LEADERSHIP is everything. It is the life blood, or the backbone of any entity.
The worst problem that any organisation can face is to have leaders that can’t lead, and to be led by people that are not progressive.
We have failed states, failed organisations.
Leaders blame someone for their failing, whilst at times it is them that have failed us.
Africa has grown leaders that are too powerful than the people they lead.
As a result, the led become a subject: hapless and helpless, and only left to grope for the crumbs from the master’s table.
When leaders become too-powerful than their citizens, there is a tendency of the citizens to be abused and to forever remain beggars of the State.
The worst mental programme that most citizens shall forever remain with is to think that the government’ mandate is to give all answers and jobs. No!
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The major mandate of any proper government is to make available the opportunities for the citizens to flourish, through generation of ideas, and idea realisation.
Side-tracked by events
We need to engage in systems thinking if ever there is to be any progress and change.
Leaders are fixed on events, and end up forgetting the future.
They are forever reactive, other than being creative.
They react to the created situations.
They allow problems to come before, they themselves create opportunities. Why?
It’s like they are always caught off guard and they have to douse the fire.
In the book The 5th Discipline, Peter M Senge says: “Learning to see underlying ‘structures’ rather than ‘events’ is a starting point; each of the ‘systems archetypes’ developed below suggests areas of high- and low-leverage change.”
Complexity of ruling
Leaders shun the simplicity of leadership and pursue the complexity of ruling.
It is simple to guide people through a process that follows principles to success.
It’s more intricate not to follow common sense.
If you are not following the true purpose of leadership, you see humans as enemies that must be conquered or brutalised to produce a result that is hard.
The more you have to punish people, the more you must defend and protect yourself from enemies; that’s complicated because it becomes a toxic web.
Earl Nightingale in his writing of Lead the Field said: “Success or failure as a human being is not a matter of luck, or circumstances, or fate, or the breaks, or who you know- or any other tiresome, old myths and clichés by which the ignorant tend to excuse themselves. It is a matter of following a commonsense paradigm, of rules- guidelines anyone can follow”
Positional focus
Leaders that focus on the position will always fight to remain in that position.
Forget the position, and focus on influence. Most leaders are jostling for their post.
They fight tooth and nail, to retain or remain in their post.
If your reason in leadership is to transform and build, the focus is never you, but the success of “us”.
Positional leaders want their authority to be felt and their personal power exerted on others.
Let your position be forgotten and let your influence perpetuate and transcend your existence.
Shifting the burden
Leaders fail to lead because they shift the burden.
They blame everyone else and they want to be all righteous.
To them, external factors are what has led to poor results.
All great leaders first lead from within.
If ever there is anything to change, it must be them first, so that all the systems, structures and individuals under them change.
Poor leaders focus on the lion (enemy) outside.
They blame changes in the market, competitors, external factors,
Adaptive learning
Average leaders learn only to be in a better position to react and survive.
Great leaders learn so as to align to times, open their minds, and generate better ideas.
Adaptive learners are those people “who know it all” who say: “We have always been doing things like this”.
Adaptive learning is the kind of education we get mostly from our universities where we learn old systems and what used to work in the past, but is never relevant now.
It’s like trying to cure a new ailment using the old pill.
That is the curse of adaptive learning.
Parting Point: Most people think they lead, whilst in reality they are oppressing other people.
They punish human fellow human beings. Leaders need to learn to lead.
Leadership is about the power not to impose on others, but to empower others.
- Jonah Nyoni is an author, speaker and leadership trainer. He can be contacted on X @jonahnyoni. WhatsApp: +263 772 581 918
