By Mohammad-Jan Muttaqi
Background
Dr. Ramazan Bashardost is the current parliament member of the Afghan Parliament. He was the former Planning Minister, and an Independent Candidate in Presidential Elections.
Dr. Bashardost was born in 1965 in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan. His father had a job with the government so his family had to regularly travel to various provinces. He completed his primary and secondary school in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni. After the 1978 coup d’etat, Dr. Bashardost migrated to Iran. He finished high school in Iran and then went to Pakistan. In 1983, he went to France where he obtained three masters’ degree, and his PhD. He did his master degrees in Law, Diplomacy, and Political Science. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis regarding the UN’s role against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In 2002, Bashardost returned to Afghanistan. He started work at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, in the UN Department. Later he was appointed as the Director of European and Western Political Affairs Department. In 2004, he briefly served as the Planning Minister of Afghanistan. He resigned under the government and foreign pressure after he unsuccessfully tried to ban the activities of some 2000 NGOs. He criticized the role played by those NGOs as major sources of money drain.
Dr. Bashardost has won extensive public support because of his position against the widespread corruption, and his outspoken criticism of the government. He has no affiliations with any tribal, military, political party, or any foreign country. He was a candidate for the 2009 presidential election. He got the third highest votes. Many believe that he was the winner if the other did not make any fraud. Dr. Bashardost travelled to 28 provinces for presidential campaign. He even traveled to the areas, which were controlled by the Taliban. Even the Taliban agreed with his agenda of railing against waste and corruption.
Dr. Bashardost’s book on the “Basic Political, Military and Diplomatic Laws of Afghanistan- From the era of Ahmad Shah Baba to current years”, in which he presented his analysis of the history of laws in Afghanistan. The book won an award at the Academy of Political Sciences of France, the first award won by an independent Afghan scientist and Scholar.
In March 2010, he was named Afghanistan’s Ghandi by Radio Free of Europe/Radio Liberty. “He was called "Afghanistan's Gandhi" because of his self-effacing style. He lived in a tent near to the Afghan Parliament since he returned from exile in France nearly seven years ago. Dr. Bashardost tirelessly seeks to improve the lives of Afghans regardless of tribe, ethnicity, gender, or religion”, said Liberty Radio (Ramazan Bashardost).
Introduction
The study of leadership style of an Afghan leader requires putting it in the Afghan context. Afghanistan is a “high-power distance” country, which means that the distance between the leaders and their followers is high. The leaders are expected to be aggressive and demanding. It is a status quo that people should live and dress according to their position and richness. It is considered foolish if a person who has a good position and money but chooses to live a very simple life style. That has happened to Dr. Bashardost, who is the subject of this paper. He can use armored vehicles and can carry with him body guards, but he does not. There are many who don’t like him because of his approach. It seems inappropriate to them, since he has selected a leadership style, which is new in Afghanistan.
I decided to write about Dr. Bashardost because of his unusual style of leadership, which has proved to be successful. Unlike other Afghan MPs, Dr Bashardost has a low profile and simple life style. He lives in a rental house, and uses a very old model Suzuki. He does not carry any bodyguard with him. He is independent, and has no affiliation with any foreign country or any political party. The last Presidential Election indicated that he had followers throughout Afghanistan, unlike other leaders who represent only one ethic group or one region. It was because of his simple life style, he has been named Afghanistan’s Ghandi.
This study is important because it analyzes an unusual leadership style in a unique society. It discusses the pros and cons of a servant leader in the high power distance society of Afghanistan. It also highlights the How people have reacted to this style of leadership, is another question answered in this paper. Finally, the answer for the major criticism is provided.
The method for conducting this research has been qualitative. I have gathered the information from various sources from the internet. I also did interview with him (attached) to find out some of the information, which was not available in internet. This is not an academic research, and does cover all the aspects of Dr. Bashardost leadership style in details.
The aim of this paper is to document Dr. Bashardost’s key traits and skills. It also highlights the theories, which apply on the leadership style of Dr. Bashardost. I will discuss that how he has used his traits, skills in a high power distance country like Afghanistan. The paper further explains the major challenges, achievements of Dr. Bashardost. The paper has been divided into three chapters. The first chapter discusses the literature review, and covers the theories that are applicable to Dr. Bashardost. The second chapter talks about the methodology of how this research was done. Chapter three provides details on his leadership styles with specific example from his achievements. Chapter four highlights the viewpoint of his critics and his answer.
Methodology
The information presented in this paper has been gathered from various sources. Most of the information was collected from the internet. The major internet sources consulted included the official websites of Dr. Bashardost, also his interviews with the other newspapers and weblogs. I used a lot from his interviews with TV channels and his interview clips in YouTube.
I interviewed him personally to find out the answers for the questions, which I was not able to find from other sources. The interview was classified into three categories. The first part covered questions regarding his background as a leader, and his major achievements and challenges. The second part of the questions was related to his present situation. The questions were aimed to find out about his present situation and his leadership style to deal with the situation. The last part of the interview was about his future vision. The interview was in Dari, and his voice was recorded for better understanding. A copy of his interview is annexed with this paper. He also gave me a CD about himself, which proved to be very useful in conducting this research.
I also tried to get the feedback of the people who knew him well about his leadership style. To discover that how he behaves with his in-group people, I interviewed with his office manager, and office cleaner.
Finally, I did a qualitative analysis of the material that I gathered from various sources. I studied the leadership approach of Dr. Bashardost in light of the famous existing leadership theories. I tried to provide examples whenever necessary from his leadership traits and style.
Literature Review
In this section, I will put the leadership style of Dr. Bashardost into the context of the leadership theories. His leadership approach matches with several leadership theories, at least to some extent. The theories that I found very close to his leadership style include Servant Theory, Charismatic Theory, and Contingency Theory.
Many theories that are applicable to Ghandi can be applied to Dr. Bashardost as well. He has been influenced by Ghandi and has chosen a leadership style, which is very similar to him. That is why he is named Afghanistan’s Ghandi. When I asked him about who was his favorite leader, he simply replied, “Ghandi”. But the question of whether he will be successful in his campaign, like Ghandi, will be answered later in this paper.
Dr. Bashardost can be considered as a servant leader, a concept categorized as a leadership philosophy, in which the leader's priorities are the followers’ interests, and the interests of the wider situation, rather than the leader's own interests (Greenleaf). His main focus is to help others just for the sake of god, without any demand. He believes, “One should help others without any demand in return. I help anyone who needs help without considering his/her ethnicity, background, or whether he/she has voted for me or not. The criterion for me is humanity, not whether they like or dislike me. If someone asks me for support because she or he has voted for me, I lose my enthusiasm up to 50%, because I don’t want to behave like a shopkeeper. I don’t want to sell my service to anyone in return for money, favor, vote, or anything else.”
I observed great examples of his dedication to support others when I went to his office to interview him for this paper. Tow ladies came to his office to ask him for his support. One of them had a sick child but did not have any money to treat him. The child was also with her. Dr. Bashardost gave her an introduction litter, and the address of a medical doctor who was his friend. He hoped that he might treat her child for free.
The other lady was a widow. She was old and handicapped. Her leg was injured during the civil war. She lived in a rental house with her three children. She said that she did not have anything to eat. The winter was approaching, but she did not have the money to buy wood. She could not pay the rent of her house for eight months. The owner of the house had asked her whether to pay the rent or leave the house. Dr. Bashardost gave her a litter to show it in a particular government agency to register her as a handicapped. That would help her to get regular monthly payments. When Dr. Bashardost wanted her to leave his because he wanted to talk with us, the old lady said that she did not have the money the taxi fare, as she could not walk. Dr. Bashardost gave her 500 AFN, and told her that he would come to his nearest mosque on Friday to support her more.
I wrote the above two paragraphs because of two reasons. First, according to Dr. Bashardost, it was his regular activity to deal with people like them, which indicates his servant leadership style. Second, he repeatedly referred to this incident while he was talking about his major challenges, which are discussed in later chapter.
If the three main characteristics of a charismatic leader are role modeling, image building, and goal articulation, as indicated in the textbook, then Dr. Bashardost is a charismatic leader. He has set up values such as self-sacrifice, brotherly love, equality, and fight with discrimination and corruption. He not only emphasizes on these values, but also takes systematic actions to implement those values in his actions, which is referred to as image building. He has successfully articulated his vision for a developed Afghanistan, where there is no discrimination, corruption, and poverty. It was due to his charismatic attributes that he received votes from various parts of the Afghanistan in the previous presidential election. He ranked third in the election without spending any money or doing any bribery or corruption. Many believe that he was the winner of the election if there was no fraud by the others.
Dr. Bashardost is a contingent leader. This theory of leadership focuses on the correlation between the leader's style and the favorableness of the situation in which the leader is leading. This theory is further divided into two categories of task-orientated leaders and relationship-orientated leaders. Task-orientated leaders have a strong bias towards getting the job done without worrying about their rapport or bond with their followers. Relationship-orientated leaders care much more about emotional engagement with the people they work with, but sometimes to the detriment of the task and results (Liberty). Dr. Bashardost is more relationship-oriented. He maintains good relationship with all his followers.
In reply to my question that whose leadership style he has chosen, he replied, “There is no such leadership style in the world that you can copy and paste, and it works. A leader’s should be based on the needs of the situation. For example, Ghandi lived in a different situation than I do now. He did not have to collect charity for poor people, which I do. His goal was to free India from the British rule.”
In this section, I discussed the three main leadership theories that were applicable to Dr. Bashardost’s leadership style. In the next chapter, I will explore some of his key leadership traits and skills by providing examples from his interview and materials I read about him.
Major Leadership traits and skills
“Dr. Bashardost, friend of humans, as his last name translates, is well-known as an outspoken, charismatic, and idealist member of the Afghan Parliament, a former planning minister and an independent candidate for the previous presidential elections” (DAWN).
I was not able to get Dr. Bashardost’s opinion about his own major leadership traits and skills. It is considered rude in the Afghan society to say something good about him/herself, even if that is true. He simply put the responsibility on me to analyze his trait and skills.
Little information is available on Dr. Bashardost’s childhood. It is difficult to find out what major leadership traits he demonstrated from his childhood. However, what we know from his interview that he had a clear vision when he was in school. He had a vision of supporting the Afghan society. He says, “After the coup d’état of 7th Sawr, our school was closed as a result of conflicts between the students. Students were referring to each other as socialists, communists, Russian puppets, and so on. I noticed that our society is sick. The problem that we had was not the ‘cause’, it was the effect. Then, I decided to study law and political science, to do something for this society.”
If we analyze the leadership traits of Dr. Bashardost from the perspective of Gender Theory of Leadership, he can be considered as an androgynous leader. He is affectionate, loyal, sympathetic, sensitive to the needs of the others, understanding, and gentle, which are the femininity traits. At the same time, he is assertiveness, analytical, aggressive, willing to take a stand, and competitive. His strategy is to use his feminine traits with his followers and supporters. He employs his masculinity traits usually for expressing his views towards the government policies, and criticizing his rivals.
Another key leadership characteristic of Dr. Bashardost is his ability to learn from his failures, which include self-confidence and commitment. This can be counted as a major factor for his success. “I have learned the biggest lessons from my failures. For example, when I was in seventh grade in school, I failed in one of my classes. As a result, I lost face at home and in the society. My parents’ perception towards me changed. They no longer appreciated my studies. My friends treated me like a lazy person. It was really difficult times for me. Then I made a very strong commitment with myself. I decide to study hard. After that, I always obtained first or second rank in my classes both at school and university.”
He strongly attaches to the values that he has set up. Independence is one of the core values that he is committed to. He has no affiliation with any political party or any foreign country. It might be one of the key causes for his fame. He does not receive any money from any political party or donor because he believes that it will enslaves him. He strongly criticizes those who have any affiliation with other countries. In response to my question regarding his political affiliation, he said, “I don’t like to be affiliated with any country. I even don’t want to join them for lunch or dinner. For instance, the US Ambassador, Icon Berry, called me several times and invited me for a dinner. I did not accept. I told them that if they want to meet me, they should come to my office. According to my culture, you should go to the person you need to talk to, not to invite him in your place.”
Honesty is one of the major attribute of Dr. Bashardost. He shows by his actions the values that he describes to be important. He lost his position as the minister of planning because he wanted to ban the activities of some 2000 dishonest donors. He resigned from his position under foreign and domestic pressure but did not make a deal. His honesty and transparency is vivid from his daily activities. He has established a charity organization, which is called Bashardostan. Donors from different parts of the world send their donations to his charity organization. In order to be transparent, he records every step of how he spends that money. He then sends its video CDs to the donors. He also uploads the necessary information to his website.
The major powers that Dr. Bashardost uses to influence others are referent and expert powers. His referent power comes from his characteristics as an ethic advocate and role model. His simple life style, honesty, transparency, brotherly love, and fighting corruption are some of the key attributes who contribute to his referent power. His expert Power however comes from his knowledge, expertise, and experience (Liberty).
Dr. Bashardost’s followers are mainly the poor people. He describes his followers as, “They belong to different ethnic groups, and different geographical locations. They are the poorest people. They don’t have anywhere else to go. The doors of the governors, leaders, ministers, and parliament members are closed for them. They usually want me to solve their problems. They think that I can help them. Unfortunately, I usually can not solve their problems. I neither have the financial ability nor the political power. Most of the government officials do not listen to me. I am not their boss to force them to do what I want.” He pointed to situation of the ladies that I described earlier and said, “I don’t have enough money to support these poor people. The other leaders have their appointees in the ministries and other governmental organizations. When they want to do something, they just call their appointees. I sometimes become disappointed when I see that I cannot do enough for the people who ask my support.”
He does not differentiate between his in-group and out-group people. When I asked him whether he behaves differently with his in-group and out-group people, he said that he even does not differentiate between his father and his followers. He said one of his experiences, as an example. “When I was the minister of planning, one day my father came to my office. He was sick and wanted an introduction letter to a foreign military clinic. My father wanted me to specifically mention that he was the father of a minister. I did not accept his suggestion. I wrote a litter the same as the other common litters. I did not want to treat my father better than others.”
The major obstacle for Dr. Bashardost is the parliament members. He believes that they not only solve the problems of the people, but also create problems. When I asked him for the major barriers for his success, he said, “The biggest challenge for me is the other parliament members. They do not act in responsible ways. They do not care about the problem of the others. They are not serious for what they have been elected for. They work only for 3 hours per day; even some of them stay only for half an hour in the parliament house. Afghan parliament is the first parliament in the world, which works for half of a day. There are parliaments in the world that work until midnight. More than 100 of our parliament members are usually absent. There are parliamentarians who have not come to the parliament for over two years but they receive their monthly salary. On the other hand, they are racist, corrupt, and busy with their businesses and party works.”
Regarding the future, Dr. Bashardost is willing to work for a developed and prosperous Afghanistan. He will tirelessly work until he succeeds or dies. He wants a future for Afghanistan, which is “Islamic, humanistic, and prosperous.” He says, “Our leaders should learn for the experience of the other great leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, and Abraham Lincoln who brought enormous positive changes.” Right now, he believes that there no equality in the Afghan society, where “some have too much, and others have too little. Some are too powerful, and some are too weak. There should be justice and equality.”
Dr. Bashardost seems to be influenced by the Mother Teresa’s philosophy of ‘Ek’, which is not to wait for doing great things, but doing little things which are good. He says, “If someone works to become a leader, there is a problem in his/her approach from the beginning. We should think about how we can help others, not how to lead others. If your plan is to become a leader, then your whole life will be in trouble because the higher you grow, your demands will grow even bigger. Since you will never be the number one leader, this will keep annoying you.” Therefore, he is satisfied with what he does now. “This is the biggest position to be a parliament member representing people. I am a representative of 26 million Afghans. This is the meaning of being an MP based on the national laws. That is right that we are selected form a particular geographical area or province, but we are the representatives of all Afghans not only of that particular area.”
It seems that he has been influenced by Ghandi more than anyone else. He has a very simple lifestyle. One of the major causes that he has on popular public support is the simplicity of his life style. When asked about a place that he can call home in Afghanistan or abroad, he said, “I have no piece of land not even a centimeter in Afghanistan or abroad, fortunately. My parents live in Dasht-e Barchi, a neighborhood on the west side of Kabul. My father has an auto-parts shop. In the past 30 years, he has owned a mud hut in Dasht-e Barchi. One of my brothers lives in Kabul and another lives in Qara-Bagh, a district in Ghazni Province. The latter has a piece of land that he uses to feed and support his family. During summer, I usually live in the tent. But during the winter I cannot live there because it is expensive to warm it up. I have a room in my father's house. I mostly cook myself, clean my room, wash my dishes, and clothes. But I do not iron my clothes because I do not have patience for ironing. I simply wash my clothes and wear them when they are dry.”
Criticisms
There are many people who criticize Dr. Bashardost for being an idealist. They blame him for not considering the realities of the Afghan society. They consider his leadership style as inappropriate for Afghanistan. His critics believe that the situation and the people of Afghanistan are not ready for what Dr. Bashardost is looking for. They believe that a good leader makes with the realities of the situations. They suggest that he should try to get along with other leaders. He is perceived that he does not have any supporter in the parliament, and cabinet. He only has the support of poor people.
When I asked him about these criticisms, he replied, “When Ghandi started his campaign against the British rule; there were many people who believed that he was idealist. When Martin Luther King was lobbying for justice, there were many people who considered him as unrealistic. The realities of today were the dreams of yesterday. Today’s dreams will be the realities of tomorrow. I believe it is never late to work for a change in our society. After the social and political changes in the Arab World, I have become more optimistic. Who could even believe that one day Qadddafi will be over thrown after 32 years? However, I may not be successful in this fight. But I am sure others will follow my path and make my dreams come true.
Conclusion
This paper presents a brief analysis of the leadership traits, skills, and style of Dr. Ramazan Bashardost who is a prominent political leader in Afghanistan. The findings of this research conclude that the famous leadership theories that are applicable to the leadership style of Dr. Bashardost are Servant Leadership Theory, Charismatic Theory, and Contingency Theory.
Dr. Bashardost can be considered as a Servant Leader because his main goal is to support others specially the poor people without considering his religion, race, or background. He can be counted as a charismatic leader because he has won the hearts and minds of Afghans from various parts of the country, and from different ethnic groups, which completely uncommon in Afghanistan. He can be perceived as a Contingent Leader because he considers the importance of situation while doing something.
Dr. Bashardost’s major personal traits include honesty, self-confidence, sympathy, assertiveness, sensitive to the needs of the others, understanding, and being gentle. He not only says that these are the important values but he rigorously follows them. On the other hand, he strictly fights with the issues such as corruption, discrimination, and inequality, which he believes they are inappropriate for the Afghan society.
Bibliography
Ed. DAWN. 2012. <www.dawn.com/.../afghanistans-gandhi-ramazan-bashardost-seeks>
Greenleaf, Robert. "Servant Leadership." 1977.
Liberty, Radio. "Afghanistan's Gandhi" Named Person of the Year. n.d.<http://www.rferl.org/content/Bashardost_Person_of_Year_press_room_press_release/1990852.html> .
