LEADERSHIP QUALITY - GIVE NIGERIA AS AN EXAMPLE

LEADERSHIP QUALITY – GIVE NIGERIA AS AN EXAMPLE

INTRODUCTION

It has been established by great minds of ages that the greatest problem of humanity is that of leadership despite the technological, scientific and economic advancement in the global context. Among such great minds of ages was Kunz – Futzu (“Confucius”, as Latinized).

Confucius (551-479 BCE) was achines moral philosopher. He was a comporary a Buddha (556 BC and lived when the conduct of Chinese officials were greatly corrupt. The need arose for him after hundreds of schools of thought contended to provide answers to the leadership problem. The position Confucius occupied was not that of a saviour but as one who put the people back in touch with the ancient. “I tranmist but do not create. I believe and love the ancients. I venture to compare myself to our old pangen ancient official who liked to tell stories

 

LEADERSHIP

Before going into what leadership qualities are, it is pertinent to know what leadership itself is all about.

Leadership in its simplest form can be depicted as the ability to inspire, direct, motivate and encourage others positively to targeted end. Also, leadership is about rising up to the occasion by organising and adequately coordinating the resources of time, relationship, skills, expertise and finances to achieve a goal for the common good of all.

Leadership is the ability to lead others and not necessarily an availability to lead even though availability might at times lead to leadership position, it is not leadership itself.

Dennis is his research on understanding leadership concludes that it seems, the concept of leadership eludes us and turns up in another firm to taunt it again with its slipperiness and complexity. Flowing from the foregoing, it can be deduced that the concept of leadership is complex and dynamic, hence, it connotes assignment, effectiveness, responsibility, accountability, vision, character, productivity, persuasion and realisation of targeted goals.

 

According to McFarland, a leader is one who makes things happen that would not happen otherwise, “if the leader causes changes that he intended, he has exercised power. But if the leader causes changes that he did not intend or want, he has exercised influence, but not power” (McFarland, 1969, pp.167 – 178; Kofele-Kale, 1976, pp. 81) Sidney Hook shares a similar view as McFarland. In his work, the Hero in history, Hook depicted a heroic leader as one who makes things happen that ordinarily would not have happened. “The hero in history”, he opined “is the individual to whom we can justify attribute preponderant influence in determining an issue or event whose consequences would have been profoundly different if he had not acted as he did”. The hero is an event-making individual who-re-deter-mines the course of history. (Hook, 1943, pp. 229)

A person who is endowed with these qualities in the context of a group, community or nation has the personality of a leader. Leaders have duties too. John Gardner has pointed out that the task of leaders is to help societies understand the problems that all must face, to aid in the setting of goals and priorities to work with others in finding paths to those goals chosen, maintaining public morale, and motivation and nurturing a workable level of public unity. (Gardner, 1978, pp. 132 – 135) leaders must activate existing institutions in pursuit of the society’s goals, or when necessary, help redesign institutions to achieve that result. Leaders must also help people know how they can be at their best “with malice toward none, with charity for all”. In a free society leaders performs these functions also known as Qualities within a framework of constraints. This includes an uncorrupted electoral process, the rule of law, institutional checks and balances and free press (Ibid, 1978, pp. 132-135). Leaders make things happen; they are wave makers. A society without talented and committed leaders will retrogress or at best remain stagnant. That has been the problem with Nigeria. A careful examination of the attitude and behaviour of the leaders of post-colonial Nigeria shows that many of the civilian, as well as military leaders, were mired in the pursuit of selfish personal goals at the expense of broader national interest or needs. In other words, they were instrumental leaders, or what David Apter called “consummatory” leaders (Apter, 1960).

Chinua Achebe, one of Nigeria’s legendary writers in his little but powerful and widely cited book “The Trouble with Nigeria” rightly pointed out that “the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership” He pointed out that “there is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else” but leadership (Achebe, 1983, pp.1).

The lack of selfless, non-corrupt and committed leaders have contributed immensely to the socio-political and economic predicaments facing Nigeria today. Corruption and lack of committed leadership could be traced back to the ethnic acrimony and corruption among the founding fathers of the nation prompted the first military coup on January 15, 1966. Clearly, not everybody has the leadership acumen to lead an organization, not to mention ruling a country. And clearly no society should expect to have an endless succession of great and extraordinary leaders like Roosevelt of the united states, Churchill of Britain, or De-Gaulle of France.

Unfortunately, Nigeria has had many non-leaders in leaderships seats. The disaster that marked the administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Babangida atrocious regime, and the horrible looting that occurred during the time of General Sani Abacha are quick reminders. During Shagari’s inept administration there was widespread corruption and gave economic mismanagement. With corruption and the decline in international petroleum price, the economy went sour. The economic down turn caused an increased hardship for the majority of Nigerians. From my investigation and research on leadership quality, given Nigeria as example, I must say that Nigeria fundamental approach to leadership quality is troubling. The leaders leave the capacity to influence public policies to make a difference in the lives of the citizens, but have failed to do so because their primary goal of assuming leadership position is self enrichment.