Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005), a renowned American Management Consultant, once said that “trees die from the top”. Therefore, “leadership creates organizational spirit”. When the leadership spirit dies, so does the rest of the organization spirit, leading to the downfall of the company. As such, leadership is the key to the success or failure of almost anything – from work groups, teams, enterprises, agencies, departments, and organizations, ministries to autocratic or democratic presidency.
Ghana, since its independence, has naturally experienced leadership of all sorts – from mediocre to average to star performers. The evolution of leadership styles and skills has exposed Ghana to leadership crisis, leading to underperformances by subordinates, which have attributed to the underdevelopment of the country and its citizens.
In Ghana, it is not uncommon to find people in leadership positions by virtue of their academic qualifications (though necessary), longevity in service, their “connections” with people who have influence in society and so forth but not by their leadership abilities, competences and qualities.
Leadership is not just giving orders, raises and rewards. It is beyond that, it is an art, that, to be a top performer, it is supposed to be studied, practiced and mastered. Given the complexity, competition and dependency in the world today, the development of leadership in our higher institutions of learning should be a strategic directive in Ghana.
Though, some higher institutions of learning have introduced and running leadership and executive courses, it is not enough, as there is a failure in in meeting the demand and supply of leaders, without considering poor and mediocre leaders. This can follow the high cost of tuition fees or the ineffectiveness of the courses.
That said, there should be an introduction of leadership courses into almost all the programmes being run in the higher institutions of learning ranging from diploma, bachelor, master to doctorate degree level. Its goal is to prepare students to perform proficiently as and when they are confronted with leadership roles.
These courses, as outlined by Linda Hill, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, should contain what people need to learn in order to lead; how they learn it and what organizations can do to foster a culture conducive to learning to lead. Similarly, in developing new leaders, McCall (1998) suggests that a radical move should be made from sink-or-swim “selection of the fittest” to a “development of the fittest” approach. This is to suggest that, leaders of high level performance will be available to lead and ensure standards and development.
To stress the need for leadership development, Daniel Goleman’s Working with Emotional Intelligence (1998) shows that, if a leader is to thrive in the world of works, s/he needs 20% of expertise and 80% of emotional intelligence. But, the latter is what we are lacking in the educational system of Ghana, which will be covered in the leadership courses.
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other” as John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917- 1963) puts it. Therefore, higher institutions should take the responsibilities and mandate of developing leaders to promote good governance and development.
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