Leadership with a New Perspective
I am of the opinion that true
leadership is a ladder that many have attempted to climb but a few have
succeeded. We have community leaders, religious leaders, and political leaders
and there are business leaders. All these can be defined as people who manage
their domain and are totally in charge of their flock and in doing so they are
people who promote prosperity, progress and peace.
I admire many leaders because of their
qualities but my greatest admiration goes to that Polish gentleman who defined
the very essence of leadership and who grew up to be the shepherd of over one
billion Catholics. I am talking about Pope John Paul II for whom leadership
seemed to come naturally. It radiated off him and he used it to not only steer
his flock but influence presidents, dictators, kings, queens and many ordinary
leaders as well as simple people.
The more we study his life the more we
find that he had those special qualities that are so hard to define yet so
obviously recognizable when you finally see them. He had them all as did the
Rev Martin Luther King Jr had them. Just as Mahatma Gandhi had them and Mother
Teresa, and Winston Churchill and Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela, the 14th Dalai Lama or John F
Kennedy had them.
Ever since my
College days I have been reading about various leaders and studying their ideas
and philosophies. I have agreed with some and disagreed with others and yet I
have had a lot of respect for all of them. Even if I disagreed with them, I
respected their clarity of convictions.
This pope had
a rare charisma, a quality some people described as his special, penetrating,
transcendent warmth. That luminosity was hard to resist, winning over even that
toughest crowd of all, the teenagers. On his many trips around the globe, these
teenagers flocked to him by the thousands and even their parents could only
marvel at the magic.
A vocal
advocate for human rights, John Paul often spoke out about suffering in the
world. He held strong positions on many topics, including his opposition to capital
punishment. A charismatic figure, John Paul used his influence to bring about
political change and is credited with the fall of communism in his native
Poland. He was not without critics, however. Some have stated that he could be
harsh with those who disagreed with him and that he would not compromise his
hard-line stance on certain issues, such as contraception.
Traditional, old-school Catholics
adored John Paul for many of the same reasons that disconcerted his critics. He
was the rock star of many people. He was their hero, their voice of conscience
and a voice of moral clarity in the wilderness. And this perhaps has proved to
be John Paul’s greatest legacy. In a nuanced world of various shades of grey,
he rejected relativism and forcefully preached a vision of absolutes.
He told the world what it meant to be
Catholic and what was expected of them. We could either agree or disagree with
his views but there was no mistaking his overall messages.
John Paul had great respect for all
religious groups. John Paul II expressed his admiration for Buddhism: In
particular he expressed his highest regard for the followers of Buddhism, with
its ... four great values of ... loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy
and equanimity; with its ten transcendental virtues and the joys of
the spiritual association expressed so beautifully in their
scriptures. He ardently hoped that his views will serve to strengthen the
goodwill between all of us, and that it will reassure everyone of the Catholic
Church's desire for inter religious dialogue and cooperation in building a more
just and fraternal world.
Many people who were adrift in the
muddied turbulence that followed the Church’s reforms of the 1960s were really
grateful for the re-direction. Like the father who recognized the need and gave
his children indisputable boundaries, Pope John Paul clearly set parameters
that Catholics and the rest of the world should live by and just as the
children, the faithful found in those strictures stability and comfort.
Of the many reasons I adore John Paul’s
leadership qualities is the one where he appeared guided by a moral authority
so consistent, so strong and clear that even a nonbeliever could almost accept
the Catholic proposition that he was a direct extension of the hand of God. His
Holiness indeed was blessed with holiness, with goodness and decency that every
leader of my choice should possess.
When the paedophilia scandal swept the
church, he was nearly as bereft and violated as the victims themselves. His
anguish was palpable. The pope I am admiring as a world leader was so many
things: poet, athlete, and academic, philosopher, multilingual intellectual,
defender of innocence, crusher of communism, critic of capitalism, champion of
the downtrodden and thus became the unstoppable force of peace, progress and
prosperity.
Many people have said that he was the
greatest gift to the world from heaven because if John Paul disdained
communism, he also had plenty to say about the evils of Western affluence, its materialism
and decadence. Even as he delighted conservatism, he hammered home many issues
dear to the hearts of liberals such as peace, non-violence and economic
justice. He forgave the man who tried to kill him. He reached out to Jews and
Muslims. He decried the death penalty just as he decried abortion and
euthanasia. He definitely understood that if life was sacred, there could be no
exception.
In 1995, Pope John Paul II held a
meeting with Jains, a sect that broke away from mainstream Hinduism in 600 BC.
He praised Mahatma Gandhi for his "unshakeable faith in
God", ensured the Jains that the Catholic Church will continue to engage
in dialogue with their religion and spoke of the common need to aid the poor.
The Jain leaders were impressed with the pope's "transparency and
simplicity", and the meeting received much attention in western India,
home to many Jains. This was the courage and conviction of a leader who wanted
justice for all.
John Paul chastised many presidents of
many countries on more than one occasion to stop rushing to go to war. As one
listened to him, it was clear he followed only one adviser, one opinion poll
and that was his own moral code. If only all leaders could be so pure and do
the right things at the right time this world would be a lot safer and peaceful
place to co-exist.
He was a remarkable life. Upon the
death of John Paul II, a number of clergy at the Vatican and laymen throughout
the world began referring to the late pontiff as "John Paul the
Great"—only the fourth pope to be so acclaimed and the first since
the first millennium. He was certainly greater Alexandra the Great in many
aspects of leadership.
I can not help thinking that even after
his death, the pope’s leadership still radiates. He showed us how to accept
this life with dignity and grace. All the modern leaders- political, religious
or communal- have a lot to learn from this great leader. If they are unable to
then they would be a lot poorer in their performance.
Dr Ram Lakhan Prasad.
8th April, 2015. A decade after his burial ceremony.
1. Born: May 18,
1920, Wadowice, Poland
2. Died: April 2,
2005, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City
3. Buried: April 8,
2005, St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
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