What it takes to be an effective political leader in a multiethnic setting

Oct 04, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
We want leaders and not managers! This may be true more so in politics. Unfortunately, many so-called political leaders are managers.
Guyana through the nation’s chief executive and few other multiethnic countries may have started an experiment in political leadership that has a vision and a method that socially construct and reconstruct a leader to be an effective leader, and not to be a manager.
At a time when leadership succession within parties and leadership arising from national elections are imminent, we need to take a close look at who the leader is and what the leader is expected to do.
A political leader is a person who wields the most influence in his/her party, or in government in the pursuit of desired people’s goals.
An understanding of what makes for effective leadership is necessary for people to make the appropriate choice in ensuring that any incoming leader makes the people’s idea of nation building a reality. This understanding is our barometer for identifying a fitting leader.
But how could people determine that a person is an effective leader? Some people believe that a leader should have suitable physical and personality characteristics. Physical aspects could include age, appearance, height, and weight; and personality attributes may include adaptability, emotional balance, dominance, and self-confidence. However, over the years, there have been no reliable results in the relationship between physical distinctiveness and personality traits and leadership effectiveness.
Sometimes, we get hooked on a specific trait, such as, mode of dress, character, speech pattern, etc. Each of these traits may be necessary, but not sufficient for leadership effectiveness, as evidenced by the full repertoire of effective leaders around the world.
Other people, in determining an effective leader, focus on styles of leader behaviour, that is, they develop a behavioural profile that befits a leader.
In this context, a political leader could have a humane leadership style where the behavioural focus is on the leader extracting ready acceptance of him/her, from people who see themselves as being the politically and socially disadvantaged.
Creating goodwill and mutual trust among these people can enhance leadership effectiveness, for it makes for greater group support. The behavioural profile approach also may use a project-oriented style where the leader emphasises planning, monitoring, and project completion.
A society high on need deficiencies, may find this project or task-oriented style quite useful.
Some leaders may combine the two behaviour styles – concern with relating to people, respecting people, and developing mutual trust; and concern with project-completion tasks. Some studies have shown that leaders are effective when they combine both behaviours. In other words, political leaders have to not only ‘press the flesh’ but also be knowledgeable about issues and have the capacity to resolve these issues.
Nonetheless, even embracing all these scenarios may be insufficient to achieve leadership effectiveness because different leadership styles may be needed for different situations.
The first situation is the degree to which the people’s acceptance or rejection of a leader, determines his/her effectiveness. The more a group can accept a leader, the greater may be leadership effectiveness.
The race card creates societal divisions which reduce the leader’s capacity to relate effectively to most groups. In this situation, there will be less pressing of the flesh; the result could be limited use of knowledge to resolving problems afflicting people who may have inadequate interaction with the leader.
Restricted interaction with the leader means minimal information will emanate from the people.
And so, bare minimum information from significant groups can make the leader and his/her party vulnerable, and even undermine the political system. Under these conditions, and in the interest of nation building, the leader must develop the know-how to change the racist and class stereotypes that constrain society.
The leader has to penetrate such groups engagingly to secure their information about their community; and then act on that information in the interest of those people.
A second situation is the nature of projects to be accomplished that will enable a community to meet its needs. A people’s call for electricity, water, roads, a hospital, and a kindergarten school, etc., requires projects that are complex and avant-garde.
These projects, by virtue of having a long-term completion timeline, must be identified early in any Administration. Early recognition would ensure that community needs are met early and with quick responses.
A political leader, with an effective leadership style, will prioritize such projects early in the Administration’s term of office, in order to guarantee community satisfaction and fulfillment of people’s needs.
A third situation is whether a leader has adequate formal power and authority. Again, parties using the race and class card at election times may guarantee divisions.
Such cleavages will retard the growth of a leader’s power and authority. What, then, is the most effective leadership style in a multiethnic society harangued at election times by race, ethnicity and class stereotypes?
Well, given the three situations where a leader faces divided support, minimal control over completion of long-term projects, and only modest formal power, the most effective leadership style may be a task-oriented style.
This style assures the people that the leader wants to get the job done through ‘hands-on’ involvement in projects that provide ‘bread and butter’ for the people. The goods have to be delivered!
Still, another method of finding an effective leader is, first, to ask diagnostic questions pertaining to time, quality, and acceptance, on various problems, and then select the appropriate decision method to resolve such problems. An example follows.
Some people’s perception of a leader may be negative because that leader has divided support, negligible control over project completion, and only inadequate power; when people carry such negative perceptions, then the required leadership style should be one, that seeks information on people’s concerns and needs from the people themselves.
Then, two, the leader makes a decision based on the people’s information, but may or may not include the people’s influence in the making of that decision. Politically, once the people provide information on their needs, then they would require the leader to act promptly.
Further, in this same vein, a political leader having structured meetings with the people over a protracted period is not a gimmick because the information-gathering capacity on people’s concerns and needs is overwhelming in those situations. Make no mistake about this; this is information from the people themselves.
Ignore this information and refuse to act at your own peril! Quick action to satisfy people’s needs determined by the people themselves embodies a task-oriented leadership style that can be effective in a multiethnic society.
Quick response and task-oriented leadership can dwarf the societal divisions created by racist and class stereotypes.
Prem Misir