Leadership Crisis: The big elephant in the room

We have too many managers than leaders in our organisations and this has widened the leadership gap because most managers are not adequately developed before and after assuming leadership responsibility.

Research from Harvard University indicates that 85 percent of countries and organisations in the world are in a leadership crunch.

Botswana is not an exception because she is ranked 63 out of 63 countries when it comes to workers’ motivation and this is a clear sign of failed leadership across all the sectors.

One of the fundamental roles of a leader is to motivate workers to develop a positive attitude in their work and exceed set performance targets.

Moreover, Botswana is ranked 91 out of 141 countries when it comes to global competitiveness. This clearly demonstrates that leaders are failing to influence positive performance results in all sectors.

The big elephant in the room has come to haunt us all and we need to provide practical leadership solutions to manage this crisis.

One of the major challenges of organisations is that those who are given the leadership roles either abuse or misuse the power that comes with their influential positions.

This degeneration has been maintained by a wrong belief that leaders cannot be critically challenged and as a result people with ideas tend to be passive to avoid being victimised.

Many people entrusted with leadership positions do not know how to take a back seat and allow their team to lead as suggested by the Swarm Leadership Model developed by Harvard University in 2017.

This behaviour is contrary to the talent management and collective leadership best practices because you cannot hire talented employees only to remote control them with orders instead of allowing them to showcase their talent and display positive discretionary conduct.

Moreover, humanity is no longer embraced in the workplace, employees are still seen as mere factors of production like it was in the first industrial revolution which is against the current best practices of providing quality of life in the organisation.

It is wrong and unsustainable for management to be chasing profits and recognition at the expense of their employees because it results in employees’ disengagement, toxic relationships, poor team work, poor culture, negative organisational image and poor performance.

Dictatorship leadership is common in boardroom meetings and this is a huge red flag! Leaders should adopt the habit of speaking last to allow creative and innovative ideas from members rather than speaking first and advancing their opinions which is hardly challenged because of fear of victimisation.

This is a clear sign that modern leaders do not embrace inclusivity and diversity of opinions from those they lead.

This week we are addressing this big elephant in the room by articulating how a responsive and responsible leadership model can close the widening leadership gap in many organisations and countries.

The first principle of this model requires leaders to build responsive learning organisations by continuously acquiring new knowledge and drawing intelligence insights from trends to improve the organisation sustainability.

A good strategy of responsive learning is to have a policy that requires all leaders and some senior employees to join International Professional Bodies aligned to their profession as well as presenting papers in conferences of these bodies.

The second principle of this model is high adaptability which is related to the rate at which the organisation continually improves itself to remain relevant in the current VUCA world.

This requires an organisation to have a feedback loop system that gathers intelligence from the business environment then use it to develop innovation and change management strategy focusing on management systems, culture, business processes, products, business model and operational technology.

The third principle of this leadership model is inclusivity which requires leaders to invite stakeholders to participate in strategic planning meetings of organisations as well as strategic decision making.

The fourth principle of this model is effective governance which is the art of being selfless and ethical in embracing the rule of law, policies, standards and rules of the organisation. Leaders who subscribe to high governance standards are magnetic and are celebrated by their followers.

The fifth principle of this leadership model is humanity and that requires all the leaders to treat their employees with respect for them to be committed to the organisation.

The sixth principle requires leaders to have an intelligence system that provides them with factual data required in evidence-based decision making.

The Author is a member of African Excellence Forum, Holds Master of Science Degree in Strategic Management and is a Certified Manager of Quality and Organisational Excellence from America Society for Quality. Six Sigma Greenbelt, ISO 9001:2015 Certified.

Contact: 72211182, Website: www.iqm.co.bw Email: veronmosalakatane@gmail.com LinkedIn: Veron Mosalakatane