Leadership in the Times of Crisis

Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

When the entire world was glued to their television sets, watching the great mayhem of this year in Mumbai I was equally angry on our so called Leaders as any other young Indian. The 60 hours of action seemingly like a Hollywood blockbuster at last came to an end with unfortunate loss of the innocent lives.

It was very obvious, as a nation we are not even near ready for these kinds of times of crisis. Crisis is an unexpected, sudden disaster that can deeply impact the lives of the people, disrupting even their very existence in this society. Now with this Mumbai event it’s clear that not only Nations but businesses, institutions and even individuals need to be prepared to these kinds of crisis. Today’s society is more and more becoming vulnerable to these kinds of dastardly terror acts as it is easy for any one to get hold of the necessary materials, technology and expertise to make weapons of mass destructions.

In an open society where we value the freedoms of movement, we definitely can’t guarantee stopping these attacks completely. All that we can do is to make our best possible efforts in putting up all possible hurdles to carry out even a simple attack on the innocent lives around. In fact the Mumbai attacks clearly showed that, we don’t even have given a simple difficulty for those mindless animals to carry out such an outrageous act. It was just a cake for them into those high profile buildings. This is really a matter of deep concern for all the citizens of this country.

Leadership that can promptly act, make things happen quickly in the times of crisis is what we need. For all these years, we’ve allowed these problems to be part of our lives. At least this time it’s heartening to see the young Indians waking up, who don’t want to allow the problem to be part of their lives, instead wanted to deal with it strongly. We should be demanding our leaders to make things happen and make it clear to the world that we as a country will not allow these kinds of dastardly acts in our soil anymore in any form. We should firmly make it apparent that will go to any extent to address these issues right now at this moment.

Some critical points for the leadership during times of crisis I could think of are:

• Be proactive and not reactive (let’s at least have a crisis management team in place to handle such times of crisis)
• We shouldn’t even think of what to do when the moment hits us, instead we should be prepared in detail on what are the priorities in the times of crisis (faster we act, quicker we can take charge of the situation)
• Speculations and rumors are the killers in times of crisis. (we should have a one singe reliable communication channel to the people, instead of every one taking out to take political mileage out of the situation)
• We should be careful of every word spoken during crisis (especially for the media and political leaders)
• We should learn to rise to the occasion, leaving all our differences aside (religion, caste, creed, etc…)
  

As I always say, we often relate the word "Leadership" with politics, business, sports, and very few areas of our lives. Many a times I've noticed people think and talk, that Leadership is all about position. But, I strongly believe Leadership is everybody’s business. It is for men, women and children. It is for families, business and communities. It is for me and you. It is for each one of us.

Let’s take charge and make sure for a Fundamental Change in this great India. Jai Hind.

With Love.
Anbusivam