Who are we going to choose?

By now, readers may have recognised my inclination to use fables in my concluding statements of an article. Today, while I was thinking about the leaders of Malta's two main political parties, two fables came to mind and I have decided to start off with them. So far as I am concerned, both fables address one of our leaders, whose identity I will leave to the good judgment of our readers.

"The fox and the grapes", from Aesop's Fables:

A famished fox saw some clusters of ripe black grapes hanging from a trellised vine. He resorted to all his tricks to get at them, but wearied himself in vain, for he could not reach them. At last he turned away, hiding his disappointment and saying: "The grapes are sour and not ripe as I thought".

"The fox and the grapes", by Ambrose Bierce:

A fox, seeing some sour grapes hanging within an inch of his nose, and being unwilling to admit that there was anything he would not eat, solemnly declared they were out of his reach.

It is so evident that a leader has to be endowed with basic fundamental qualities. Primarily, a leader is a symbol for the entire group, serving as a representative of the group's collective identity. She/he needs to embody the goals, which the group is motivated toward, committed to, and finds shared values in.

Bennis and Nanus in their book Leadership discuss the importance of vision in leadership: "To choose a direction, a leader must first have developed a mental image of a possible and desirable future state of the organisation. This image, which we call a vision, may be as vague as a dream or as precise as a goal or mission statement. The critical point is that a vision articulates a view of a realistic, credible, attractive future for the organisation, a condition that is better in some important ways than what now exists".

In the light of this, one must keep in mind that joining the European Union is a definite possibility while partnership has not, at any point, developed to anything beyond a flight of fancy.

One of the supreme tasks facing today's leaders is creating goals, which belong to the group, both collectively and individually. Individually, the greatest venture is borne from ownership. Within ownership a critical element is responsibility. Indeed, while one cannot lose what one does not own, it is also true that one does not own something without being responsible for it. Who owns the EU agreement in hand for Malta today, may I ask? Who is trying responsibly to sign this EU protocol on April 16? And... who has said several times there is no way he will sign were he to be given the chance?

The leader must strive to keep people's attention - as well as their enthusiasm and commitment - focused upon the new vision that is the inspiration for the change that requires adaptation. Change can cause distress. It has a tendency to shake up people's sense of expertise and relevance as well as calling for new learning and new behaviours. Distress cannot be eliminated but it can be modulated. The leader must strive to achieve this. Which of the two leaders is trying to achieve this goal?

In order for the new vision to succeed, people must be given a sense of ownership in the vision and the new practices that are underway. The leader must keep this sense of ownership alive and focused. Heifetz and Laurie, in the January 1997 issue of the Harvard Business Review, report that: "Giving a voice to all people is the foundation of an organisation that is willing to experiment and learn. But, in fact, whistle-blowers, creative deviants, and other such original voices routinely get smashed and silenced in organisational life. They generate disequilibrium, and the easiest way for an organisation to restore equilibrium is to neutralise those voices, sometimes in the name of teamwork and 'alignment'. The voices from below are usually not as articulate as one would wish. People speaking beyond their authority usually feel self-conscious and sometimes have to generate 'too much' passion to get themselves geared up for speaking out. To toss it out for its bad timing, lack of clarity, or seeming unreasonableness, is to lose potentially valuable information and discourage a potential leader in the organisation."

The leader must work to listen to different voices within an organisation and to adjust the course of change if it is warranted. There is always room for more good ideas. Some companies, like the internationally renowned company 3M, are successful in large measure because of how effectively they draw out and pay attention to ideas from within the organisation. This did not happen in the Malta Labour Party during the Vat/Cet discussion (with the finance minister of the time resigning, even though he did this for personal reasons) and during other discussions (an ex-party leader and one other major party politician leaving the MLP).

What should one's conclusion be? Well, that is up to each individual. I think the above speaks for itself. Criticising everything and yet not coming up with viable and realistic solutions has been the MLP's role during the past four-and-a-half years. If this is what people visualise in a leader, then they should vote MLP.