Leading in Romania

"Why aren't we moving forward? When are things finally going to change?" These are
some of the most frequent questions people ask themselves when thinking about the future in
Romania . These questions are usually followed by hopeless shrugs or long, hopeless stares.
Unfortunately, that's what most people do, and if Romania wants a better future, it needs more: it
needs answers.
Firstly, the problems. In my opinion, the nations' leaders, more specifically our
politicians, are one of the countrys biggest problems. It is basically impossible to talk about real
leading in Romania, it is true and we have to accept it. The country has been in the communist
sphere of influence for over 45 years, a time when civil rights were most often ignored, and the
leading party was controlling the society as a whole. Immediately after the Fall of the
Communism in 1989, a journalist said that Romania will know true democracy only in twenty
years time. At first many didnt agree with the statement, and I am free to admit that the country
isnt a true democracy even after more than 20 years. The Romanian citizen doesnt trust the
politicians anymore, it is a consequence after so many years of corruption,inequality, populism,
and a general lack of care about the state of the country (except for election periods). These are
just a few of the characteristics of the class that has been ruling the nation for a long time now.
Of course, all of these aspects are rarely proven in justice and not all politicians are the same but
that is how the country views them anyway. Another question then arises: Why do we keep
choosing them? We are a democracy, aren't we?. The answer is quite simple: we face with an
illusion of choice. What someone does before he/she is chosen and after are two different things.
The people sanction ruling parties at elections by casting their votes to the opposition and then
again they cast their votes to the former ruling party, now the opposition, to sanction the current
ruling party, thus, creating a vicious circle with destructive consequences for the country.
So when did we lost our leaders? When did our downward spiraling began? In order to
figure this out we have to look way back into the past, to the period in which Romania was
achieving performance as a country and compare what we had in the past to what we have in the
present.
Most people agree that the first half of the 20 th century was as close to a golden age as

Romania ever was. Both culturally and economically the country excelled. Notable cultural
values like Brancusi, Blaga, Calinescu, Arghezi and a lot others lived and produced some of their
best work in that period and the economy was as close to western countries as never before. Of
course, I do not claim that things were perfect but they were better than the usual. So what was
the driving force in this progress? In my opinion there were three key factors: political stabilityin the form of a monarchy that played the role of a symbolic arbitrator, western influence- a lot
of students were studying at that time in western European countries and more importantly they
returned mesmerized with ideas of change and the aforementioned cultural flourishing that
created a large intellectual elite.
When Communism took over Romania though the measures it took it led to the
destruction of all these factors. The royal family was exiled, going abroad to study became
something of a fantasy and most of the previous intellectual elite was imprisoned, exiled,
discredited or worse. All of the country's raw models were replaced with proletarian models, the
only ideal inspired by them being that of the glorious work in a factory or on a field, and later the
only accepted raw model was that of the supreme leader and his family. Ratting out your friends
and family, to the local Security was considered a national policy and all aspirations of the
people had to be in concordance with the National Party. Leaders were promoted not on
competency or leadership qualities, but on basis of family ties, boot-licking or turnovers to the
Security.
Unfortunately, even though Communism fell, these leaders stayed put. The leading class
from the present was a part of, or mentored by, the leading class from 20-30 years ago. And
through its practices, it creates a new leading class that would be just the same.
So, now that the problems have been highlighted, what are the solutions? How would we
define a leader? And would he/she be appropriate to lead us into a better future? For a nation to
move forward it has to be inspired by its leaders and even though there are a lot of theories about
how the perfect leader should be, life has shown us repeatedly that what happens in theories and
what happens in reality is often very different.
In my vision, a nations' leaders should be selfless (seeking only the interest of the
nation), trustworthy (showing a high level of moral integrity), competent and confident. The
challenge here would be to find these kind of people and promote them over the current accepted
ruling class.

The good news is that things are slowly improving. Not all Romanian students that go
abroad stay there anymore, and those who came back are determined to make a change, an
increasing number of local students become members of NGO's and actively seek to make a
difference and more importantly, people recognize a need for real change and are willing to
commit to it. The only thing we lack is a true leader.
Floristeanu Dragos