Sunday April 20, 2008
When a leader leaves…
In Italy, voters returned Silvio Berlusconi to power, despite his questionable record of scandal and corruption. In Zimbabwe, voters apparently rejected Robert Mugabe, a leader whose record of scandal and corruption has long passed the point of being questionable, but he refuses to hand over power.
It makes you wonder a little about democracy, doesn\’t it?
I know little about politics in Italy – other than that the country replaces its government every year, on the average. That prevents any leader from having time to do serious damage.
The same cannot be said for Zimbabwe.
I remember 1980, when Zimbabwe\’s black population voted out Ian Smith\’s white-dominated government. Church agencies and non-government organizations of the time generally saw Mugabe as (if you\’ll pardon the phrase) southern Africa\’s great white hope. He was, they thought, an intellectual, a man with six earned degrees, a visionary capable of guiding his country through the minefield of independence with intelligence and wisdom.
In hindsight, our attitude to Mugabe was probably more a reaction against Smith\’s apartheid-based regime than a realistic assessment of Mugabe himself.
It was also, I suspect, tainted by a lingering prejudice that viewed many other African leaders, such as Kenya\’s Jomo Kenyatta, as terrorists.
Since his election, Mugabe has shown that he has an ego bigger than Henry Kissinger\’s, an ideology more rigid than George Bush\’s, and a grip on power that rivals Joseph Stalin\’s.
Under Mugabe\’s reign, Zimbabwe – once the most prosperous British colony in Africa — has spiralled down into chaos. Annual inflation currently exceeds 150,000 per cent. Money is almost worthless. Opposition politicians are harassed, jailed, or murdered. Armed gangs beat voters into submission.
Although the elections in Zimbabwe took place March 29, Mugabe has throttled any release of results – presumably, until he can manipulate those results to his own benefit.
The key to this problem is often overlooked — during his 28 years in power, Mugabe failed to school a successor.
The problem of succession
Succession is a problem whenever any organization is built around the leadership of one individual.
In Canadian politics, Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, and Jean Chretien all clung to office too long. They left no heir apparent. Their short-lived replacements – John Turner, Kim Campbell, and Paul Martin – never surmounted their predecessors\’ legacy.
Ralph Milton and I started a publishing house in 1980 – by coincidence, the same year Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe.
After 14 years, we too faced the problem of succession. A few people showed interest and had money, but we didn\’t trust their vision for our company. The people we trusted didn\’t have money.
Eventually, we sold to our employees. We knew they shared our goals. As I look back, I realize that they trained themselves for their jobs. But no one trained them for our jobs.
Making the wrong choices
In her book Artists, Craftsmen, and Technocrats, Patricia Pitcher examined the process of succession in a fictional industrial company. In Pitcher\’s scenario, the company was founded by an artist, an entrepreneur with a vision, with a commitment to his product. Under his intuitive guidance, the firm grew, expanded, created new markets.
When the founder retired, he chose a successor. But not another artist like himself, who might have taken the company in a different direction. Almost inevitably, in a corporate environment, he chose a technocrat whose strength lay in detail, in analysis, in imposing administrative efficiency.
Pitcher never named her fictional company, but it bore an uncanny resemblance to car manufacturer British Leyland.
Once, artists like Lord Nuffield of Morris and MG fame, or Sir William Lyons of Jaguar, built fine cars for their own sake. As they aged, they turned their fiercely independent operations over to Lord Donald Stokes, a man who saw cars only as a means to an end.
Stokes merged Austin, Morris, MG, Rover, Jaguar, Triumph, and Riley into a bureaucratic behemoth. During the 1970s, British Leyland\’s vehicles destroyed any remnants of what was once proudly called British craftsmanship.
Even the world\’s biggest corporate entity, the Christian Church, demonstrates Pitcher\’s pattern. According to the Bible, Jesus chose Peter as his successor. But after a single influential dream, Peter faded out of sight.
Administration of the church headquarters in Jerusalem passed instead to a technocrat — James, known as the brother of Jesus. And its marketing passed to a firebrand newcomer called Paul.
Dominant personalities
Individuals put a personal stamp on an organization. After conquering Mt. Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary established a foundation to build schools and hospitals for the Sherpa people of Nepal.
Another climber, Greg Mortenson, did the same for villages hidden in the mountain valleys of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan (described in the best-selling paperback Three Cups of Tea).
Mother Teresa founded her Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta.
Examples abound in business, too: Bill Gates and Microsoft; Bill Welch and General Electric; IBM\’s Thomas Watson; B.C.\’s forestry giant H. R. McMillan…
But when the personality that drives these organizations dies, or retires, what happens to these organizations? Many crash and burn.
In some situations, succession passes automatically down the blood line – tribal chiefs, royalty, and the Mafia come to mind.
Other organizations –Scouts, for instance – focus their efforts on finding and fostering leadership within their ranks.
The democratic way To receive this column regularly via e-mail, send a request to [email protected]. E-mail subscribers also get excerpts from correspondence about these columns. Please forward a copy of this column to anyone who might be interested in subscribing.
If you want to order my books, you can call 1-800-663-2775 in Canada, 1-800-328-0200 in the U.S., or order them on-line at the Wood Lake Books website.
For a lighter look at ethics, faith, and life, I recommend Ralph Milton\’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it at the Wood Lake Books home page in Ralph Milton\’s Site, or by sending a note directly to [email protected].
It\’s also worth pursuing Charlene Fairchild\’s United Online site. Another site worth visiting is David Keating\’s \”SeemslikeGod\” page.
The genius of western democracy may be its way of taking care of succession. Even as the incumbent leader seeks to consolidate power, the opposition parties hone a potential successor.
As I have written before, the mark of a true democracy is not voter turnout, transparency, freedom from scandal, honest electoral procedures, or efficiency. It is the ability to remove a government from power.
The successor may be no better than the incumbent. But at least he or she is an alternative.
That\’s why Italy – despite endemic corruption, patronage, and inefficiency — is a democracy. And why Zimbabwe is not.
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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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