13th Feburary 2010
Leadership and politics
By Dr Chryselda Caesar

Some people are naturally endowed with more leadership abilities than others, but people can learn to become leaders by concentrating on improving particular leadership skills. Perhaps leadership is a combination of behaviour, traits and the ability to think and act as a leader, to direct the activities of others for the good of all. Leadership is the art of motivating people to act towards achieving a common goal, the ability to inspire and direct the action of others. The leader is the person in the group that possesses the combination of personality traits and skills that makes others want to follow his or her direction. In business, leadership is welded to performance. In politics it appears to be different. We yearn for a superhero, and we equate leadership with charisma, intellect, knowledge, eloquence even physical appearance, and not necessarily with vision, performance and advancing the country.
We want the great and powerful provider, perhaps a saviour for the moment. Our political leaders know that and they play on this misconception held by the marginalized and less fortunate folk. They offer promises of assistance for gaining political support. In the process they feed the division, and put party against party and person against person. They strive on division, and entertain special interest groups. They are not open and inclusive rather they are partisan and favour their party supporters.
The electorate place more value on material gain than character. So what happens, the politicians become transactional leaders. They achieve their purpose by fulfilling and satisfying the motives of the voters through rewards and incentives. Their strength is dependent on their bargaining skills. They employ contractual rewards to advance their self interest and party affiliates. Providing service for the well-being of all citizens is lost in the amidst of the politics, bargaining for control and manipulation to protect their position. The professional politicians hide behind empty rhetoric and political posturing, frankly I would reseat Ezekiel Joseph before any one of them. A Whitehouse speechwriter from her observation of different leaders attests that a leader’s character is everything. A leader does not have to be brilliant; he does not have to be clever. You can hire clever, you can surround yourself with quick witted people with advice on how to implement strategies. You can buy pragmatic and bring in policy experts but you cannot buy courage and decency, nor can you rent a strong morale sense. A leader must have those things and bring them with him. He must know why he is in the position and what he needs to do. He should have a vision of the future that he wishes to create….. But a vision is worth little if he doesn’t not have the character, courage and heart to see it through and the commitment and love for the people.
It makes no sense to just replace one group with a different group or one leader with another if both hold the same ideas. Surely our leaders cannot offer the same old tired ideas and ways of operating that is rooted in advancing political agendas and political objects. When the primary purpose is about satisfying short term goals, and small instant rewards we need to stand back and ask what are we robbing our children and grand children of?