Governance

Our governance system is caught between colonial practices and the rising pressures and demands for modern studies in the field of management sciences. This has created a vicious cycle that has been retarding administrative institutions since long.

It should be noted that institutions take a long time to build or retard. Take for example Islamia College Peshawar. It has been successful to resist all the negative influences that have been tearing apart all other institutions. Similarly, many of our institutions are yet to find a standard because they could not evolve due to initial flaws in design. The later is very true of most of our prominent state institutions.

What inherently are responsible for the failure of institutions? Or to take a simpler views what is the essence of institutions? The essence of institutions is human resources. If we are able to manage these resources pragmatically we may transform these institutions. Two most important things in this regard are 1) Looking for the fittest person for a specific job 2) And ensuring that the person has the right aptitude for the job.

Then we come to the leadership issue. Who are to be the leaders? What qualities do we see in the leaders? We have university level courses in leadership and we have a historical knowledge of major successful leaders of the world. But it should be noted that what is true for one society may not be successful for another or what succeeded for one generation may not succeed for another. Therefore, all existing leaders and head of institutions are required to look for what is best for their own people. In this regard popular perceptions about leadership are to be taken into consideration.

People perceptions of leadership and their expectations form leaders are very important. For example, in Pakistan, people want their leaders to be as humble and down to earth as possible. Whenever, people criticize leaders they compare them with Hazrat Abu Bakar and Umar not in the religious sense but the social services they provided to the people. This is the main reasons why do leaders like Baacha Khan, Edhi, Akhar Hamid ur Rahman and similar others won the hearts of the people and brought visible transformation in their lives. These leaders were humble, dedicated and extremely positive towards their cause and the people.