IS THE CONTINENT OF AFRICA IN LEADERSHIP CRISIS?

Photo Credit To The Africa Report.com

Leadership as a subject of contemporary times is extensively treated in all facets by the School of Psychology; epistemologically establishing what should make an ideal leader for any system of an organization.

The essence of this article is not to reiterate ancient theories and doctrines of leadership of both the Western and the Easter Bloc of the World, and then, mount up a standard of performance to question the credibility of African leaders.

The intent of this paper is far from the ideological stance of leadership, and principles mostly assumed by the leading journals for leadership theories, published reviews on the subject of leadership by the leading Universities of the World, like Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, and Cambridge right down to the 100th ranking Universities of the World, including seminars they regularly organize for World leaders. Which evidences attest that over 85% of African leaders from 2018 up to date have participated in such seminars and conferences, yet the political economic management towards the continent development has not been as inspiring as expected to be.

It is also estimated that 89% of public lectures organized within Africa towards the continent development, continually establishes argument against Africa leadership as the predicament towards its progressive development.

This raises a question, what is the rightful leadership equation required to drive a developmental political economy for Africa? The case of the President of Rwanda- (H.E.) Paul Kagame, and the other few public leaders, who are exceptionally doing splendid in their economic management performance, could be judged as peculiar economic settings, but could their leadership principles be adopted as Universal standards for the continent?

The subject of debate, which captures the content of this article, is to create a room for advance thinking on the subject of leadership application relevant to the continent of Africa within the framework of Social Sciences perspective.

If, I am required to make my intellectual disposition on the subject of Africa Leadership, I could confidently assert from my observation that the problem of the continent development is largely not leadership crises but a “Power and Illusion of Control” syndrome; this is the state, whereby one assume ‘Power’ as a leader by upholding an ‘illusory superiority’. This kind of syndrome is the cause retarding the developmental agenda of the continent.

We must acknowledge that no human genius could address the dynamic and sophisticated problems of society by being both ‘Pure Scientist’ and ‘Applied Scientist’ at the same time.

It is the professional task of the ‘Pure Scientists’ to extricate themselves from the social system to have a qualified ontological view of any running system, in other to design an epistemic outline in solving the complex problems of society. While it is the professional skill of the ‘Applied Scientists’ in their field of practice, subjected to all forms of cognitive biases, to acquaint themselves with the solutions of the ‘Pure Scientists’ in their field of endeavour to incorporate such knowledge instrument in their experience to effectively solve problems of the real society.

The problem with most African leaders in their various fields of public service delivery is to first assume themselves as technocrats in a mindset of “illusory superiority” syndrome. Ignoring the fact that leaving from the teaching or knowledge development field, into an applied field, limit one conceptual power to the newly dimensional changes of the problem of today from yesterday, and thereby to be efficient in solving the new trends of problems, requires such a leader to associate with quality scholars (Pure Scientists) in their field of practice to act as critical and strategic advisors towards one leadership decision making at any point in time, in other to avoid arbitrary actions, which has its consequences on both medium and long term in political economic management.

The current problem of African leadership is their failure to understand the nexus of quality decision-making towards fruitful results, and how highly it depends on the calibre of think-tank set around the leader towards the duty in public management.

The article logically concludes that every good leader’s greatest concern is the quality of think-tank (Pure Scientists/Problem Solvers) set privately around himself/herself, towards decision-making before assuming any ‘power‘ for the public interest’.

Emmanuel Tweneboah Senzu, Ph.D., is professor of Economics and Finance, with speciality in monetary economics, policy development, Econometrics, investment and risk analysis. Member of World Economic Association. President of Frederic Bastiat Institute Africa, Fellow of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Makeni-SL, Faculty Fellow of University of Management and Technology, Sierra Leone. Research Fellow of Monarch University, College of Economics & Finance, Switzerland. Research Fellow of West Africa Monetary Institute, Ghana.