Essay
Introduction
IN the last part of this treatise, we examined the weakness of transformational leadership after which we delved into transactional leadership and then moved on to the traits of good leadership. In today’s episode, we shall continue with our discourse on the traits of good leadership, attempt the question: “whither leadership in Nigeria?” and then conclude with an insight on the challenges of transformational leadership in Nigeria. Please come with me.
TRAITS OF GOOD LEADERSHIP (continues)
Good leadership knows that it cannot know everything that needs to be known and will thus, find ways of expanding knowledge as needed; seeking diverse opinions to inform decision-making. Good leadership always displays good communication and listening skills; puts the society’s interest over personal agenda; makes difficult decisions and make long-term plans for the benefit of the generality of the society as a whole. Poor leadership on the other hand focuses on individual agendas; is single-minded in decision-making; do not consider different ideas or perspectives; cannot take criticism; is not well informed; and do not plan beyond their tenure. (Clark Anderson, The increasing importance of leadership. Loc cit).
WITHER LEADERSHIP IN NIGERIA?
The nature of governance in any given political system is determined by the quality of leadership in power. Nigeria, a nation endowed with natural and human resources still battles with crisis of leadership and governance after fifty-one years of independence The socio-economic and political development of any country depends largely on the ability of its leadership to facilitate, entrench and sustain good governance. Importantly, good governance is a manifestation of committed, patriotic and discipline leadership. (See: Tolu Lawal, Kayode Imokhuede, Ilepe Johnson, Governance Crisis and the Crisis of Leadership in Nigeria International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences July 2012, Vol. 2, No. 7 ISSN: 2222-6990190). Significantly, Nigeria is among the countries of the world endowed with natural and valuable resources that are capable of improving socio-economic status and living standards of the citizenry. But the reverse has always been the case. The crop of leaders that have attained leadership position since independence had in one way or the other lacked vision, most of them have been engrossed with corruption and political bickering leading to the enthronement of maladministration and mismanagement of public resources, and consequently economic setback and abject poverty as nation heritage.
As a matter of fact, going by all the development parameters and performance indices, Nigerians leaders have failed, economically, macroeconomic stability, fiscal discipline, economic reforms, due process and relatively low inflation rates that the state could claim to have achieved sit alongside weak business confidence, low growth, massive unemployment, and rising inequality between the rich and the poor. Nigeria may have the highest GDP in Africa, but ranks low on Human Development indices (HDI), while corruption, which every government has always promised to eradicate at its inauguration continued unabated. (Azeez. A. (2010). “Good Governance and Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria” A paper presented at the Faculty of the Social Sciences University of Ibadan, October, 2010).
NIGERIA AND THE IMPERATIVES OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Leadership in Nigeria can be improved if the leadership of the country embraces transformational leadership values. Transformational leadership has core values of goals, visions, and the means to unite with followers to ensuring that such goals are achieved. He also takes the responsibility of ensuring that people are mobilized to participate in the process of change, and encourages a sense of collective action.
Essentially, transformational leadership strives to make leaders out of the available followers. Such generated leaders are dispersed across sectors of economy to ensure that the mission and visions of progress created at different centres of power are executed based on the needs of citizens and that the later actively involved in goal implementation. With this, the transformational leader takes people beyond pre-occupation with basic needs and scraping by, as it is today in most parts of the country, and sets the pace for individual and national self-actualization. As a matter of fact, transformational leaders work independently and courageously to make choices that are best for the country within the international system of economic, political and cultural interaction; lead the citizen to bring back quality and excellence to education, revitalize infrastructural facilities and modernize productive activity in agriculture and industry; insert skilled indigenous professionals and labour centre stage of building national development infrastructure. (Olu Lawal, Kayode Imokhuede, Ilepe Johnson. Op cit).
Transformational leadership is inward looking and conscious of the benefits that its society can derive from the international environment. It takes the responsibility of the national or local problem depending on the layer of leadership; deploys skill, knowledge imagination and energy to solution to most problems and assists followers to realize their hidden and untapped capabilities. The transformational leader is always physically present to monitor projects at sites. He also receives report from the subordinates to ensure that policies and projects are implemented according to designs and specification. This style of leadership relegates corruption to the background, and brings sanity, transparency and accountability to the fore. This is the legacy of transformation left by transformational leaders in many countries of the World. (Ukaegbu, C. (2010). “Nigeria; Beyond Good Governance at 50).
Available evidence in the development literature on transformational leaders who have significantly reduced poverty in their respective countries during the past quarter century does not generate any consistent conclusion regarding the factors that contributed to the successes. The leaders of the success stories in Chile, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan,- all demonstrated strong commitment to development, with clarity of vision and of goal. (Adamolekun, L. (2002). “Governance Context and Reorientation of Government in Adomolekun.l. (eds) Public Administration in Africa, main issues and selected country studies). Ibadan, spectrum books limited Nigeria can, through grooming its present and future leadership on the model of transformational leadership tenets, attain the height attained by these nations.
CONCLUSION
The challenge of leadership in Nigeria particularly in the 21st century has been generating concerns among well-meaning citizens of this country. That Nigeria is yet to harness abundant human and material resources in her domain for development for the past 50 years of nationhood has left much to be desired. As this article has shown, inept and corrupt leadership affect not only service delivery to the Nigerian people. In view of this, the citizens of this country now need to strike a balance between the personality/qualifications of those who struggle to pilot the affairs of the country, the culture and democratic values of Nigeria as a nation. This is particularly important because leadership must be able to assist and guide the society to embark national self-discovery through inspiring and transformational leadership. The citizenry must insist on leaders that understand what it is to be in leadership and not some opportunistic narcissistic individual or group of individuals who lack altruistic drives.
To this end, leadership becomes of utmost imperative. Where counties without natural resource but with good leadership have achieved much progress, Nigeria, with enormous natural resource can achieve even much more where we have excellent leadership. Leadership, whether transformational or transactional will be highly welcomed in Nigeria, it is submitted that transformational leadership with all its more altruistic characteristic is the most appropriate for a country like Nigeria and for organisations within the Nigerian context. This is because; a leader who is worth his salt in a clime like Nigeria must be transformational in attitude, in policies and in delivery. (The end).
THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK
“Leadership is the capacity to translate a vision into reality.” (Warren Bennis).
“There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity and courage.” (Chan Master Fuchan Yuan).
A.
-February 7, 2024 @ 17:30 GMT|
Tags: Chan Master Fuchan Yuan
