Pitroda says collective leadership required in democracy

Telecom engineer and entrepreneur Sam Pitroda today called for the need of "collective leadership" in a democracy, and said that an individual is not qualified for everything.
"We need to talk about collective leadership. No person is qualified for anything. I am not qualified for everything, but as a group I am qualified.
"I need my support system. So collective leadership is something we should always keep in mind," Pitroda said while addressing a group here today on the topic of technology and social change.
Taking the example of India's independence movement, Pitroda said personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, Sarojini Naidu and others provided collective leadership to fight against the British rule.

"But the world today looks at individuals. You cannot have it in democracy. If you talk about democracy, you need collective leadership. You cannot have one guy making decisions. No matter if it is God, even he is not qualified," said Pitroda, who had served as the advisor to the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Pitroda also talked about the need for a leader to listen to everyone to derive ideas and implement them.

"You will have to listen to everybody. I cannot have good ideas all the time. What you experience I may not experience. So I will have to listen, learn, collaborate," he said.

Talking to a gathering which consisted mainly of young audience, Pitroda emphasised on the need to embrace certain fundamentals of life.
"You can read books, but you also need to learn some fundamentals of life. Some of the fundamentals for me come from Gandhiji. One--truth, and absolute truth. You have to constantly search for truth. Trust, simplicity, and unconditional love," he said.
Pitroda said that the biggest thing that technology has brought about is social change. "For the first time in the history of human kind, we have eight billion people connected to each other. Anybody can talk to anybody anytime.

"Smart phones provide you with the ability to connect and have all knowledge. It has the ability to democratise information and knowledge," he said.