Trinidad and Tobago is facing a serious leadership crisis and very few people seem willing to admit it. One reason for this situation may be found in the Great man theory.
I am certain I would have said this before but given that we remain stuck in a leadership deficit I accept the risk of sounding repetitive.
As John C Maxwell points out in his book the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership, personal and organisational effectiveness is proportionate to the strength of leadership.
Leadership ability or the lack of leadership ability is a lid on personal and organisational effectiveness.
Maxwell asserted that in developing countries, because leadership was focused on position, privilege and power failed leadership can be acute, especially considering that studies of successful leaders suggest that a key element is that leadership be defined as a form of service. Serving others and showing others the way are two critical components of successful leadership.
Mind you, leadership is not simple - it is complex. Again if I can quote Maxwell: “the one thing you need to know about leadership is that there is more than one thing you need to know about leadership”.
Let us use sport as an example. When a team loses, it fires the coach.
This is so because the established theory is that there is a relationship between leadership and effectiveness and in sports results are immediate and obvious.
It can be a rather harsh denouement as there may be any number of valid excuses why a sports team or athlete in particular at the professional and or elite lor high performance level may not be performing to full potential.
But the generic view is that if an individual had been a good leader, the team or athlete wouldn’t be in the mess.
When talented teams or athletes don’t win, examine the leadership.
Let me make it clear. Getting rid of the leader isn’t always the only way to solve problems, improving and training can also be a solution.
But given the widespread systemic and structural failures that have created a culture of poor leadership it’s very difficult to expect that sports and other areas of national life will not be negatively impacted by the paucity of leaders.
The circumstance is further exacerbated by the prevailing belief system that an efficient manager is automatically a good leader. Add in a cultural dimension that the person who shouts the loudest and talks the most is anointed and expert and thus a leader. It is an environment that hardly allows for constructive discussion.
True leaders cannot be awarded, appointed or assigned.
Titles don’t have much value for a leader. Leadership has to be earned. Leading and managing are not one and the same.
If you want to determine if someone can lead and not only manage the acid test is the ability to create positive change- note- positive change - not change for changing sake or half-baked distortions and lies.
Because sport is volunteer based, it presents an added dimension to the challenge of leadership.
Aside from the usual traits such as character, integrity, honesty, ability, knowledge, ethics, sport leadership requires the ability to influence people in the absence of leverage.
In other spheres leaders have leverage. Sports leaders don’t at least not in the traditional or normal form. In business for example a boss can fire an employee. In sport it’s not as simple.
According to Maxwell many factors that come into play in leadership are intangible and as a result, he felt that only after reaching age fifty he began to understand with some degree of clarity the many aspects of leadership.
Given the leadership deficit there is a strong need for leadership training and development.
By Brian Lewis
Source: www.guardian.co.tt