Leadership is crucial for progress,
growth and performance for any human endeavor. The result of positive
leadership is very tangible creating benefits that can be seen or felt. Equally, the devastating effect of bad
leadership is also very visible and tangible.
Leadership defines a successful home,
church, enterprise or nation. Actually, leadership defines our personal lives.
Weighing the importance of leadership,
it can be described in all terms as an essential goods or need and not just a
want if humanity must see progress. Leadership by all standards can be likened
to the role of oxygen for human existence.
The importance of quality leadership
is a common knowledge yet we are still locked up in choosing or appointing pseudo
leaders. So why is that although the
importance of leadership is not debatable, there is not much being done to
ensure that the next leaders are prepared to stand up to make the needed
difference as made by other leaders like Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, etc.
Take your time and list the main
problems confronting our Country. Zoom your analysis to the district levels or
the various organizations, either public or private and you will notice that
the underlying problem facing all of these entities from growth and progress are
lack of quality leadership.
There are vacancies for quality
leadership and this is very obvious considering the various challenges we are
witnessing as a Country. The vacancy for
this leadership position is not synonymous to finding people to fill vacant
positions. We don’t need bosses who will get buried in the position instead
being buried in the duties required of the position. The leaders needed to fill
the vacancies must be individuals with
skills needed to solve problems. They must have the ability to shepherd their
followers in order to get things done without necessarily destroying the people
who must benefit of the leadership.
We don’t need leaders who chant
political party songs and who have theorized their political party ideologies
without recourse to the bigger picture of building a progressive nation. We need leaders who will uphold right or
wrong not in reference to their political standings. We need leaders who do not count the gains that
position offers but who have the desire and commitment to sacrifice for the
sake of the system. We need leaders who don’t see position as a time to chase
out the voices that ask for clarifications but leaders who will embrace
different shades of voices and opinions to craft a stronger system.
The shortage in quality leaders is
worse than “dumsor” (power outages) that is currently being experienced in
Ghana. Our worse enemy as a Country after poverty is leadership.
The happenings around us in politics, corporate organizations
,homes, communities and even in the
churches point to the fact that there is the need to have a breed of new leaders with the paradigm of making positive impact and not
just being called by the various tittles; boss ,Dr., chief, honorable, etc.
The state of Ghana need leaders who
like any economic assets can serve to benefit the system they are leading.
Currently the nation as it stands have very few asset “like leaders” with many
leaders acting as liabilities to the system. The “liability” like leaders do
not generate benefits beyond what is invested in them.
Trumpeting the call of quality leaders
at every sector of the economy has been made since time in memorial but what
steps are being followed to make sure as a people we have the leaders that we
need to ensure national and institutional progress.
In our bid to seek for leaders to
feel various positions either through voting or appointment, many people have been misled by the physical appearance,
fluency or the economic networth of the
people they nominate or recommend for leadership position. A leader must take
care of his looks but that is not the defining gene that can make the leader
effective or not. People asking other people to be their leader must go beyond
their looks, heights or colour and rather understand the attributes that the leader exhibits ; verbally or non-verbally. It is
important for people hiring or searching for quality leaders to note that leadership
is not a spontaneous eruption of some special traits. It is an extended part of
people that shows up in ordinary situations.
The absence of quality leadership
cannot be solved any time soon if a nation or corporate organization does not
take emergency steps to grow and groom leaders for the future. We must be
intentional in growing leaders. The importance of leadership in our society is
so important to leave it to chance.
The leadership ability of people must
be groomed 
right from their childhoods.
People should be trusted with responsibilities right from the home,
school or
church as they grow. The positions of class prefect, bell boys,
blackboard (I sound old here) cleaner and
many other leadership opportunities
from everyday lives can serve as a means to groom leaders for
corporate Ghana.
People must be tested with leadership positions that matches their skills and
exposure
before being allowed to handle certain kinds of responsibilities. We
must begin to bring “apprentice
concept” in growing leaders. Growing quality leaders for the nation is not
accidental but a well thought-out
process. Let us begin to tackle our shortage
for leaders and I am sure it will be the shortest possible route to
transform
the Country Ghana and the various institutions we have.
