COMPETENCIES FOR POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

Proven leadership prowess is critical for political governance, writes Linus Okorie

I love the word ‘competence’. When someone does a job or task for you, and does it so well, it makes you happy, doesn’t it? Competence is the ability to do something well to the satisfaction of everyone involved. The power of competence has the capacity to help institutions grow.

In organizations, people are placed in positions that match their competencies, so that they are able to deliver excellently to the benefit of all. However, if you breed a system that does not celebrate competence, the resultant effect will be multiplying incompetence within that system. Therefore, it is my conviction that the greatest success story of organizations, institutions and nations are predicated upon the effective placement of competent people within their systems. Herein lies the awesomeness of institutional competence.

The moment an individual steps away from his core competence, that individual diminishes in effectiveness. Therefore, you cannot build a system until you understand the power of celebrating competence. When people are good at what they do, what to do is encourage them, inspire them, and reward them. At the end of the day, the end of education is the capacity to combine competence and conscience in order to produce something wholesome, outstanding and usable.

For an organization or nation to make progress and thrive, it must scale its appreciation for and celebration of competence. It must honor merit, and match jobs to proven capacities. An entity that achieves this will inevitably grow in leaps and bounds.

I understand the times we are in today. It is a political era and I would love to concentrate my thoughts on competence for political leadership. Let’s explore competencies that every political office aspirant in Nigeria should possess. You see, the electorate must begin to look out for specific competencies that are critical and important for every political office aspirant to have, regardless of the office they are vying for.

Proven leadership prowess is critical for political governance. Leadership determines the kind and quality of results any organization or society gets. The first quality all genuine leaders possess is vision—and that is what we will start our discourse with today. Simply put, vision is what gives energy, will and drive to any political leader. The quality of a political leader’s vision is what determines and produces the quality of the policies, programs, projects and interventions that he will enact, commission and represent.

Therefore, if a political leader does not have a compelling vision, does not have an antecedence of accomplishing great things, has not been known for getting things done, there is no need to give such a person the responsibility of a political office. If the purpose of a person seeking political office has not been understood by the community, the constituency, the state, or the country, that person has no business getting any thumbprints at the polls. So, if someone is running for a political office around your space, here is a simple question to ask them: What is your vision for the constituent you will be leading if elected? If they are not able to articulate their vision in a way and manner that is compelling, simple, and transmittable to the general public for easy assimilation, that is your cue to not vote them in.

Vision is critical to pushing societies forward, and only visionary leaders can forge Nigeria into her destiny. Therefore, let’s be prudent henceforth to choose only visionary leaders.

Next on our discourse, let’s focus on integrity as a crucial ingredient or capital that political office seekers should possess and display before electing them. This is an essential discourse because integrity is the fulcrum of personal character and effective leadership. Hence, we must look at the people’s antecedence before electing them. In their previous endeavors and capacities, did they serve transparently and contribute significantly to the growth of the organizations or society at large? If no, give no room to such people if we want Nigeria to thrive.

The truth of the matter is that we must bring up integrity as a criterium for political leadership. This is important because to represent a people, to become the voice of a people, you must be trustworthy and show proven character and conscience. If people can’t trust you, how would they elect you into a position? In fact, even the middlemen who canvass for political leaders must be checked for integrity. Let’s drum it into such people henceforth that integrity is essential before you can canvass for any leader, and the leader himself must have the necessary integrity; they must display capacity and a heart that is honorable, can speak truth at every point in time, and is a transparent.

In other words, we must henceforth hold our political office seekers accountable to an oath to not touch public funds and resources, but protect and judiciously appropriate them for the benefit of the people. I am advising that these be the qualities we look out for when we are considering electing people into political offices.

The third competence political office seekers must possess before we consider them is courage. Courage is the bone of leadership. In truth, hardly can anybody attempt to seek for a political office without having a lot of courage to even step out in this very challenged and difficult country Nigeria. Nevertheless, there is more courage to be expected, especially in confronting the challenges that await them in their respective offices if and when elected and sworn in.

To be an effective political leader requires courage. This means your ability to say the truth at every point in time, your ability to take on difficult projects and push them through to completion, as well as your ability to confront mediocrity and incompetence.

I can tell you for free that there are political stakeholders whose business, literally, is to see that a political leader fails, if he doesn’t yield to their demands. Hence, without courage you will be overpowered and trumped by these wicked souls. Therefore, we need political leaders with high levels of courage to speak with authority, tact, and clarity, and to commands compliance enforced by the power of his office.

If there was ever a time that Nigeria needed leaders that are courageous, it is now. Leaders across the spectrum of our polity who will stand for what is true and represent only what will positively impact the people. We need people who have the courage to toss out and reengineer negative or dysfunctional policies as a result of the quality of their minds. Therefore, I hereby submit to you that courage is a vital quality we should be looking for in the people who aspire to lead us.

It was Jaggi Vasudev who said “If you want to be successful, don’t seek success – seek competence, empowerment; do nothing short of the best that you can do”. We must be deliberate to ensure only people who have a commitment to sustain competence are elected or appointed into public positions. We must remember if a man does not have a purpose for waking up, sleeping becomes interesting.

 Okorie is a leadership development expert spanning 27 years in the research, teaching and coaching of leadership in Africa and across the world. He is the CEO of the Gotni Leadership Centre. Email me linus.okorie@gotni.africa