Our leaders excel in setting a bad example for the next generation

There is leadership crisis in the world, veering on the negative, ignoring both the constitution and the law. When big powers blatantly ignore the rule of law, they set bad examples to small countries. In Eastern Africa, the negatives threatens regional stability.

That threat is so apparent that IGAD is strategising on how to train leaders to be ethical, competent, and to use common sense. The youth challenged IGAD Secretary General Workneh Gebeyehu on an ailment that affects the region, failure to prepare leaders. The challenge hit Workneh hard and also exposed institutional weaknesses.

This was the subject of an IGAD leadership workshop in Mombasa that grappled with the ramifications of failures in leadership. The rampant instability in the region was seemingly due to bad leadership which lacks the confidence of the people, in politics, in managing public affairs, and in policy making. Instead of setting good examples, leaders excel in being bad examples and engaging in contradictions. While glorifying theft, ignorance, and incompetence, they insult integrity, knowledge, and competence.

The devaluation of education, integrity, and competence is part of growing anti-intellectualism pervading the region. This enslaving anti-intellectualism makes ‘leaders’ to lose common sense, disdain those they lead, and become beholden to, and dependent on, extra-continental forces for advice and policy direction. Since not all those forces mean well for the IGAD region, the reality of dependency sinks so deep that the necessity of reflection is clear.

In such reflection, there tends to be talk of ‘transformational leadership,’ with this nebulous conception being viewed as important for the wellbeing of the region. This is a loose terminology that implies progressive or even positive revolution and ends up becoming a chic political slogan. Subsequently, very reactionary persons claim to be ‘transformational’ while engaging in socio-economic disruptions that create poverty and anguish, and do not deliver benefits despite the promises. Another type of transformational leader aspires to be ‘consequential’ without much thought being given to the value or worth of the ensuing consequences.

This reality calls for knowing which situation requires transformation and which one need consolidation of existing good things. Since the ability to tell the difference or balance between the need for transformation and consolidation cannot be enhanced in an atmosphere of anti-intellectualism, the region is in very bad shape. Many are the leaders who ignore good advice, look down on their own citizens, bully people into compliance with their political whims, and kowtow to foreigners. Resistance to those whims leads to instability within the state which spreads to the neighbors and becomes regionalised.

Whether leadership needs transformation or consolidation, the question that arises is whether unethical leaders can be made ethical. Many of the existing regional leaders, whether knowingly or not, are largely responsible for instabilities. Getting them to accept responsibility would be hard for they often project their inadequacies on their purported rivals. Not thinking of handing over power, the only thing they probably would accept would be to learn how to consolidate power and to increase their level of acceptability at national and regional levels. This attitude needs changing.

The existing leaders are symbols of despair as the public lose confidence in them. The youth, in contrast, are flexible and not contaminated with leadership vices. They had issued the initial challenge to IGAD that led to the fresh thinking about leadership in the region. They have the energy that can be positively harnessed to set the region right. They can act decisively, hold the future, and should be supported.  

With many institutions offering leadership training, what would make IGAD different would be its reach, intent, and optimism. With the youth restoring value to integrity, competence, knowledge, and returning the dignity of the intellect, the benefits would be many. Can Workneh and IGAD pull it off? They have work to do in a proposed IGAD Leadership Academy.