[Vnbiz] Staying to be a leader - the de facto leader

[Tran Dinh Hoanh]

Dear brothers Hien, Thien & CACC,

Thanks brother Hien and Thien for sending out some very good examples and
thus give me an opportunity to explore the theory of leadership further.

Please note that I don't use the term "dictatorship" or "democracy" in my
writing.  I talk about something else--the leader's ability to mobilize his
people.  Bother Brother Hien & Brother Thien use these terms dictatorship
and democracy; I don't.  I think these terms are confusing and open for
confusion and abuse.  That's why I am not using them here.  But I will
explain myself further below.

Also please note that most examples by brother Thien and Hien are examples
of "situation" (I.e., emergency, war,etc.) and not examples of "leader is
better than its people."  And "situation" is the key.  (I will not go into
brother Thien's example of parent and children, because that is a very
special example, unless you are willing to go with the theory that the
government is the parent and the people is the children--and not the boss as
it should be--or that your department head is the parent and you are the
children).

Different situations demand different styles of working.  Say, in war, the
nation wants the leaders to win the war.  They don't want the leaders to
waste time meeting and arguing and playing all kinds of media pleasing and
dumb politics that may slowdown the country's movements and thus make it
lose the war.  In war, speed is the most important thing.  You need to be
able to move extremely fast (and oftentimes in secrecy).  That would make
martial law works better than the normal "meeting and voting" process.
So, both restrictions on individual freedom and privileges of the leader to
"bark out orders" increase in war.  But, does this mean that the leader is
better than his people?  Or the leader knows more than his people?  Or the
leader can simply ignore its people's wishes?

You can make your own judgment whether you are better than your people.
That is your right.  My theory and practice in my companies (i.e.,
companies I founded and run) is clear: Collectively my people are much
better than me in every thing.  Individually I may be better than some of
them, but collectively my "people' are much better than me in EVERY thing.
I cannot run my companies effectively if my people are not a major part of
the decision process.  (And I am not talking about theory.  I am talking
about whether my companies may make good money or may go bankrupt).

In governance, the government has to know that the "people" IS the boss, and
the boss' know what it wants more than its servants and the boss' will
rules.  Some of you guys may think that this is just flowery language.
Wrong, that is the truth that you must keep in mind in order to win.  If you
do trial work in court, you will know about this "collective intelligence"
theory.  Usually, you try a case in front of a jury (bo^`i tha^?m -doa`n)
and a judge.  In the US, the jury is the group who will decide on the
verdict (of guilty or not guilty). The judge is there only to keep the trial
procedures going correctly.  Generally, the judge doesn't have to right to
issue a verdict.  And who are the juries?  They are average citizens chosen
randomly by the computer.  Whoever's name gets picked up by the computer has
to go to court for several days to act as jury.

So, you are the learned lawyer, trying extremely complex cases, not just
murder but maybe anti-trust and other complex economic cases, in front of a
group of average citizens who know nothing about the law and nothing about
economics, but who will decide whether you win or lose.  So you get very
nervous--My God, how would this group of ignoramuses be able to decide my
fate?  Why should I leave my fate in the hand of this group of ignoramuses?

Well, in the training for trial lawyer, there are two fundamental things you
have to learn by heart:  First, you need to be able to present every thing
in an extremely simple way. You have to be able to explain Einstein's
relativity theory in a language that a third-grade student will understand.
If you can't do that, don't go to court; find come other job instead.
Second, respect the jury's intelligence.  Individually, each one of them is
not so intelligent, but collectively they are so sharp that they will
understand every thing you say (if you say it simply) and they will not miss
any mistake you make, regardless of how minor the mistake is.

So, guys, trust me.  Treat your people with respect.  COLLECTIVELY your
people is 10 times more intelligent than you are.  The "fact" that a leader
may be more intelligent and knows more than his COLLECTIVE people doesn't
exist.  That illusion exists only in the mind of some ego-maniac leader; it
is not real.

So in special situations like war and emergency, your people are willing to
disregard the normal time-consuming process of consensus building on many
things by meeting, argument and voting.  They want you to decide fast, move
fast every day, to win the war, to solve the emergency. In sum, your people
AGREE to give you, the leader, more authority, more privileges to simply
bark out orders and ignore some "democratic" practices.

This "situation management" has its solid foundation on the "people's
will."  It is because your people agree to give you more power, NOT because
you are better than your people and you simply rule your people like a
parent over the children.  Your people is your boss, not your children.

"Situation management" has a solid democratic foundation, if we define
democratic as "based on the people's will."  How situation management is
applied in practice may vary form place to place, like constitution-based
martial laws in some place, or a revolutionary party simply taking the lead
in some place.  But the fundamental theory is clear:  Situation-management
power comes from the people.  The people knows what it wants and agrees to
confer the special situation-management power upon the leader.

But this situation-management power is only to solve that special situation.
no more no less.  Say, when the VCP took the lead to fight the war against
the French or the US, it is easy to see that the citizens were willing to
have the Party rule over many things so that we could win the war.  But,
jailing writers and artists for speaking their mind against the Party's
excesses (and we all know that this Party had a Truong-Son-size mountain of
excesses), or forcing farmers into persecuting each other (dau to) for
land-reform, or forcing millions of city-dwellers to move to jungle areas to
develop "new economic zones" had nothing to do with situation-management,
nothing to do with the need to win a war.  It was simply the stupid
practices of Marxist-Leninism based on the solid theory that "We the Party
knows everything, you the people are stupid.  You do what we tell you to
do.  Don't ask.  Don't argue. Don't complain."

(I have to open a parenthesis here that I am saddened to see that today the
dead and dumb Marxist-Leninism is till a required subject for all college
students in Vietnam.  I challenge you, every single VCP intellectual to
solve that issue.  Don't sit there and pretend to see nothing, hear nothing,
say nothing, and still call yourself an intellectual.  I studied
Marxist-Leninism myself, but voluntarily.  I would encourage every student
to study it voluntarily, because it was one of the major thinking lines of
human history.  But, requiring students to take that as a mandatory
subject?  Come on, wake up!  We talk about the shortage of resources in our
education system.  Where do we find money to make a dead subject
mandatory?).

To close this long message.  Let me summarize the point I make about
leadership here.  The rule is very simple. It is common sense that when you
lead your people in some project, your people have to be with you in heart
and mind in order for you to win.  As a leader you will have a goal and a
plan to get to the goal.  Your people have to agree (explicitly or
implicitly) to your goal and your plan.  If they don't agree with you, they
may say nothing, but your plan will fail because your people, who will have
to work your plan, will not work it seriously.  They may pretend to work,
but do not really work.  And you will fail.

So, the ONLY task you as a leader really have to do is to get your people to
agree with you on your goal and your plan and to stay together as a strong
united team. This is merely "people management."  A great leader doesn't
need to know anything technical.  Technical work may be done by your
lieutenants.

And how do you get your people to agree to your goal and your plan?  You
need to understand your people's heart and mind, and blend your vision (your
heart and mind) and your people's hearts and minds into one. If you are
sensitive to your people's feelings, if you know how to listen, if you
listen with a humble and caring heart, you will understand your people's
wishes well, and you will be able to devise a plan that makes everyone happy
(well, almost every one :-)

(Conversely, if you think that you are the leader and you know more, and you
people are dummy like your children, and you have to tell your people what
to do because they are ignorant, you will fail sooner or later).

I am talking about the attitude of the heart, not the technique.  Depending
on who your people are, you may need to talk a lot, or not talk a lot; you
may need lots of meeting or veryfew meetings; you may need to be
"democratic" or more "authoritarian."  Whatever techniques you use, the
ultimate purpose has to be "Make your people agree with you in heart and in
mind about your goal and your plan."  Otherwise you will fail.

Listening, talking, feeling before you make decisions.  That is how you make
your people agree with you in heart and mind.  That is where the art of
leadership really resides.

Have a great day!

Hoanh

On 4/20/07, Hien Nguyen <hnguyen97 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
>
> Dear brother Hoanh brother Thien et all,
> >When members' skill and knowledge are lower than leader, leader needs to
> use dictatorship.
>
> While I agree with anh Hoanh's elaboration on abusive dictatorship,
> especially at the national level, I still think that "democracy is not good
> in practice".  A good leader needs to use all three methods flexibly. Of
> course we need a "good" leader.
>
> To illustrate the point, in a project, because of time and other
> priorities, a good team leader can impose certain tasks on inexperienced
> members (who would love to follow because they don't have enough knowledge
> and skills to give opinions) to achieve good results. It's not about he does
> not love democracy, it's just being practical. Somewhere along the way, the
> dictated followers will understand and the good leader would love to discuss
> ideas with them in brainstorming sessions.
>
> Historically, the first form of slavery is "natural slavery" where the
> followers did not know what to do and needed a leader to lead their doings.
>
> So a good leader needs all three methods. And to prevent abusive
> dictatorship, US government for example, there are checks and balances.
>
> Have a great day,
> Hien
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> --
> Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
> Attorney of Law
> Washington DC
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