Leadership – Let’s Maintain The Dialogue

THE EDITOR:
I must confess, I am an avid reader of Clement Wulf-Soulage’s commentaries in THE VOICE, but none has bowled me over as the one titled “LEADERSHIP – Where The Bucks Stops”

Permit me to share some thoughts of my own in response to his observations.

Strong leaders create their own horizons and are “masters of pursuitology”.

That being the case, then how do we get strong leaders to work together, recognising that …”strong leaders as agents of change to help strengthen and build capacity at all levels in our nation, is indispensable” given our culture of “one-upmanship” and “maximum leadership”.

There is an apparent inability for persons in leadership roles to manage good leaders and hence the dichotomy of a vacuum of real and competent leadership coming to the fore for resolution to our myriad socio-economic challenges. The “maximum leader” is intolerant of sharing the spotlight with others when in fact “… no individual has sufficient experience, education, native ability, and knowledge to ensure the accumulation of a great fortune without the cooperation of other people”. And so our societies suffer from the hesitation of those who can actually lead …”and instead people who shouldn’t come anywhere close to leadership roles avail themselves for such.” But even more paradoxical, it is that these same volunteering “leaders” that the “maximum leaders” are comfortable with as they lack the personal character, integrity, conscientiousness, trustworthiness, emotional intelligence and accountability of a true leader and so are better prepared to answer to the dictates of the “maximum leader” no matter how preposterous, are those dictates.

In citing examples to this proposition, I would often refer to political leaders in search of legitimacy who would recruit countrymen of high repute from noble regional and international institutions in the Diaspora. In some cases some of these recruits who see themselves in the twilight of their careers and in search of their own self-aggrandizement would dance to the tune of the “maximum leader” but those who seek to retain their transformational quality focussing primarily on strategies, programmes, methods and processes that are geared at the development and welfare of the people instead giving fodder to the pockets, ego and political longevity of the ‘maximum leader” find themselves at odds and eventually get the boot and suffer loss of aforesaid hard earned reputation.

Just as Wulf-Soulage’s observation has caused him to arrive at a distinction between the leadership mores of the Germans compared to the Asians, so I have had reason given my own experiences to surmise one of my own. I hold the view that about 10 percent of us are born leaders with the remaining 90 percent followers. In some cultures, when those among the 10 percent are detected, they are cradled, honed, schooled and protected for their roles ahead. In some other (crab in a barrel) cultures, members among the 10 percent are persecuted and denied the opportunity to rise to their calling. Where we stand along the pendulum; your guess may be as good as mine.

However, spirituality which imbues a strong moral compass has its way in shaping leadership for as it is said, “Man may become the master of himself and his environment, because he has the power to influence his own sub-conscious mind” and “faith is the only agency through which the cosmic force of intelligence can be harnessed and used by man.”

And so I subscribe to the viewpoint that, “the man who can follow a leader most efficiently, is usually the man who develops into leadership most rapidly” as the greatest ingredient of leadership is fellowship.’

The single most compulsive theme/s to help us out of our socio-economic quagmire is an understanding of leadership/management dynamics and a preparedness to confront the psycho-socio mindset change so we call all to embrace the universal truism that, “A group of brains coordinated in a spirit of harmony will provide more thought energy than a single brain, just as a group of electric batteries will provide more energy than a single battery.”

With this recognition, I wish to exhort you to keep the dialogue on Leadership and Management open, even to the point of getting a think-tank together or by leveraging credible talk show medium to enlarge discussion and sensitisation.

Once again kudos to Wulf-Soulage on a well written topic.

–Agri-Finance Consultant