The key to a high performance bureaucrat is the powerful capacity to serve a dynamic cause in a selfless manner, giving rise to a magical leadership that the common man can feel and experience deeply.When the Yogi bureaucrat acts, the quality of governance rises exponentially.

“I advise you consider your position carefully, perhaps adopting a more flexible posture, while keeping your ear to the ground, covering your retreat and always watching your backside.”

This nugget, while not entirely irrelevant in corporate life, beautifully expresses what lies at the heart of bureaucratic thought. Served up in a hilariously engaging BBC serial Yes Minister, conveyed with panache by one commissar to a junior.

In turn, the word commissar has its origins in Russia and it connotes trusted government officials who, for all practical purposes, ran the country. Arthur Koestler wrote a famous essay in the 1940s called “The Yogi and the Commissar” where he attempted to lay out a spectrum of behaviours in society.

While the infra-red commissar was cast as an operative who went about his work based on material principles and cared little about the means, the ultra-violet Yogi who represented the opposite end of the spectrum floated away into introspective oblivion.

Commissars have existed forever. Kings expanded and governed their empires through trusted administrators and military commanders, who were handpicked for their skills and loyalty to the sovereign. Through a process of checks and balances, incentives and penalties, things worked as well as they did.

In the post-colonial world, the species have evolved into what we loosely call bureaucrats. All over the world, governments conduct the job of governing via bureaucrats. The bureaucracy even manages the process of electing governments.