- A CRITICAL FACTOR IN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

All over the world in corporations and government agencies, there are millions of executives who imagine their place on the organization chart has given them a body of followers. And of course it hasn’t. It has given them subordinates. Whether the subordinates become followers depends on whether the executives act like leaders. – John Gardner

INTRODUCTION

Leadership is as current as it is timeless. Since the birth of society, leadership has been a critical ingredient in the bowl of human existence, growth, and advancement. Upon every wave of history, has been a Ceaser of Rome, a Ramses (Pharaoh) of Egypt, Napoleon of Europe, and Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Africa. In the stillness of societal growth, leadership has been absent. History holds numerous examples of ideas and acts that have determined human destiny.

Social conscience and principles have been influenced by reformers such as Martin Luther King, and Susan B. Anthony (a passionate advocate for women emancipation and independence).

Fates of nations have been determined by rulers such as Alexander the Great, who led the development of Greek civilization, Mao Zedong (popularly known as Chairman Mao), whose policies laid the economic, technological and cultural foundations of modern China, transforming the country from an agrarian society into a major world power.

Bill Gates through his ideas and actions has effectively influenced how nations across the globe transact businesses and carry out their administrative activities. Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, and Ephraim Amu of Ghana have greatly influenced music and culture of generations.

So also has the progress of nations been nearly stopped by rulers such as Adolf Hitler, and the signing of the Bond of 1844 by Fante Chiefs which led to the greater colonization of the Gold Coast (now Ghana).

It has always been that the weakest link in business, industry, and government today is leadership. It is not necessarily true that the failure of a system or people is lack of technology, facilities, equipment, skills of employees, systems and procedures. It is leadership. It is therefore unpardonable for any nation to ignore the role and importance of leadership in nation building.

WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?

Leadership is a social influence conducted through the ability to initiate and guide with the ultimate aim of change. The product of that change is a new character or direction of society that otherwise would never be.
The important function of a leader is to develop a clear and compelling vision or picture of future destination, and to secure commitment to that ideal or to that future destination.

Efficient and effective leadership elevate current generation and raise the theoretical, economic, aesthetic, social, political, and spiritual/religious standards for the succeeding generations.

THE RELEVANCE OF YOUTH LEADERSHIP TO NATIONAL GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT

Historically, the youth have been isolated from mainstream leadership and development programmes. Youth bring creative energy and innovation. |Their inclusion will result in increased self-esteem, development of life skills, and decreased youth agitation and reckless behaviours. It will also result in making the workforce development system of a nation more inclusive and responsively dynamic.
Youth leadership and development is a process that prepares young people, to meet the challenges of their future and that of their nations, by building on their capabilities and strengths and by addressing a full range of developmental needs.
Youth leadership activities build skills relevant to both personal and national development. Youth who participate in these leadership trainings and experiences discover who they are and gain insight into themselves. This assists them to undertake SWOT analysis of themselves and set personal and vocational goals. At the community level, the youth discover their role within society by developing the ability to work with others to create a shared vision and to draw on the talents, skills, and energy of others.

The future of any nation is at risk when the youth, ‘element of creative energy and innovation’, is not comprehensively developed into a workforce for national development.

BUILDING THE PLATFORM: THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

A nation that is very much alive to its future must begin to reconstruct the following factors in building its future leaders. This will also call for strong national youth policy, and abundance of well resourced youth centres for the following purposes.
1. Educating: Our education must include developing both basic, applied, and academic competencies and skills. Our educational institutions should create learning environments with opportunities to explore and with real world application. This leads to self discovery and creativity.
2. Thriving: The physical, mental health, and overall well-being of people prolong efficient leadership. Effective youth leadership and development activities equip, support, and assist young people in making healthy choices in all phases of their lives. The youth must have healthy choices in what they eat and drink, and choices in what they listen to, read, and watch. The mental and physical health of nations has, over the years, worsened as a result of neglect of building youth leadership.
3. Relating: The resuscitation of xenophobia and ethnocetricism across the world is a clear failure of our governments and institutions to develop positive social attitudes, skills, and behaviours in the youth. Lack of these skills and behaviours builds insecurity in the youth, and they become easily threatened by what they think is not of their stock. As a consequence, some potential leaders from minority groups who could have made significant impact on their generations have been isolated from national development. Mentoring may be one of the types of activity that can contribute to the feeling of connectedness and oneness.
4. Working: Most business people fear handing down their businesses to someone young. This is because occupational and career skills, attitudes, and behaviours that are needed for success in the workplace are most often not developed from the educational institutions. Employment and work-based activities help the youth to validate their self-worth, as well as to explore their abilities and interests. It is therefore unpardonable for governments and businesses to allow young people to loiter about during vacations. Government and businesses should develop vacation-work programmes for young people from Senior High Schools, Senior Technical Schools, and tertiary institutions. These would develop their career skills, attitudes, and behaviours that are needed for success in the workplace.
5. Leading: Youth programmes and opportunities help the youth to develop positive civic attitudes, skills, and behaviours. This facilitates their need to contribute to their community, school, and family, and also developing to their full potential.
THE ROLE OF THE YOUTH
Participation
Along with regular attendance, active participation in conferences and forums such as this, it is expected as current future leaders to keep an open mind and listen with respect to different perspectives. Remember that, leadership is not an executive position, but a position of influence.
Develop Your Leadership Platform
As a starting point, the youth need to develop a comprehensive leadership platform. This should detail their personal philosophy of leadership. It should serve as a reflective document, which gives a sense of direction and actions that will meet the needs of the people within their communities, schools, companies or areas where they want to provide leadership.

Leadership platform will include:
1. A community profile: this should describe the culture of your community (e.g., community population, language, disability, gender, race, socio-economic status, community demographics, and natural resources). Determine the vision and goals of your community system.

2. Leadership platform should also include:
a. Your personal philosophy of leadership - values, beliefs, and philosophies

b. Your plan for:
i. Exercising your influence and authority,
ii. Demonstrating moral and ethical leadership,
iii. Sharing your influence in leadership and followship – in other words, how you will work with others to provide for continuous instructional improvement.
c. you should also determine whether leadership platform is compatible with the stated vision and goals of your community system. If your platform is compatible, then there is nothing to provide leadership for. If your platform is incompatible, state the proposed normative actions you will take to cause change.

3. The next stage is to hold discussions to determine whether your platform addresses the individual and collective needs of the communities, and the challenges you will face as a leader in implementing your leadership platform.

The youth must also begin to demand participation in issues that affect their future. This can be through forming advocacy groups to demand political, economic, social, and environmental inclusion at local government and national government levels.
THE ROLE OF OTHER INSTITUTIONS
The chieftaincy institution can provide a good platform for youth leadership. Traditional rulers must change their style of traditional governance to attract the youth in helping achieve local development objectives. The traditions and customs that surround chieftaincy practice should be critically examined and steered to be in harmony and responsive to current and future demands.
Religious bodies should make spirituality socially, politically, and economically relevant. History is replete with how genuine spirituality has advanced the course of generations. Leadership institutes should be established to develop the totality of the youth.
Businesses/companies can collaborate to train future business leaders in all spheres of economic activities. These institutes can help prepare young people take up the business mantle from the older generation.
Political parties provide political administrators for the governance of our countries. It is however alarming and disheartening to know that most political parties do not have political leadership institutes, especially for the youth.
Today, no training requirements are needed to assume political leadership. Age and criminal records checks have become the criteria for this most important area of national development. The health of nations have been battered because, people who are on the threshold of forming their basic life skills, philosophies, and behaviours have had the destiny of nations thrust onto their laps.
THE WAY FORWARD
The existing theory of business leadership misrepresents human beings engaged in business as one-dimensional beings whose only mission is to maximize profit. This is a much distorted picture of a human being. Human beings are not money-making robots. The indispensable fact about human beings is that they are multi-dimensional. Their satisfaction and joy comes from many sources, not just from making money.
Hitherto, economic theory has built the whole theory of business on the assumption that human beings economic lives are solely dependent on the pursuit of their selfish interests. This theory concludes that the optimal outcome for society will take place when each individual’s search for egotistic benefit is given free rein. This misconception of human beings excludes any role to other aspects of life - political, social, emotional, spiritual, environmental, psychological etc.
This distorted thinking and inaccuracies built overtime in our economic thinking, has helped to create the multiple crises we face today. If we are able to recognize this flaw in our theoretical construction, the solution is obvious. The one-dimensional money robot can be replaced with a multi-dimensional leader - a person who has both selfish and selfless interests at the same time. This understanding will be a fertile ground for genuine leaders to grow and blossom.
It is therefore inappropriate for any institution to presume that the only way a nation can progress is to raise only business leaders. This will result in a chaotic society. We want leaders in all spheres of life. We want leaders who will affect and elevate our emotions to become selfless and seek to do common good. We need leaders who will affect our psyche and provoke us to think, and to achieve heights we have never thought of. Yes, indeed, we need leaders to appeal to our senses of song and dance. We need leaders who will activate our mathematical and scientific faculties and to change our attitudes towards the environment. Of course we need leaders that will appeal to our ego so as to make us selfish and cause us to make money to run our businesses. The world’s theatre demands this symphony of leaders. I believe you are the generation of such leaders.
Thank you and GOD bless you all.
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY KOFI B. KUKUBOR* AT THE AFRICA GLOBAL SISTER CITIES YOUTH LINK –AGSCYL (GLOBAL SISTER CITIES FOUNDATION 2ND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE) IN ACCRA, GHANA. 13TH MAY 2010. VENUE: ACCRA INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTRE.


*Kofi B. Kukubor is a Lecturer at the Pentecost University College, Accra Ghana