Dear Editor,
How come so many of us have for decades been confused about what leadership is about – public or private. It continues to be a matter of increasing concern in a society that particularly now is assailed by not one, but two pandemics – Covid-19, and Oil and Gas, both of unpredictable futures, that could combine to undermine this society’s physical, mental and sociological health to a degree that cannot readily be understood nor contained.
For one thing, there is hardly evidence of a strategic focus on the implications of an invasion of organisms and organisations who respectively, are depletive of, and indifferent to, the survival of a coastal life-space.
There is this contradiction wherein the ‘locals’ confront one another, while at the same time are hospitable to the intrusion of ‘foreigners’. One set of locals cold shoulder their counterparts, while they provide warm welcome to the oversea-comers.
There is also the fundamental, constipative misinterpretation about leadership – seen only in ‘ministerial’ terms, with voters regarded as having surrendered; while employees of one ethnicity are assumed to be of suspect organisational professionalism and must therefore be treated with caution, if not fully disciplined, even by employers of their own ilk. How come both parties do not recognise the repetitiveness of this mutually hollow experience? Surely it must provide pause for reflection – on the non-productivity of the past, on the lack of self-development since, on the rigidity that informs future relationships? How come they could both ignore the traumatic challenges to current livelihoods and not understand that there is little or no choice but to tackle them as a team, albeit with creative captaincy?
Why do we not recognise that even together how miniscule a national management team we are playing on an international stage; that our daily postulations do not constitute an articulate strategy which can be inherited by successors, however anointed? Are the dreams of the future limited to this adult (?) generation? Where can be found the exemplars of cohesion in a population whose size is not reflective of its mighty rivers and towering mountains? Rather there is expounded the divisiveness of an island mentality.
We even cannot afford being winners and losers in a coastal environment threatened by overpowering floods. We have so little time left to build together – not only protective murals, but also a morality that would inspire our children to climb higher together.
So it boils down (up) to more effective leadership. Hopefully, some inspiration might be gleaned from insights of the decades old classic “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, which follow:
One is about an old adage: ‘Put square pegs in square holes, and round pegs in round holes’
‘Charisma can be as much a liability as an asset’
‘The real question is: How to manage in such a way as not to demotivate people’
‘….leadership is about vision. But leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts confronted’
‘It means having the humility to grasp the fact that you do not yet understand enough to have the answers and then to ask the question that will lead to the best possible insights’
It is impossible to make good decisions without infusing the entire process with an honest confrontation of the brutal facts’
‘…the purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline’
‘a culture of discipline…requires people who adhere to a consistent system; yet…it gives people freedom and responsibility within the framework of the system…It is about getting disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and who then take disciplined action’
None of the above should be new to the purported leaders of our day; for all the above quotes constitute but commonsense.
But who was it that said ‘commonsense is the rarest (most uncommon) sense of all’.
We so much need to display it.
Yours faithfully,
E.B. John
