A former Harvard Business School Professor, J. P Kotter, has defined leadership as the development of visions and strategies; the alignment of relevant people behind the strategies; and the empowerment of people to make the vision happen despite obstacles.
In Africa, consensus reached some three decades ago that the biggest challenge to the continent’s development is not resources but the lack of leadership still hold in even more profound ways.
Ghana, our beloved country, which turns 60 in a matter of days, is no exception when it comes to the dearth of visionary leadership. Although it has been described as a beacon of hope on the continent for exhibiting ordinary democratic features such as holding elections every four years out of which two have resulted in regime change, since the promulgation of the Fourth Republican Constitution in 1992, it cannot be said to have displayed leadership in a manner that would guarantee transformational development.
Vision:
No nation since the last century has developed without a clear vision, whether it followed a capitalist property owning strategy, socialist, social democratic or a centrist progressive pragmatist one. “Where there is no vision, the people perish”—says the good book in Proverbs 29:18.
My ideal leaders: Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore and Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, to mention just a few, are all visionary leaders. Their success stories are in the literature for all to read. In the late 1950s and early 60s Ghana, Singapore and Malaysia were all start-up nations.
Their leaders had visions which they shared and implemented with a sense of urgency. They were engaged in a race to development. This mindset of a race to development was the driving force shared by majority of their people. It informed their conduct wherever they found themselves and it propelled them to success.
Unfortunately, we have not seen leadership inspire, mobilise and empower Ghanaians around a common vision and credible development strategy since Nkrumah. How come Ghana was the most endowed among the three nations I have referred to, but remains the least developed today, even at the mature age of 60?
In 1960 Nkrumah developed a vision for Ghana. In the forward to Ghana’s Seven-Year Development Plan 1963/64 – 1969/70, he shared the vision as follows: “Our aim is to establish in Ghana a strong and progressive society in which no one will have any anxiety about the basic means of life, about work, food and shelter; where poverty and illiteracy no longer exist and disease brought under control; and where our educational facilities provide all the children of Ghana with the best possible opportunities for the development of their potentialities.”
It is an understatement to say, we have failed to attain that vision; when in the year 2017, we are praying and believing God to provide us with today’s basic necessities of life, such as education, health, sanitation, power and jobs.
In the 4th Republic, which is 24-years-old; and just enough time to develop if we had had great leadership, we have had two long-term national development plans, labelled as visions.
One needs not to go beyond the titles and timelines of the documents to know they were mere wishful papers put together to meet the criteria for donor support.
President Rawlings’ Vision 2020 and his successor, President Kufuor’s Vision 2015, were mere dreams that lacked the supporting strategies such as creating the enabling environment, mobilising the people behind the vision and overcoming the challenges of dismantling and replacing the status quo to make the vision a reality.
In fact the Vision 2015 document never existed. It was an idea that remained an idea until it died.
The only way Ghana can see the kind of development we need is for leadership to be there. And this must not be difficult for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to do. He and or his Cabinet must be familiar with Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG), the kind that transformed Singapore and Malaysia.
Challenges:
I have watched our public institutions deteriorate into very weak and collectively corrupt systems. To address this challenge, the Office of the President must lead the way by example. The President, his staffers, the civil servants and public servants are vital for the success of any vision to transform this country.
The efficiency and effectiveness must begin from there. The bureaucracy can be positively red but must be reliable and trustworthy for the attainment of the vision regardless of who the leader is.
For a little country so divided by politics with weak governance institutions, one would expect to rely on civil society, academia and the media to serve as the conscience of society. Unfortunately, many of these institutions have “surrendered” their sovereignty and have become a true reflection of Ghanaian society. It is time these institutions realised how vital they are for any meaningful progress in this country and begin to live up to expectation.
The proposed 40-year national development plan must be taken seriously and given the necessary oxygen to live. The media, civil society and academia must take a stand to champion the development of the plan and ensure that it is implemented. If they find the leader sleeping they must wake him up. If they leave him alone to do it, it will not be done. They must get involved!
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