The Imperatives of Leadership (Part 1)

Introduction

The principle of leadership has been of interest for hundreds of years, from the early Greek Philosophers such as Plato and Socrates, to the plethora of management and leadership gurus whose books can be found everywhere. Seldom, however, has the need for effective leadership been voiced more strongly than now. It is argued that in this changing, global environment, leadership holds the answer not only to the success of individuals and organisations, but also to sectors, regions and nations. A nation or an organisation without leadership, is like a General without troops or a ship without water to sail on. This is to underscore the importance of leadership. Whether a nation is great or not, or whether an organisation succeeds or not, depends more on its leadership rather than other variables. To this end, we shall x-ray the definition of leadership; what it means; how it operates and its indisputable imperatives.

Definition of Leadership

Despite recognition of the importance of leadership, however, there remains a certain mystery as to what leadership actually is, or how to define it. In a review of leadership research, R.M. Stogdill in his book, ‘Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research’, concluded that there are “almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept”. At the heart of the problem of defining leadership, lie two fundamental difficulties.

Firstly, like notions such as ‘love’, ‘freedom’ and ‘happiness’, leadership is a complex construct open to subjective interpretation. Everyone has their own intuitive understanding of what leadership is, based on a mixture of experience and learning, which is difficult to capture in a succinct definition.

Secondly, the way in which leadership is defined and understood, is strongly influenced by one’s theoretical stance. There are those who view leadership as the consequence of a set of traits or characteristics possessed by ‘leaders’, whilst others view leadership as a social process that emerges from group relationships. Such divergent views, will always result in a difference of opinion about the nature of leadership. “Leadership appears to be, like power, an ‘essentially contested concept”.

Some definitions of leadership, restrict it to purely non-coercive influence towards shared (and socially acceptable) objectives. Within such frameworks, the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein would not be seen as leaders, but rather as tyrants working solely for their own benefit and depending on threat, violence and intimidation, rather than the more subtle processes of interpersonal influence more frequently associated with ‘true’ leadership. Such distinctions, however, are always problematic as the actions of nearly all leaders could be perceived more or less beneficially, by certain individuals and groups.

In short, leadership is a complex phenomenon that touches on many other important organisational, social and personal processes. It depends on a process of influence, whereby people are inspired to work towards group goals, not through coercion, but through personal motivation. Which definition you accept should be a matter of choice, informed by your own predispositions, organisational situation and beliefs, but with an awareness of the underlying assumptions and implications of your particular approach.

Types of Leadership
1. Transformational Leadership
2. Transactional Leadership

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership is defined as, a leadership approach that causes change in individuals and social systems. In its ideal form, it creates valuable and positive change in the followers, with the end goal of developing followers into leaders. Enacted in its authentic form, transformational leadership enhances the motivation, morale and performance of followers through a variety of mechanisms. A transformational leader therefore, is a person who stimulates and inspires (transforms) followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes.

He/she pays attention to the concerns and developmental needs of individual followers; they change followers’ awareness of issues, by helping them to look at old problems in a new way; and they are able to arouse, excite and inspire followers to make extra effort to achieve group goals. The Transformational leadership theory is all about leadership that creates positive change in the followers, whereby, they take care of each other’s interests and act in the interests of the group as a whole.

Transformational leadership enhances the motivation, morale and performance of followers, through a variety of mechanisms. These include, connecting the follower’s sense of identity and self to the project and the collective identity of the organisation; being a role model for followers that inspires them and makes them interested; challenging followers to take greater ownership of their work, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of followers, so the leader can align followers with tasks that enhance their performance.

Weaknesses of Transformational Leadership

First, is the ambiguity underlying its influences and processes. The theory fails to explain the interacting variables, between transformational leadership and positive work outcomes. The theory would be stronger if the essential influence processes were identified more clearly, and used to explain how each type of behaviour affects each type of mediating variable and outcome.

Second, is the overemphasis of the theory on leadership processes at the dyadic level. The major interest is to explain a leader’s direct influence over individual followers, not leader influence on group or organisational processes. Examples of relevant group-level processes include: (1) how well the work is organised to utilise personnel and resources; (2) how well inter-related group activities are coordinated; (3) the amount of member agreement about objectives and priorities; (4) mutual trust and cooperation among members; (5) the extent of member identification with the group; (6) member confidence in the capacity of the group to attain its objectives; (7) the procurement and efficient use of resources; and (8) external coordination with other parts of the organisation and outsiders. How leaders influence these group processes, is not explained very well by the transformational leadership theories. Organisational processes also receive insufficient attention, in most theories of transformational leadership.

Leadership is viewed as a key determinant of organisational effectiveness, but the causal effects of leader behaviour on the organisational processes that ultimately determine effectiveness, are seldom described in any detail in most studies on transformational leadership. Transformational leadership theories, would benefit from a more detailed description of leader influence on group and organisational processes.

Third, is the insufficient specification of situational variables in transformational leadership. A fundamental assumption of the transformational leadership theory, is that the underlying leadership processes and outcomes are essentially the same in all situations.

Fourth, the theory does not explicitly identify any situation where transformational leadership is detrimental. Several studies have shown that, transformational leadership can have detrimental effects on both followers and the organisation. Stevens et al (1995) believes that transformational leadership is biased in favour of top managements, owners and managers. Followers can be transformed to such a high level of emotional involvement in the work over time, that they become stressed and burned out. Individual leaders can exploit followers (even without realising it), by creating a high level of emotional involvement when it is not necessary. If members of an organisation are influenced by different leaders with competing visions, the result will be increased role ambiguity and role conflict. Leaders who build strong identification with their subunit and its objectives can improve member motivation, but excessive competition may arise among different subunits of the organisation.

When inter-unit cooperation is necessary to achieve organisational objectives, the result can be a decline in organisational effectiveness. The possibility that transformational leadership has negative outcomes, needs to be investigated with research methods designed to detect such effects.

Lastly, like most leadership theories, the theory of transformational leadership assumes the heroic leadership stereotype. Effective performance by an individual, group, or organisation is assumed to depend on leadership by an individual with the skills to find the right path and motivate others to take it. In most versions of transformational leadership theory, it is a basic postulate that an effective leader will influence followers to make self-sacrifices and exert exceptional effort. Influence is unidirectional, and it flows from the leader to the follower. When a correlation is found between transformational leadership and subordinate commitment or performance, the results are interpreted as showing that the leader influenced subordinates to perform better. There is little interest in describing reciprocal influence processes, or shared leadership.

Researchers study how leaders motivate followers or overcome their resistance, not how leaders encourage followers to challenge the leader’s vision or develop a better one. In spite of the numerous criticisms of transformational leadership, its popularity has grown in recent times. For instance, studies have shown that Managers in different settings, including the Military and Business, found that transformational leaders were evaluated as more effective, higher performers, more promotable than their transactional counterparts, and more interpersonally sensitive. Empirical evidence also shows that transformational leadership is strongly correlated with employee work outcomes such as: lower turnover rates, higher level of productivity, employee satisfaction, creativity, goal attainment and follower well-being.

Transactional Leadership

Transactional Leadership, also known as Managerial Leadership, focuses on the role of supervision, organisation, and group performance; transactional leadership is a style of leadership, in which the leader promotes compliance of his followers through both rewards and punishments. Unlike Transformational leadership, leaders using the transactional approach are not looking to change the future, they are looking to merely keep things the same. These leaders pay attention to followers’ work, in order to find faults and deviations. This type of leadership is effective in crisis and emergency situations, as well as when projects need to be carried out in a specific fashion.
Transactional leadership works at the basic levels of need satisfaction, where transactional leaders focus on the lower levels of the hierarchy. Transactional leaders use an exchange model, with rewards being given for good work or positive outcomes. Conversely, people with this leadership style also can punish poor work or negative outcomes, until the problem is corrected. One way that transactional leadership focuses on lower level needs, is by stressing specific task performance. Transactional leaders are effective in getting specific tasks completed, by managing each portion individually. (To be continued).

Serious and Trivial

Week after week henceforth, this column will deliberately include short bites on some sounds and bites. It would include jokes (to soothe our aching nerves); philosophical platitudes (to redirect our steps); and scriptural quotes (to pave the way to eternity). We commence this week.
“A frog decided to reach the top of a tree. All frogs shouted, it’s impossible! It’s impossible!! Still the frog reached the top…. How? Because, he was deaf and he thought everyone was encouraging him to reach the top. BE DEAF TO NEGATIVE THOUGHTS, IF YOUR AIM IS TO REACH YOUR GOAL.” – Anonymous

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

“Ultimately, leadership is not about glorious crowning acts. It’s about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter. It is about laying the groundwork for others’ success, and then standing back and letting them shine”. (Chris Hadfield)

The New Electoral Bill: Primaries and Some Pitfalls Ahead

This informative article by Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi examines the adjustments made to the Electoral Bill, touching upon the Senate’s reversal of itself vis-à-vis the famous Section 52 of the Electoral Act, examining Section 87 and the introduction of mandatory direct primaries and the possible disadvantages that could arise therefrom, while pointing out that the failure of the National Assembly to amend Section 31(1) of the Act, prevents INEC from giving effect to the qualifying or disqualifying provisions of the Constitution

Background

The Senate on Tuesday, 12th October, 2021 following a motion for re-Committal of some clauses of the Electoral Act No. 6 2010 (Repeal & Re-enactment) Bill 2021 made some adjustments to the Bill as previously passed by it. The adjustment affected four Clauses, vis 43, 52, 63 and 87. Many have hailed the Senate for these amendments, especially for deleting the proviso in the controversial Clause 63 dealing with the electronic transmission of results which had against popular opinion, subjected the discretion of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transmit results electronically to the National Communication Commission’s report of satisfactory network availability coverage and the approval of the National Assembly. Fortunately, wise counsel prevailed, and the Senate harkened to the call of Nigerians and reversed itself even before the scheduled harmonisation conference with the House of Representatives.

The euphoria that has greeted this popular change of mind by the Senate, has somewhat overshadowed another critical adjustment done by the Senate. This concerns the mode of nominating candidates for elections. This is certainly one of the most contentious and controversial issues in our democratic journey so far, this term. Our law reports are replete with a plethora of decisions on this pre-election issue between members of the same political party, which touches on internal party democracy and the role of ‘Godfathers’ and ‘Moneybags’, who wield overbearing influence in the political parties in a manner that is antithetical to democratic tenets. It is in an attempt to tame this anti-democratic monster, that the legislature has deemed it fit to intervene in what generally is regarded as the domestic affair of the parties.

Clause 87 of the Electoral Act

The old and extant provision of the Act, gives parties the discretion to elect to conduct their primaries by ‘direct’ or ‘indirect’ means. The new Clause 87 has taken away this discretion and prescribed that it shall be by direct primaries, thus foisting this mode on all parties. This brings it in line with the House of Representatives’ position. There are pros and cons on both sides, but, this isn’t our focus presently. We are concerned more with some of the pitfalls and shortcomings in the present Bill relating to primaries which has passed its Third Reading, and is therefore, in the last stages of being sent to the President for his assent. If these concerns are not flagged and addressed now, we run the risk that the Bill will become an Act of Parliament, and rather than reform the process and make it better, it will become another untamed monster, as bad, if not worse than the mischief it intended to correct. We should point out however, that although much attention has been focussed on the indirect delegates system as being fraught with issues, this may be so because the majority of the reported cases deal with cases of indirect primaries. While issues of direct primaries have led to most of these reported cases, we should not be misled or seduced into thinking that direct primaries are free of malpractice or rigging. To underscore this, we should take a look at the direct primaries utilised by some parties for the 2019 general elections. We will observe that some of them reported figures, which they could not replicate in the general elections. That’s hard to justify, to put it mildly.

So, What’s New in the Clause?

The current Section 87 provides that;

‘A political party seeking to nominate candidates for elections under this Act shall hold direct or indirect primaries for aspirants to all elective positions, which may be monitored by the Commission.’

The amended section as passed on the other hand provides thus –

‘A political party seeking to nominate candidates for elections under this Bill shall hold direct primaries for aspirants, which shall be monitored by the Commission.’

From the above, two striking differences can be gleaned. Firstly, the proposed law takes away the discretion of the parties. They are now statutorily bound to hold their primaries by direct franchise. The indirect mode of electing delegates has now been abolished; and secondly, the proposed law directs INEC to monitor all primaries by replacing the discretionary word ‘may’ with the mandatory ‘shall’.

The first alteration may be seen by purists as another intervention by the legislature in what ought to be the domestic affairs of parties which are essentially, voluntary associations of people who come together with like minds for the purpose of furthering their political interests and beliefs, and bound only by the agreement they’ve all voluntarily subscribed to as contained in their Constitution. This school believes that whatever changes needed should equally be left to members to make, if they see the need for so doing.

The second, on the other hand, deprives INEC of it’s discretion in the discharge of its duties whether to monitor or not (In practice, it does endeavour to monitor all such Congresses and Conventions).

Sub Clause (3) provides retained the comforting assurance that the procedure for nomination ‘…shall ensure that all aspirants are given equal opportunity of being voted for by the members…’ and sub clause (4) gives powers to the parties to the parties to issue guidelines for the conduct as long as they are ‘filed with the Commission at least 14 days before the primary’. By virtue of sub clause (7), all aspirants cleared by the party to contest ‘shall be entitled to a copy of the guideline..’. It may be noted that the law doesn’t specify that aspirants will or shall be given a copy of such guideline, nor does it say the consequence of not filing such with the Commission or withholding copies from aspirants, nor does it require the party to publish such on its website or venue of primary or anywhere for that matter.

We have become accustomed to complaints of aspirants and other members that venues were shifted without notice, as was the case of a serving Minister who accused a Senate leader from the same State as orchestrating the unlawful conduct that led to his fruitless search for the venue (which is now subject to litigation), accused of not being privy to the guidelines for conduct.

Perhaps what should be of the greatest concern and worry is the fact that while the law specifies guidelines formulated by the parties being filed with the Commission and aspirants being entitled to same, it is silent on the register of members entitled to vote at such primaries. This being so, it is now left to the parties to capture this in their guidelines, or be silent about it and do as they please. This is worrisome.

Recommendations and Concerns

It is recommended that safeguards need to be put in place, by enshrining in the law a mandatory requirement that the parties maintain a register of their members and not only that copies of the register of those entitled to vote at the primaries be filed with INEC, but also that copies be given to all cleared aspirants along with the guidelines specifying the procedure adopted and the date, time and venue of the primary at least 14 days to the day of the primary . If INEC is statutorily required to publish such information, there is no reason why this should not apply mutatis mutandis to political parties who are expected to be the drivers of our democracy.

Further, while the mandatory monitoring of the direct primaries by INEC as proposed in the amendments is desirable to ensure compliance and transparency, it does throw up some rather Herculean challenges. Contrary to an assertion by a ranking Senator driving these amendments on network television recently that direct primaries are ‘cheaper’, it will become a lot more expensive, not only for aspirants and the parties, but also for the Commission and all other stakeholders, whether it is done in one central location or in all Wards/Registration Centres. If done centrally, members will have to incur the expenses and logistic challenges of getting to the venue, which may now have to be undertaken by aspirants or moneybags, thus, reinforcing rather than addressing the mischief.

If at the other extreme, it is done in the Wards/Registration Areas or Polling Units which are much closer to members, there will be the additional burden on other stakeholders including the Commission, which by virtue of sub-clause (6) is required to ‘deploy personnel to all Centres where the direct primaries are held’, Security Agencies, the Media, Observers and even the aspirants, who Clause 87(3) permit to have agents ‘for the purpose of monitoring the primaries’. There are presently 8,809 RAs/Wards. If INEC or any of the listed stakeholders were to deploy a representative to each of these Centres for the 18 political parties (who are now mandatorily required to do direct primaries), one can only imagine the cost and logistic challenges in so doing, not to mention it being undertaken in over 170,000 polling units nationwide.

Attention is also drawn to the vexed issue of the retention of the proviso to Section 31(1) of the Act which stipulates that
‘The Commission shall not reject or disqualify candidate(s) FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER’ (emphasis mine).

The continued retention of this means that the Commission cannot give effect to the qualifying or disqualifying provisions of the Constitution. So, if for example a non-Nigerian citizen, or an underaged person, or convicted felon, or even someone who has presented a forged certificate to the Commission was to be sponsored by a political party and his name forwarded to INEC, the Commission will have no choice but to accept same and put the person’s name on the ballot. Surely, this absurdity could not have been the intention of the drafters of our Constitution. This is another opportunity to correct this anomaly, and to address some of the the other pitfalls identified here. These are by no means exhaustive. We should not let it pass us by. Stakeholders should take note, and pressure the National Assembly to accordingly do the needful, failing which pressure may be brought to the issue of Presidential assent; stakeholders may consider whether to request the President to give or withhold his assent to the Bill yet again.
Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, Esq., Legal Practitioner & Former Director, INEC
Email: oluwoleuzzi@yahoo.co.uk