The fundamentals of good leadership is to present yourself with a positive and confident body language, be it limited to mere visual optics, but every public opportunity one needs to be on-top of his game and each photograph taken should portray confidence combined with the subtleties of a good tailored suit, well groomed hair and even if need be a dash of good makeup. All these subtle tactics present the leader well, even if its only for sake of mere pictures
Sadly, every time the people of Pakistan have seen their Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in public and specifically on the global stage, quite shockingly he has come forth with a weak and a defeatist body language, slouched shoulders, fumbling words, mindlessly gazing into thin air, oft caught with a worried & tense frown, very rarely even a smile? The subtle message coming through the camera lens is of a stressed out leader, leading a failed state. Granted I may have a bias against him, but I still do remain a Pakistani and he represents my country on the global stage.
Sparing a few scattered “good-PR” shots, most images that end up being circulated, even by the media houses (Dawn, Tribune, SamaaTV), reflect the mindset of an uninspiring leader, if that alone was the problem it may have been ok, but when he goes to speak, then again the potential for a possible inspirational magic dissipates into thin air, for example a few months back during his joint press conference with the US President Obama at the White House, he as seen to be shuffling ragged pieces of paper, honestly there is no harm in carrying notes, but at this global stage the stakes for visual optics are high and a genuine leaders rises up to the occasion, others flounder in search of glory, and the Pakistani Prime Minister did a massive belly flop, in search of glory.
Definitely not a leader who may choose to inspire a nation of 180 million people to rise forth and take on the challenges of the world.
In Pakistan, when he does choose to address his own nation in his own language, he comes across with a monotonous uninspiring voice, leaving his own nation uninspired, they then in turn search for some hope in some content to motivate them forward, difference of opinion notwithstanding – there is so much room for improvements, an example of one grand speech he delivered, hailed by his supporters, PM Nawaz Sharif tried to inspire the youth by launching a Youth Loan program, which seemingly was his first feather in his cap, the dream unfortunately has all, but fizzled into thin-air.
Any nation looks eagerly towards inspirational leaders, when they do come across them, they have a romance with their vision and quite often then not uplift the morale of Pakistan to unimaginable proportions to name a few inspiring leaders of Pakistan which have caught the imagination of the people, I can easily list on my finger tips,
- Mohd Ali Jinnah
- Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
- Pervaiz Musharraf
- Altaf Hussain (in the 80’s & 90’s after which he lost his way)
- Benazir Bhutto
- Imran Khan
All lead confidently, addressed the people with a flair and lead their people inspriing their resilient nation to achieve the impossible – But in recent times Pakistan has collected a large collection of un-inspring make-shift leaders in its own Hall of Shame, also best known as status quo
- Asif Ali Zardari
- Nawaz Sharif
- Bilawal Bhutto
- Altaf Hussain (in recent years)
- Maulana Fazl ur Rehman
- Chaudhry Iftikhan
- Asfandiyar Wali
- Mamnoon Hussain
Argue all you want the past 7+ years we’ve been held hostage to a locked up visionless leadership in the form of President Asif Ali Zardari who never came out of the presidency and now more recently Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who seems to be biding his time as a make-shift
Leadership, for the common man is a ballet of visual optics, inspirational messages and tangible deliverables.
Nawaz Sharif in my opinion, has failed on two counts for sure viz-a-viz optics and oratory finesse, the realm of tangible deliverbles he continues to struggle on many counts, even his experience from his previous two premiership he is still seen struggling on many counts
Imran Khan easily tops the charts with confidence viz-a-viz visual optics and speaking finesse, tangible deliverable in regards to KPK governance he has slowly been gathering up his credentials
Pakistan undoubtedly is a resilient nation, when it embraces the vision of a leader it has the ability to rise up to the occasion and even be able to move mountains, but if the leadership presents a defeatist outlook, the people of Pakistan too fall back into their own slumber, and curse their existence as another bad dream. Pakistan is in search of a leader …