Effective leadership

The month of May has become a very important month in the Nigerian Calendar as it has been made the month of our National Leadership transition and this year we mark the 1st anniversary of the first successful Civilian to civilian transition in Nigerian history on the 29th May 2007.

In this eventful year we have been given the privilege to see in many places, new persons occupying the leadership positions which our national constitution has prescribed. In many of the cases though, we have found the early promise giving way to business as usual and disillusionment with the future. This seems endemic and the question is why and what can we do about it.

The first thing I have observed with many of our leaders is the total lack of schooling, training or engagement in a quest to understand what leadership means, its demands and the changing paradigms we find ourselves in. This may sound very sweeping but in reality it is not. In many years of consulting I have found among Nigerians a general disdain for what we call theory in favour of what we deem to be practical. Unfortunately the dichotomy is artificial. Our modern society is the practical products of theoretical thinkers such as Adam Smith with his “Wealth of Nations”, John Locke with his treatise on Civil Government , Karl Marx and his Communist Manifesto and Tim Bernard Lee with his dream of the World Wide Web to name a few.

Any leader who wants to be successful especially in the modern world, while remaining practical must immerse himself in the theoretical descriptive of our era because without understanding your setting and your responsibilities abuse of all types and here I include incompetence is inevitable. This is why we find that typical Western leaders try to spend time with men he seeks out for their original thinking or for their ability to challenge him. One key characteristic of Mandela was that even in his Robben Island days he encouraged the men to read a wide range of books and present new ideas which they debated extensively for results.

Pat Utomi told the story of attending a conference several years ago on the economic future of Africa. This was a conference of ministers with challenging conceptual speakers in attendance. The Nigerian Minister was expected to be in attendance as well as to make an address. As Pat reported it, the Minister only showed up 30 minutes to his address and left 15 minutes after he finished with his entire entourage. In contrast two ministers from Botswana not only attended throughout but took notes lavishly and engaged enthusiastically the speakers that had been brought. It is therefore no accident that the little Kingdom of Botswana has one of the fastest growing economies in Africa.

Today the corridors of power are filled by Special Advisers most of whom have had to lobby or seek out the post rather than those who challenge thinking. A man who has had to lobby and campaign to attain his position is not likely to jeopardize it with unpopular challenging thinking. A leader who has not sought out advisers for their originality of thinking and the value they bring to his understanding is unlikely to provide himself/herself with the adequate tools for success. Note these men do not have to have official designation

Effective leadership starts with our thinking which in turn is determined by our knowledge base as well as our knowledge processing skills. If a leader has not developed a clear concept of who he is, what his leadership means and the real determinants of the circumstances he faces then he is likely to find himself swamped by the pressures surrounding the Office from the tyranny of the urgent to the pressures of self seekers.

Rick Joyner in his book Leadership; The Power of a creative life tells the story of an American Officer, Lt Col Moore who successfully guided his men through one of the worst ambushes in Vietnam with the lowest level of casualty ever recorded. At the end he was invited before a board of enquiry because his men reported that during the battle there were times when he would withdraw into himself and would be silent and blank. The board then asked him to explain fearing some problems why this seemed to happen in the heat of battle. His explanation was that in the middle of battle it is easy to get confused and in those times when he withdrew into himself he asked the questions: What exactly is happening; what is not happening; what are we doing right; what are we doing wrong; where exactly are we? It was by continuously engaging these questions that he brought his men out safely. This has since become standard doctrine in the U.S. Army

Our world today is becoming ever more like the battle fields of Hal Moore. Global prices of essential food stuff have increased by more than 100% in the last year. The same goes for most basic raw materials. Perhaps this is the time when our national leaders and not just our leaders but everyone who aspires to maintain leadership in the emerging world need to borrow a leaf from Hal Moore and create circumstances which make us review the times, our knowledge base and our responses to the pressures. Without a right approach our casualty levels may be extremely high and inevitable.
As Mark Dupree said “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.”