I recently had a very interesting conversation with a European expatriate who has been working in Africa for a number of years.
Bruno
(not his real name) is German, but grew up in the chocolate and
wristwatch producing capital of the world, Switzerland and posits that
the problem we have on the continent is using the word “leadership”
fairly loosely when what we should be demanding from those in charge of
both public and private institutions is “management”.
I
had to pause for a moment and reflect on his words. “So what would you
call Angela Merkel, then?” I asked. “In light of the craziness of Donald
Trump, wouldn’t she be regarded as the leader of the free world?”
Bruno
was very unambiguous in his response. “Germans don’t consider Angela
Merkel as a leader. They view any one in government as being a manager,
there to take care of the country’s resources.
Angela
is therefore the chief manager for German resources and has built a very
strong track record around that.” He quickly scribbled a bell curve to
illustrate his point.
“Leadership is a very rare
quality and it is reserved for people who make a big difference in the
lives of their followers.” Pointing to the tapering right hand side of
the bell curve, he continued, “Only about 10 per cent of a population is
made up of true leaders. The majority sits in the middle as people who
manage.”
He chuckled as he pointed to the left
tapering side of the bell curve. “This 10 per cent or so are not worth
mentioning. Most of us sit in the middle, we are given the
responsibility of managing institutions or countries and that is what we
are capable of.
By now my curiosity was really piqued and I urged him
to continue. “Germans don’t like the tag leader, since the whole Adolf
Hitler thing, and it’s the same with the Swiss.
Do you
ever hear about Swiss leaders?” Hmm. That stopped me dead in my seated
tracks. I’d never heard about a Swiss leader, come to think of it. So
Bruno threw me a challenge to read up on Swiss politics in order to see
where the concept of management versus leadership was well executed.
The
national government of Switzerland known as the “Federal Council” has
only seven members, who are elected by Parliament for a four-year
renewable term.
The seven members are drawn from the
political parties with the highest political base. On an annual basis, a
“President” is elected from amongst the Federal Councilors to serve a
one-year term.
The Federal President chairs the
sessions of the executive and undertakes special ceremonial duties,
particularly abroad. Each Federal Councilor, including the President,
heads one of the departments (ministries) of the Federal Council. The
Federal Council is a collegial body and everyone is deemed to share
power.
In Switzerland and Germany therefore, according
to Bruno, politicians are considered to be managers who are there to
manage and oversee the resources entrusted to them by the citizenry.
You
only need a leader in a crisis, but if an organisation is well managed,
then you don’t need a permanent leader. He paused to watch a variety of
emotions, particularly discernment, play on my face.
He
concluded, “It’s wrong to ask managers to lead when they are simply not
capable of doing so. When one is in office, one should ask themselves:
Am I supposed to be a leader in this situation or am I supposed to be a
manager?”
If Bruno’s argument is valid, and we pressed
ctrl+alt+del to reboot our country, imagine the standard we would hold
our political and corporate “leaders” to? Deliver the simple mandate to
utilise resources well and produce a return and you will be considered
successful. Fail on that mandate and, well, keep on Johnny Walking.
*************
Last
week I erroneously stated that the KCB M-Pesa loan product was
fee-based rather than interest-rate based. I wish to clarify that the
product is interest-rate based, charging 1.16 per cent per month with a
one-off negotiation fee of 2.5 per cent. The cost for a one-month loan
therefore is 3.66 per cent.
My sincere apologies for the misstatement.
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