Leadership Autobiography of Indira Gandhi - Essay Example

Indira Gandhi – Leadership Autobiography Indira Gandhi – Leadership Autobiography Introduction Indira Gandhi was born during the period of 1917 and her historical life ended during the period of 19841. Her life is regarded as historical because she became one of the most prominent and one of the most influential leaders that the world has ever come to know. She is regarded as one of the few female leaders in India who have been posted to the highest government position in India. She was recognized as the third Prime Minister of India and a very reputable individual in one of the largest parties of India named as Indian National Congress. She served as a Prime Minister for two different periods including the 11 year period starting from 1966 and ending in 1977 and then she held the office of Prime Minister for a 4 year period ranging from 1980 to 1984. She was still holding the office when she was removed from the face of the earth through murder and she successfully became the only female Prime Minister in the history of India. This writing will focus on the leadership autobiography of Indira Gandhi and will reflect upon why she is one of the major examples of a successful leader. Body The way a leader leads is referred to his/her personal philosophy of leadership. Different leaders follow a different philosophy of leadership. Leaders follow the dictatorial, participative, delegative philosophies of leadership. Indira Gandhi and her actions reveal that she followed an autocratic form of leadership philosophy. A leader who follows this philosophy tends to communicate clear expectations that he/she may have from her followers. They do not only inform the followers about what needs to be done, they even tell them how operations are to be carried out. These leaders try to alienate themselves from the followers and create clear distinction between the two in the eyes of others. They themselves make the decisions and do not allow the followers to participate and expect the followers to follow those decisions obediently. One of the reasons due to which it is believed that Indira Gandhi was an autocratic leader is that she was held responsible for conducting acts of corruption and even after she was found to be guilty, she did not give up her position and instead instated emergency after 19752. This shows that Indira Gandhi thought of herself as someone who is above all and has a higher status as compared to others. She did not only declare emergency. She even disallowed the press to report freely and she even went a step further by detaining members of opposition’s political parties. This shows that Indira Gandhi tried to create a image of herself as a person who is supreme and special as compared to her followers and the people she was leading. Although her action of implementing a state of emergency in the nation she was leading seems to post a negative image of her. She carried out various tasks that made her stand and gain recognition as one of the most important leaders of India. Some of her actions that resulted in enhancing the position of India and the Indian population in the eyes of the world were the economic development plans she carried out. She was the one who promoted and then ensured the nationalization of various commercial banks in India and due to this moves the number of banks and the number branches of banks elevated at a very steady rate. During her tenure as a Prime Minister the number of branches of commercial banks increased to a total of 62000 branches3. The increase in the number of branches even lead to increase in supply of money which resulted in easy loans for small sized as well as medium sized businesses as well as the agricultural sector of India which was at that time considered as the backbone of Indian economy. Indira is even known and associated with the Green Revolution which decreased the dependence of India on foreign supplied food and the nation became a food supplying nation instead of a food importing nation. She did not only work for the benefit of fellow Indians, she even helped people in other areas. She is the one responsible for separating Bangladesh from India by helping the Eastern region of Pakistan in fighting against the Western region. Like many other leaders she even followed the footsteps of a great leader and had a role model since her childhood. She was brought up in a family of leaders and political figures who belonged to the male generation. Her own father, Jawaharlal Nehru was a Prime Minister of India and some may even believe that he was his role model. But it’s quite surprising to see that Indira Gandhi’s role model was a great leader from the past and was one who belonged to the female generation. Historians continuously point out that Joan of Arc was the role model of Indira Gandhi4. Joan of the Arc was a military leader who was a female and went to various wars and astonished everyone with her female dominance in the war zone. Similar kind of leadership and elements of dictatorial leadership were even present in the leadership of Indira Gandhi. She even took strong measures and led from the front. Even though she was part of the suppressed gender group of India, she still stood out and even dominated the male gender single handedly. She did not only exhibit being influenced by Joan of the Arc through her behavior, she even clearly stated that Joan of the Arc was her model leader in her letters that she wrote to one of her friends. During the period of 1952, she stated that when she was only 8 or 9 years old she visited the region of France and since then Jeanne d’ Arc became her favorite heroine5. There are various characteristics that differentiate an effective leader from an ineffective one. Effective leaders are those who are open to experience and are ready face challenges in their everyday business. Indira Gandhi was an effective leader because she was quite open to challenges. One of the challenges experienced by Indira Gandhi was that she was a female leader in a male dominated society. She was initially seen as a weakling and in order to prove her incompetence in the public she was promoted in her own party. The party members believed that she will fail to prove herself in the eyes of the public. But she took up this challenge and went on to become a successful female Prime Minister of India and held the office for almost 15 years. An effective leader is not one who creates a positive vision; he/she is rather the one who ensures that the vision is achieved as promised. She had a vision of an economically well developed India and she achieved this vision through her rigorous economic efforts which lead to the economic success of India. She created the path that needed to be followed by followers to attain change in the society. Different leaders promote different values and so did Indira Gandhi and she promoted these values in great depths and ensured that these values were achieved. One of the values that were highly promoted by the Indira was abolishment or eradication of caste system. This means that she wanted to put a stop to discrimination that was based on caste that was taking place in India. She promoted this value by getting married to an individual who did not belonged to her caste and did not even belonged to a caste that was equal to the status of the caste to which Indira belonged to6. Another value that was highly significant and personal to Indira Gandhi was minority rights. She herself belonged to the minority gender group of females who were suppressed by the male dominant society. She made various efforts to promote female rights such as the development of a female section of the political party she belonged to7. She even promoted the rights of the Muslim population which was considered as a religious minority in India. She spend ample amount of time helping and caring for the Muslims in refugee camps8. Indira Gandhi like other influential leaders simply based her team building effort with the assistance of trust and respect. Her practices were quite autocratic in nature and most of decisions were made by her. But this does not mean that she was not involved in a team building effort. She developed a team based on trust by doing as she said. She was quite clear in her aims and objectives and provided clear guidelines for the achievement of these aims and objectives. Her determination towards economic growth and achievement of minority rights made her a trust worthy leader to be followed. She led through example and showed his followers the right path of achieving their objectives. She created examples out of her own personal life which makes her a person who stands by her words. In order to promote and adopt change, a leader needs to have a vision and a strategy to achieve that vision. Her vision was the attainment and advancement of the rights of the minorities including women, Muslims of India and people belonging from the lower caste. In order to achieve this mission she developed campaigns that promoted involvement of women in the Indian’s government, she herself assisted several Muslims which promoted others to accept Muslims as a member of the Indian society and she got married out of her caste thus communicating a clear vision of casteless society. Conclusion Indira Gandhi was an autocratic leader and her style of leadership may seem to be an obstacle in recognizing herself as an effective leader. But the way she lead the entire Indian nation surely helped her in gaining the respect of being a true and effective leader. She followed the footsteps of her role model, Joan of the Arc who was a military leader. Various activities that were carried out by her can be seen as the development of the prosperous India that currently exists in the modern society. She established clear goals of achieving economic prosperity, rights of the minority and caste less society and in order to attain these goals she led by example and created policies that promoted these goals. She got married to a person belonging to a lower caste, she developed a women’s wing in her own party and assisted Muslim minorities which helped her in the establishment of her image as a great leader. References Dommermuth-Costa, Carol. Indira Gandhi. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Co., 2002. Gandhi, Indira and Dorothy Norman. Indira Gandhi, letters to an American friend 1950-1984. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985. Malik, Yogendra K and Dhirendra K Vajpeyi. India. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988. Read More