.

    The change that a leader wants to see in the world – the impact they want to make – that is their vision.

    Having a random vision isn’t very helpful. A successful leader has a vision that is borne out of the needs and wants of the humans around them. A vision that is rooted in humanity. One that benefits the human kind.

    A leader effectively communicates this vision to others, in an attempt to inspire others to work towards the same vision. The quantity of how much a leader is able to inspire action could be the measure of someone’s leadership.

    Such communication can occur in many ways – through talking (sometimes even story-telling), writing, or through setting examples. When a vision is completely new, leaders are forced to communicate more verbally. But when the vision has already been articulated (by other leaders, for example), leaders can inspire by setting examples through their own work.

    Change requires work (often hard work). One person can only do so much work. Leaders create coalitions with people to get more work done towards their vision. These coalitions can look like organizations, companies, networks, groups, actual coalitions, etc. We could call them movements. Leaders lead movements.

    Movements may have strategies, planning, coordination, structure. And these keep evolving with time, based on the real world position of the movement.

    At this point, one may ask, is leadership hierarchical? Should there be one leader (or a hierarchy of leaders) for one movement?

    Before we answer that we will have to answer a related question – Is everyone a leader?

    The romantic answer to this question is that everyone is a leader. But that’s similar to saying all human beings are equal. Everyone can be a leader given the right circumstances. And everyone should be a leader. But everyone is not a leader. One becomes a leader only when one is able to accomplish a vision through leadership as stated before.

    When one looks at leadership with such raw sincerity, we will see that the stronger leaders automatically are able to get more work done and a hierarchy is inevitable no matter how hard we try to avoid it. Saying this hierarchy doesn’t exist is like erasing caste/race/class from our society.

    A slightly more romantic way to look at it is by imaging every individual as a leader of their own movement – where movements overlap with each other significantly. Each individual can be thought of as a celestial body with their mass (leadership capacity) determining how much gravitational pull they exert towards their vision on the people around them. The most massive leader will have the strongest pull.

    Consequently, if everyone are equal leaders, there would be no hierarchies and vice versa.

    There are social, economic, and political determinants for any individual’s leadership mass. Someone born with privileges – of caste, gender, sexuality, class, race, disability, and others – might find that their leadership mass is already greater than someone without those privileges. In many situations, for example, money speaks. And someone with money – or access to money – might have it easier to “lead” others. Social capital is another example.

    Leadership mass can increase (and decrease) over time. This can happen through education, scholarship, credentials, affiliations, positions, jobs, work, association, mobilization, agitation, talking, writing, creativity, relationships, etc. Even gaining a follower base on Twitter can increase someone’s leadership mass (through psychology of mass appeal).

    This leadership mass is called “power” in the formal language. While vision determines the direction a leader pulls people in, power determines how strong the pull will be. It is impossible to be a leader without power (of some or the other kind).

    This is where things get intensely human and psychological. Power works through human emotions. Fear, love, hatred, joy, laziness, anger, sorrow, confidence, trust, aggression, etc. But not every human has the same emotion when confronted with the same stimulus. An anti-establishmentarian will look at you with scorn when you tell them that you’re from the ministry (of whatever) whereas someone who is awed by such positions will be psychologically receptive to what you want to say. It is safe to say that most people will be pulled by mainstream sources of power (because majority acceptance is what makes these sources mainstream).

    Effective leadership thereby also becomes a performance. Like doctors need to be chameleons and be the doctor that each patient needs, leaders will have to be the leader that each individual needs. If someone is motivated by solving complex challenges, the leader can get them excited by presenting their vision as a complex challenge. If someone is interested in creative expression, leader can find avenues for creative expression that advances their vision.

    At this point, the conscientious reader will ask whether leadership is emotional manipulation.

    Manipulation has negative connotations. Perhaps “emotional guidance” captures the nuance of what leadership does with emotions. Leadership is about emotionally guiding people. There can be effective leaders with selfish motives and they can turn this into manipulation and abuse. But you can’t blame any individual for being too sincere towards their own vision, albeit a bad one.

    Also, the human mind is trapped such that it can never be free of influences. Everything that happens, every interaction, every thought, every idea – everything changes the mind. And therefore, the only way someone can never “manipulate” your thoughts is by never coming in contact with you.

    The same reader will also ask whether this view of leadership considers people (followers) as lacking agency (autonomy).

    In this world, nobody has complete agency. Every human is delicately dependent on other human beings in this society. Complete independence is not possible for any human. And therefore, a transactional view of individual relationships where every relationship is that of giving and taking models the society in a better way.

    Considering the sensitive nature of the relationship that a leader has with others, it is very important that leaders are empathetic and emotionally intelligent. Leaders must be quick to identify an emotion, to label it, and to address it. That includes self-awareness and awareness of one’s own emotions. They need to think of things from the perspective of multiple others and bring those perspectives together in their vision.

    This empathy also gives leaders humility. That they do not know all the answers, and that their answers have to include all the perspectives from people around them. That if the answers did not entrench empathy this way, they wouldn’t be able to achieve their vision. That it is unlikely that one human being’s vision is greater than everyone else’s.

    An intense desire to create more and more powerful leaders around them arises in leaders from this humility. They see that the world is better served by a multitude of visions and that for each vision to succeed there must be leaders taking those visions forward. They strive to turn people around them into leaders who can pull weight. That’s how the best leadership is scalable – by being infectious.

    When enough leaders pull weight in the same direction, no vision is too far to achieve.

    Why does the world need leaders to pull though? Can’t well articulated vision statements automatically attract people?

    Inertia is the problem. Human beings are resistant to change – individually and as a society. It might be explained by evolutionary psychology. Human beings have evolved past the stage where they need to be held hostage by biology, yet we are biological beings. And we are not rational beings by design.

    If we were rational we wouldn’t have problems like global warming, poverty, and war in our world.

    Leaders appeal to both the irrational and the rational sides of human beings at once. That’s how they pull people out of their inertia. Once people are moving, systems move too. Especially if you pull the heavier people.

    Leaders, hence, are balancing-artists. They have to handle conflicts all the time and find balance. There is strategy, but there is vision. There is rationality and irrationality. There is movement and there is stasis. There are tensions and counter-tensions. There is pressure to lead and pressure to follow. Leaders make judgement calls all the time. They can go wrong many times. And over time the number of right calls decide whether they become effective leaders or not.

    Is leadership a teachable/learnable skill?

    Leadership requires a lot of practice. But it is also important to know what to practice. That is where the learning/teaching part of leadership lies. There are plenty of books written about leadership. Plenty of stories to read and learn from. Concepts like “ownership”, “thinking big”, “delivering”. Almost every major (successful) organization has leadership principles which have been documented. Exposure to leadership philosophies can accelerate someone’s growth as a leader. Consuming content about leadership helps think in different ways and gain new perspectives.

    What now?

    Think about whether you have a vision for the world. Think about how effective you are as a leader in taking the world towards that vision. Talk to people around you about leadership. Read. Find avenues for your own growth as a leader. Find people with similar values and vision. Grow each other. Grow yourself. And change the world.