Sunday, September 14, 2008 Mercado: Highway fable By Juan L. Mercado Sidebar
(“TO COPE with our problems, we wait for a ‘man on a white charger’ to appear,” a friend e-mailed. "Forget it. Those who peddle themselves as saviors are knaves. Only we citizens can bail out this country. And ‘The King’s Highway’ fable is about us.” Here it is. -- JLM)
A king once had a highway built. He invited subjects to participate in an opening contest. And the challenge was: Who could travel the highway the best? The prize was a box of gold.
All sorts of contestants came. Some drove in fine chariots. Others dressed in stunning apparel, lugging baskets of food. Many wore sturdy shoes. A few padded on bare feet.
All voiced a similar complaint to the king at the end: rocks and debris blocked the road at one point. That hindered passage.
At sunset, a dirt-stained traveler limped in. He handed to the king a small chest of gold. "Sorry. But I stopped to clear rocks and debris blocking the road. This chest of gold was under it. Please have this returned to the owner."
"You’re the rightful owner," the king replied. “No," protested the traveler, "This is not mine.” But the king insisted:"You've earned this gold and won my contest. He travels the road best who makes it better for those who will follow." End of fable.
Now the facts. The myth of “genetic lottery” cons many. They think that some people got the right chromosomes. So, they’re born leaders. Others do not. We’re born followers. That’s baloney.
But many swear by “one great man” leadership. Ask Mayor Tomas Osmeña. All Filipinos want is someone who’ll solve their problems with the least pain, President Manuel Quezon observed. “That is all.”
The 2010 “presidentiables” peddle the discredited model of one outstanding person—themselves--- to end the perennial national crisis. Convicted plunderer Joseph Estrada (a.k.a. Jose Velarde) struts as a new messiah.
Titillation over “man on white charger” stems from our short memories. It also smothers new leaders from arising. “Nothing grows under a banyan tree,” the old proverb says.
But “this is not the solution,” J.P. Morgan executive Chris Lowney asserts in his book “Heroic Leadership.” “It is the problem.” The command-and-control model has failed. Look at the stunning leadership deficits, in government, religious and private life.
Leaders are, in fact, ordinary people who slog away with extraordinary grit. “Do not wait for leaders,” the Nobel Laureate Mother Teresa of Calcutta counseled. “Do it alone, person to person.”
We lead all the time by example, whether taipan or janitor. “Leadership springs from within,” Lowney adds. “It’s about who I am as much as about what I do. Leadership is not an act. It is a way of living. Becoming a leader…is an ongoing process.”
Some flop. But others do this well. Look at the 2008 Magsaysay Awardees for Public Service: Jaime Aristotle Alip, Dolores Torres and Lorenza Banez are simple citizens. With P20 and an old typewriter, they built a micro-credit system that helped landless women in Laguna coconut plantations.
Today, the Center for Agriculture & Rural Development Mutually Reinforcing Institutions has assets worth $18 million. This came from savings and loans in 629 branches. Repayment rates by landless women are 99 percent.
Look into the 21st century, computer taipan Bill Gates counsels. “The leaders then will be those who empower others.” Not by doles as crutches, as in pork barrels. Nor by political sinecures, as in “15-30” jobs.
The leaders needed are those who set a vision of the future, communicate that ideal to others and move people to achieve that end. That’s your job. Come to think of it, mine too.
