Comment: The lack of leadership – one hard problem in Romania

Following the Romanian news and giving attention to what is happening around me, I try to identify a few causes of the many inconveniences in Romanian society. Maybe some people could say “don’t think too much” or as our Transylvanian poet George Cosbuc wrote in his poem called “Fulger’s dead” - “don’t search for these reasons/because understanding them only makes you mad”. But in my opinion, it isn’t a crazy thing to try to understand what is happening with your country, in your society and consequently what is happening in your life. So, continuing my investigations, I discovered that there is a lack of leadership in almost all areas, from politics to the economy, from the media to business. Having the determination to understand the roots of this situation I set few core questions and I try to identify potential answers. Why, here in Romania after more than 20 years from the dropping of the Communist regime, the leadership is quasi- nonexistent? One potential answer could be that at the level of the Romanian society, there isn’t a clear difference between leadership and management. At the same time, due to our history, in many Romanians' mentality the leader is seen as a tough dictator or as a warm father figure. For the confusion between leader and manager, one cause of the misunderstanding could be the communist years, when so called collective administration was carried out by the conducting role of the Communist Party. In fact, all economical, financial and administrative decisions were taken by the party and the directors/administrators of the state owned enterprises only put in practice the Party directives. In such situations we see not only a weak leadership in economy, but we could also think that the directors were a type of managers and the general committees of the workers were similar to the company boards of directors. Due to the characteristics of the totalitarian regime, the only accepted leader was the head of party and the state. The dictator leader and/or father figure leader are two very common icons in our history, from Vlad the Impaler, who is often invoked as the archetypal strong leader who could solve our present problems, to President Iliescu who was seen by many Romanians as a good and understanding father of our nation. These are two paradigms that our society doesn’t seem able to escape. What do we need to do? Maybe to be aware of the huge changes of our global world and to look more carefully at what is happening around us in Europe and in the World. We, Romanians, should take into account that we are part of a constantly changing global society and try to adapt to it. How should we adapt? A very effective way to adapt is to seek and to have the determination to obtain the leadership abilities required, namely the proper knowledge, skills and attitudes. The determination should be based on an awareness of the professionalization of the leadership. The knowledge is easy to gain by learning about what leadership means, what are the similarities and the gaps between the leader and the manager, which are the main leadership principles. As in any other activity field, the skills are obtained through understanding, accepting and practicing what we have learned. At a social level, we should be aware that some of the “golden laws” of leadership are difficult to implement in our society because of history, traditions, personal experiences, and above all, our mentalities. For instance, a real leader should understand that leadership develops daily, not in a day, that the daily work for our personal development is a MUST. Our leaders should only know, understand, accept and put in practice what British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli wrote: