[Rajnish Singh]

Not used Abhishek.

[Rajnish Singh]

My views on this:

1. We have become very individualistic. Our “success” is now driven by our individual “success”, measured by our wealth accumulation and power that we derive from various positions that we hold in society and organisation.

2. We have given up on our sense of absolute right and absolute wrong. We are contextualising rights and wrong. Moral Science classes which used to drill into us a sense of right and wrong no longer are taught in class.

3. We have a heightened sense of competition. Most people are displaying “scarce mentality” and hence the increased desire to “get” at the expense of others.

4. We have lost our sense of kindness. We are tired of being taken advantage of and hence do not show kindness enough.

5. There is a heightened sense of inequity in society. More people seem to “get” what they don’t deserve or don’t work hard for. Hence, others may suffer more from “scare mentality” syndrome.

6. More people start with an element of distrust in a relationship, unless proved otherwise, rather than vice-versa.

[Rajnish Singh]

Yes, I believe we are stereotyping our leaders. Let me take the example of Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni to illustrate this point.

Recently, there has been lot of discussion on Virat Kohli stepping down as Captain of Royal Challenges Bangalore after the conclusion of the ongoing IPL season, and as T20 Captain of India after the ICC T20 World Cup in Oct-Nov 2021. Also, for the ICC T20 World Cup, MS Dhoni has been appointed as a Mentor for the Indian Cricket Team. We all acknowledge that MS Dhoni has been a very successful Captain of India in all formats of the game, and most believe that he was by far the best ever Captain on Indian Cricket Team. However, statistics show otherwise. See attached image.

For all captains who have captained India in more than 50 matches, Virat Kohli’s win record is better than MS Dhoni’s. And better by a wide margin. But MS Dhoni is considered to be a better captain. And now is going to help Virat Kohli try and win the next ICC T20 World Cup!! Why is this so?

I do believe that we like leaders like MS Dhoni more than leaders like Virat Kohli. We have a stereotype for leaders. Leaders who “appear” to be calm and collected in crisis, who do not show anger when a team member makes a mistake, who “appear” in control all the time, comes across as humble (MS Dhoni), is preferred over a leader who is animated, who shows emotions openly, and may come across as “aggressive” (Virat Kohli). And in making this choice, we may not pay too much attention to “performance”.

By stereotyping our Leaders, we may be giving some leaders more credit than what is really due, simply because we like them more than another leader, who may be more capable. And this is a real problem.