Leadership and the Art of Bonsai Gardening

Leadership and the art of Bonsai Gardening

　

A lot of the leadership we see today in the corporate world, politics or for that matter even in academics is a kind of Bonsai Gardening. It is said a banyan tree does not allow anything to grow under it. But the Bonsai leaders of our time do allow people to grow under their leadership but they ensure that they grow only to the limited height that they themselves do not feel threatened. If you do not understand what I am trying to communicate, just look closely at the recent history of India from the time of independence. Whenever a leader of iconic proportions develops, he or she goes out of his way to cut down others of stature to a dimension that would suit the former's comfort levels. This is nothing short of the application of bonsai gardening principles to leadership and governance. Seeing a living, pulsating organism grow only to a certain predetermined level gives the bonsai gardener a kind of perverse sense of power, pleasure and purpose. Given the far greater potential of the human individual to grow to hitherto unknown levels of accomplishment and realization, the limiting of their potential, the killing of their imagination and the clipping of their wings is a most sadistic and wasteful exercise.

While a healthy rivalry between individuals stimulates mutual growth of people in different fields, deliberately stunting the growth of individuals by cutting the roots and trimming the growing parts has a deleterious effect on human growth and all round happiness. Billions of people are being grown in pots like bonsai plants in order to limit their growth due to the limiting influences and conditioning power of modern education. When a child is told that she is just a " C grader" right through grade one to ten and beyond, it has a powerful stunting influence on her human growth potential. Instead, the system should be geared to find out what she can and would excel in. Instead, the "C grade" gives a label of permanence and stigmatises the human individual. The point is that our education system and processes should be aimed at transforming attitudes of people so that they realize the newer version of the old expression, " The sky is not the limit!" Automatically, skills would develop in every field from sports to science to technology to daily living that would add up to the greatest good of the greatest number. Our education system should, also, stop attempt to "growing people in pots" by limiting their options to a set number of disciplines but allow more interdisciplinary study that allows for the cross pollination of ideas from diverse fields

In politics and public life, we can see the visible discomfort of the banyan tree leader when an acolyte or a new entrant in public life stands up and makes a speech or evolves an idea or policy that excels the best that the former had ever contributed. We need more Nelson Mandela type of leaders in public life who as servant leaders and effective gardeners enable, equip and empower every citizen to reach his or her highest stature. After the servant leader fulfills his mandate, he withdraws into the background to give wise counsel and advice when it is required instead of breathing heavily down the necks of their successors. But, today in countries world-wide, mediocrity in public life is tolerated and even encouraged as the norm, while excellence is viewed as a threat to the powers that be. The bureaucracy is notorious for its constant resort to the " art of bonsai gardening" as reflected in the resistance to new ideas for change and progress.

Like bonsai plants, for many centuries now, women have been treated as ornamental plants not allowed to grow to their full potential. They are still being treated as ornamental objects of beauty to be desired and not cherished for the full range of human possibilities of growth and contribution that they bring to life. For millenia,the women of the house dare not aspire to be equal or excel the male members. Their conditioning from birth or even before in the very thought process of the "bonsai mother" ensures they do not touch or burst the very low glass ceiling of aspiration and performance. While the situation has changed for the better for the urban woman, vast numbers of girls in rural areas in India and a whole lot of countries even today are like the little Chinese girls whose feet are kept bound so that they remain tiny, pretty and never outgrow their childhood shoes.

Bonsai fruit trees are grown so that the fruits of the bonsai orange tree or mango look ever so tiny and practically useless for consumption or propagation, the purpose of fruits. Just enough water, nutrients and other requirements are given to ensure the bonsai plant survives and at least looks like a living plant. Similarly,governance, education, training, research and human resource development are keeping the net fruit of such endeavour and effort at the global scale limited and below par. All such high investment areas must be made useful, fruitful and impactful at the global scale in order to eliminate hunger, poverty and human misery. This generation has it in its reach to eliminate these scourges of humanity so that every human individual without regard to nationality or geographical residence can truly be his/ her best in terms of spirit, mind and body. These bonsai gardening practices that prevent us from realizing this global dream.

Having said that much , it must also be mentioned that the beauty and harmony in actual bonsai gardening is not reflected in any way in its application to leadership in human affairs. The application of bonsai gardening in real life has led to pain, bondage and the loss of huge human potential for creativity and progress. It is high time, humanity as a whole and particularly, the leadership and vested interests in all fields give up these bonsai gardening practices and think, plan, enable, equip and empower people instead of restricting them so that we have the highest growth of the greatest number in spirit, mind and body.

Prateep V Philip