Global competitiveness is a function of (national) leadership. The
predictability of societal stability is measured through the depth of the
leadership it has on the horizon. Investor confidence is directly related to
the capability of would-be key persons in the national leadership grid a
society presents to those not interior to an existing or emerging establishment.
The brute fact is that
the domain of leadership is inevitably national. When leaders create strong
bonds that show society that they’re integral to its great outcome and want to
be a part of their future, they won’t just lay bricks for you. Together, they
would build cathedrals within which they would offer prayers and loyalty. The
question is, does South Africa have cathedrals within which national prayers
can be made about its leadership future?
Society
seeks or resonates with leaders who know they are mortal and believe in the
eternity of their national or institutional visions. Leaders whose relationship
with their vocation is beyond themselves. In a context where leadership is
about the nation's aspirations, leaders who weave visions which require
sacrifices of present generations on behalf of future generations tend to
attract quality followership from society. On the other hand, the absence of a
strong state nationalism has almost always been found to have impeded a
nation's (cap)ability to pursue and execute a national development plan.
This
type of leadership requires national leadership development, which produces leaders
at all levels at the nation's disposal to be commissioned to its service. South
Africa is at the crossroads of having to hand over its various batons to the
next generation decisively. In business, the oligopolistic character of
entrepreneurship and the racial vector of business monopolies seem to be
running out of old males to recycle throughout the leadership value chain. The
fear of opening up the leadership market to all South Africans is not only a
function of race as a dominant vector of investor confidence analysis but also a
sheer problem of succession planning across the board.
The
equation of euphemisms of exclusion disguised as a lack of undefined competencies
and the socio-political reality of racism is untenable. The choice cannot
always be between tacit exclusion of others and building a non-racial human
resource base, devoid of a convergence of chauvinism tormented by a past we
must ditch, but instead between what is in the national interest divorced from
our trust deficit-inspired fears.
Our
tormented past and opposition to it have created 'situational leaders'; thus,
politicians who are in career paths some of them are stuck in should not be the
reason not to tackle the leadership question. Thirty years into a new
democratic order can only mean a new generation of would-be leaders of society
is born and shaped by what was modelled to it, or what it has formally learned
is leadership. Starting in 2016, millennials became the most significant single
generation in the workplace. And yet, it is still acceptable for people to
openly express stereotypes and biases against this generation, notwithstanding
its uncomfortable demand to lead. This demand is not because they are in
maturity terms ready; it is arguably because the leadership gap is too big to
be left as a vacuum lest dangerous breeds grab it.
The
appointment of a seventy-year-old CEO for Pick n Pay, the challenge to fill in
the ESKOM CEO, and the general age median of South Africa's leadership where it
matters all point to a hollow base of capability to ascend and succeed
incumbents. Whilst management and leadership theory generally advocates for a
future anchored on a younger generation, evidence is that when those occupying
positions have to vacate in favour of a generational mix, intransigence
foregrounds all related discourse. The situation is interestingly worse in
politics and has now permeated where it is least expected.
The
RHINO in the leadership debate room of South Africa is that there has been an
erosion of leadership development institutions other nations use to breed
cohorts of capability. Leadership development becomes deliberate when there are
custodial institutions within which hierarchies are created, ritualised, and
sustained throughout the lifeworlds of affiliates.
Practice-based
leadership is often found in a country's national security and defence
custodial systems, state-owned enterprises and entities built around a national
patriotic ethos with the army as its epicentre, an education system which
dovetails into the nationalistic image a country or society has of itself, and
a deliberately hegemonic social cohesion program led by the state and defenders
of its nationalist rituals.
The
predominant language of separateness in South Africa has created a context of
leadership that does not display the true intentions of freedom of association
but is, in essence, the fractionalisation of society into unexplained us and their
cohorts. The various identifications and expressions of being South African,
which are settling as normality and are in direct conflict with the founding
values of society, have become the dominant vector of analysis and a resurgence
of anarchy.
To
regain credibility as a people capable of being a nation will always be a
function of how to build the next generation of leaders. The general
intellectual consensus is that cohorts of leaders are glued together by their
values, ethics, and trust relationships with and about each other. Whilst what
is important to leaders personally will drive their motivation to lead, it will
still be the common values of honesty, integrity, trust, public service,
excellence, and teamwork that shape the leadership environment.
What has not instructed South Africa's science and art of selecting the most capable of its leaders is the vision of the future that leaders represent in the broader scheme of things. This might be why the personalities we end up inheriting (national) leaders from political coalition cohorts that win through an election have the right to suggest to us who amongst them should be our leaders instead of us having complete control.
The
truth is no leadership succession proceeds in a vacuum. A national strategy
should determine who is best to take society to the next level. The test of
such a strategy must permeate all other leadership appointments in society. It
is, therefore, an indictment that South Africa still looks to its old to lead institutions
that require its young. CUT!!!
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