Baby Boomers (Those who were born during the post World War II era from 1946 to 1964) retirement in the United States has been a growing concern since 2005 due to the sudden vacuums in the leadership positions across public and private sectors. Whilst this generational extinction in the natural cycle of evolution is neither unexpected nor is supposed to be catastrophic, this may cause endemic impacts across the country due to the absence of imbalanced generic rule of ‘demand and supply’.
Despite of empirical leadership history in Bangladesh during its pre-liberation era, it is very unfortunate that the pool of leaders in Bangladesh has been diminishing rapidly since past three decades. The prevalence of unscrupulous and inordinately ambitious motives and cultures in the post liberation politics in the country has seriously encumbered the leadership alchemy in Bangladesh in the public sectors. However, in comparison to public sectors, evolution of leaders in private sectors has been inspiring. Albeit this positive scenario in the private sectors may invigorate the aspirations to the present and future generations to an extent, leadership crisis in Bangladesh is going to be the next predicament to cope up with the challenges of ever changing world.
The first and foremost reason of leadership crunch in the public sector has been triggered by the emergence of zealotry in the political environment. Ever since the independence, people of the country have been experiencing the apathetic rulings marked by military anarchy at the initial two episodes followed by the ongoing ‘two-party’ monarchy in the country politics. The ruling parties neither been successful in creating the trust and confidence in the people nor could demonstrate any legacy of creating leaders for the future. There has been transition of political leaders among and between the parties that has only created the metaphor of ‘drinking the same from different bottle’ but didn’t bring any changes in the status quo of creating leaders. The unshakable integrity and indomitable charisma that were the most predominant hallmarks of our past political leaders, which inspired the creation of many new leaders, have not been exhibited in the politics after the independence of the country. Relentless rivalry in the realm of existing ‘two-party’ politics imbibed with party-specific idealisms and gruelling persuasions of personal agenda traumatized the entire political environment. This in turn masked a conducive and progressive concourse for the potential leaders to practice and evolve in the leading roles. Hence, proliferation of future leadership in the present political doctrine is increasingly becoming a remote possibility.
Leadership in public services has been undergoing the similar situation as like as political leadership of the country. Though one of the prime contributing factors is the negative influence of political leaders into the public administration, the next most important reasons is the lack of inappropriate education and individual endeavor of continuous learning. There have been radical changes taking place across the world with the advent of technology and changing business and societal needs creating huge gaps in the existing education systems and demands of present workplace. Though there have been some noticeable initiatives undertaken by the past and present Government in aligning the educations with the requirements of present day’s professional demands, there are more to do to make ready our future generations. While people working in the private sector faces competitive and challenging situations for the survival and positioning in the organizations and hence compel to learn further, the public services mostly rely on seniority of services with completion of prerequisite trainings for reaching to the top. This has sealed off the spirit of learning among the public service personnel, which indeed is one of the causes of death of a potential leader. In the book “Leading for a Lifetime”, Warren G. Bennis and Robert J. Thomas quoted, “The ability to learn is a defining characteristic of being human being; the ability to continue learning is an essential skill of leadership”.
To an extent, emergence of leaders have been continuing in the private sectors despite of enduring adversities in the political environment of the country. There have been phenomenal contributions by some of the prominent and globally acclaimed leaders in alleviating the poverty of the country by creating improved socioeconomic conditions and stimulation. However, there is still insufficiency in the spirit, culture and mindset in the private sectors organizations in regard to creating the right conditions for procreation and promotion of the future leaders. Developing and learning leadership doesn’t implicate only on providing leadership training occasionally or for the people at the top in the hierarchy, which is kind of a prevailing practice in the organizations. Once Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery wrote to John Adair in a letter in 1968, “It is more important to teach leadership in our universities; in fact, to youths, since it falls on dead ground with the older generation” (John Adair, ‘How to Grow Leaders’). Typical syndrome of egocentric mindset is causing the creation of a ‘tunnel vision’ in the organization, which is depleting the inevitable possibilities of creating future leaders within the organization. It is a matter of fact that leadership can neither be hired nor can be injected; it has to be embedded in the value system of the organization. An example is the creation of ‘People Factory’ at the Crotonville of New York by Jack Welch of General Electronics (GE) where Jack used to spend at least one day in every month sharing all he knew about leadership with individuals identified as having the edgy, competitive spirit that people need to succeed at GE. As the proverb goes, “The seeds of the future lie in the present”, both private and public sectors need to realize this proven fact.
People of Bangladesh has been witnessing ‘crucibles’, one after another, yet one of such ‘crucibles’ is ongoing, but the irony is that true spirit of independence has never been a reality to the people of the country. Most tragically, none of the crucibles have presented with the promise of leaderships for leading the nations into the most evolving and uncertain future. ‘It is better to start in the evening than not at all’ – Bangladesh is now passing out the most crucial essence of time for the development of future leaders. Any further waste in time may likely to change the path of ongoing progress towards an enlightened and sustainable future.
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