A LEADER is the one who can win the confidence and allegiance of employees who work under him thanks to his wisdom and administrative capabilities. He can transform his employees into a productive team, making good use of their energy and skills. A leader will not be a lazy man who sits in his office, gives his orders to employees over telephone and expresses his dissatisfaction to every work they do. In the end he gets out of his office to inspect the project's progress. He encourages employees to complete the project as quickly as possible to boast in front of CEOs and top company executives and win promotions. It's not easy for every official to become a leader especially when he reaches the position automatically without getting his expertise and capabilities considered. Some officials will not be able to make difficult decisions or make any development proposals, thus affecting his department's progress and public interests. But he will continue in that position for decades. Such officials will not be ready to accept their mistakes and blame others for all problems. Decision and change making requires leaders who got the position without wasta or political or corporate influence. Qualified officials will be able to manage their activities efficiently while unqualified officials will bring catastrophe to the country, like Jeddah deluge. We have seen recently two Saudi women who broke into the delegation of Health Minister Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah when he arrived to inspect the Asir General Hospital. One of them explained to the minister the poor condition of some hospital rooms in the women's section while the other asked him to see the condition by himself. This shows that when women lose faith in officials' promises, they will not respect them and try to unveil the truth at any cost. Minister Al-Rabiah visited the women's section of the hospital instead of visiting the places prearranged by officials to impress the minister. We have noticed that authorities often ignore women's sections while carrying out development works, citing peculiar reasons. These kinds of misinformation take place not only in the health sector but also in other government departments. Officials prearrange visits of ministers, showing them what they wanted to show to please ministers. I wonder why our ministers announce their inspection tours in advance to help officials to prepare for the visit. Why don't they visit institutions under their ministries unannounced to see the progress of projects and reality of services? When a minister makes an arranged visit he would be given a beautiful picture by officials and would not to see the other side of the picture. How can a minister or senior executive expect his subordinates to look at him with respect if they had instructed the latter to prepare false reports and documents? Senior officials engage in corrupt practices with the support of their subordinates and they make the latter scapegoats when they face questioning or investigation by monitoring authorities. Productive leaders perform their duties with responsibility while inefficient officials cause losses to their departments. We have seen some officials lose allegiance and respect of their subordinates. We have also seen some officials cheating their colleagues to reach top positions. They ignore employees who supported them in the past. These hopeless officials would fear that somebody would take away their positions. After the late minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, Health Minister Al-Rabiah was successful in breaking bureaucratic red tapism and bringing change to the administration. He knew that the time has changed and work with the previous attitude would not be acceptable. He was the only minister who won the allegiance of his employees due to his nice dealings. He transformed the Commerce Ministry, when he was minister of commerce, into an agency that takes care of citizens' interests. Al-Rabiah has proved that he can make changes. The missing link between a senior official and his subordinates is "confidence." A minister will not be able to silence citizens of today with mere statements. They want see how far those statements have been translated into reality. They are also watching the integrity of government officials. When a citizen sees a government official cheating his superior easily, how can he believe him?
