Time to interrogate : what the heck is a global leader?

 

I saw this advert and, I think it's time to interrogate the idea/concept of a Leader within Development and international discourse. 

I started paying attention to how the word Leader was used in International Development (in the UN, in international NGOs) , especially in Job Descriptions. In fact, it felt like the word is employed to death and is rendered almost meaningless. 

My understanding of the word Leader is that it is a selfless person who rises to the occasion to do something which others aren't willing or able to do. It requires sacrifice and courage. It's a very political understanding for me. Leaders do what they do for the masses , for communities, for the people. Without anything in return. 

Using the word Leader in employment renders it void. 

Even in the Development /Humanitarian sector where there are so many dizzying hierarchies and such unequal relationships , you can't be a Leader. Some of these hierarchies: 

- international (and higher paid) workers/staff

- national workers/staff 

- the 'beneficiaries' and the international NGO or UN

- the 'beneficiaries' are not citizens with rights but at the literal receiving end of aid, development projects enticed perhaps with food, stipends, experimental small income v. international organisations whose HQ are in the West 

- donor funds coming from the West which have to be reported back to the West, the 'beneficiaries' don't read these reports 

A Leader in this context is a paid professional who has to fulfil detailed responsibilities as per these hierarchies. The Leader is not accountable to the people but donors in the West.  Try being a Leader in the UN or NGO sectors and see what happens. 

I've been privy to how unequal these relationships are when it comes to reporting on the funds that the West doles out to the Global South. These funds are given as per Themes/Agendas set by the West. These funds go directly to Western NGOs who then disburse them for their operational costs with a chunk going to international staff salaries, most powerful positions held by Westerners, and, then to local 'partners' NGOs who vie for peanuts in competition. None of this process involves the 'local state.' They are not privy to the Report. There may be symbolic common monitoring but the state officials are not directly invested in these projects , many times have to be seduced with per diems. There is nothing democratic or transparent about these programmes. If salaries of the executive positions was revealed to the public, there would be an outcry. 

If the salary of a Country Director of a Western NGO was revealed and then compared to the national staff salary, you would realise how colonial the whole thing is. If the UN told you the salary of a P5 Director , an SRSG, or a Resident Representative and compared it to national staff salaries or even the average GDP per capita, your head would reel .You couldn't ever defend this system. 

There aren't any Leaders in the International Development sector. 

What is more accurate to say is Manager (or what I have been jokingly saying for a long time, Glorified Secretary). These jobs require Management skills, not Leadership ones. Leaders aim to break the cycles suffering and struggle and take charge. These are courageous moments, not management nodes within a large Industrial Development Complex with neo colonial webs and, international /national administrations doling out aid to populations in the Global South. 

Ironically at the same time, international NGOs have CEOs, yes, Chief Executive Officers, which for me is a very corporate term. Perhaps it's more honest. 

I looked up Leadership and came across this : ‘Leadership’ as a Project: Neoliberalism and the Proliferation of ‘Leaders’ : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26317877211036708. 

See the Abstract below! 

It is increasingly common for anyone with formal, hierarchical status at work to be called a ‘leader’. Though widespread, this relatively recent change in day-to-day discourse is largely passing by unnoticed. We argue that using ‘leader’ in this way is not simply fashion or empty rhetoric; rather it can be understood in relation to neoliberalism. We argue that the language of ‘leadership’ represents a particularly subtle but powerful opportunity for the pursuit of individual elite interests to be disguised so that it looks as if it is for the benefit of all. This opportunity has arisen because using ‘leader’ has tangible effects that reinforce implied values and assumptions about human relationships at work. In terms of implied values, the label ‘leader’ is celebratory and predisposes us to see elites in overly positive ways. In terms of implied assumptions, referring to executives as ‘leaders’ draws a veil over the structured antagonism at the heart of the employment relationship and wider sources of inequality by celebrating market values. Making ‘leadership’ recognizable as a political project is not intended primarily to suggest intentionality, but to help challenge representational practices that are becoming dominant. ‘Project-ing’ leadership also helps us to emphasize the risks inherent in taking this label for granted; which, we argue, is an important contribution because the language of leadership is increasingly used but is hardly questioned within much contemporary organizational life as well as organization theory.

I really enjoyed reading this article. It is insidious how language is subverted, polluted for these Neo-Liberal designs. 

The organisation mentioned in the Advert above is here: https://tallbergfoundation.org/.  Looked them up: "While the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership prizes themselves are generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), we seek additional funding to support our leadership initiatives." Look up further "The Stavros Niarchos Foundation was established in 1996 following the death of Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos, who fully endowed the foundation." One has to dig and dig to try to find out who these organisations are and, what their ideological bents are. 

The Advert says they are looking for "Global Leaders". A cursory scan of their website shows a rather toothless apolitical range of topics they discuss from Rainforests to the "Conflicts in the Middle East." I sense a lame apolitical look at things which require political solutions, not technocratic dispassionate liberal lens. 

What kind of Leader shows up for these liberal causes? So, we know Julian Assange is not a Global Leader. We know that Greta Thunberg was a Global Leader until she started challenging capitalism and imperialism. 

I'm really tired of the appropriation of powerful language of the people and laugh at such adverts that are calling for Global Leaders with prizes of $ 150,000.