By Noah Mangwarara.
There has been so much talk about “naming and shaming” the parastatals bosses abusing office but that has all been rhetoric. Such utterances seem to coincide with an upcoming election all the time; probably as a way of convincing and enticing the electorate of how serious the managers of our country have become. Who in their rightful senses wouldn’t want to be associated with a political administration that does everything above board to the point of flushing out the garbage not aligning with morality and sanity? Amazingly though, the latest set of reports from the Auditor General with respect to the state of affairs in our parastatals leaves a lot to be desired, with serious exposure of maladministration and rampart corruption. The rot continues at alarming levels as the country continues sinking to depths never imagined before.
We have gotten to a point where our somehow “unscrupulous” leaders are establishing a new order in the form of corruption and immorality on one end and toxic coupled with catastrophic leadership on the other hand. They seem to have mastered the art of making history, though in the wrong direction. This art of mismanagement ought to be curtailed forthwith since truly at this rate, this country could be auctioned at a very insignificant amount soon; what with the manner in which decisions are being made. It can be likened to a lunatic who has stumbled upon a whistle and they go about blowing it anyhow. Instead of blowing the whistle on the very people who are letting us down, they are the ones holding the whistle on our behalf and a closer assessment reveals a situation where the very people threatening to “name and shame” are the one who are having rotting corpses in their cupboards.
Immoral leadership is the state of affairs where the leader has no care and concern about the entity they are heading; concentrating primarily on the personal aggrandizement. It is a situation where no one matters but the person in charge. I was taught that leadership is a privilege to better the lives of others through making decisions that are above board but it appears as though l have to go back to school to write some corrections if what we see before us is used to define the new realities. There is no point in teaching that which is at odds with prevailing practice. Probably the Honorable Minister of Education and his team are right after all with their not so popular new curriculum.
We are at a point where the leader of the 21st century cannot tell the difference between right and wrong; blue and black. We have a caliber of leadership lacking the capacity to distinguish their right hand from their left. Our leaders are big babies, big in stature but infants at heart, with no idea of what constitute morality, plunging into anything before them without any idea of the consequences of such decisions’ impact on the greater good or bad of the masses. It is a type with no sense of care or conscience. Considering the errors of yesterday and the past four decades, one would have thought that we have learnt our lesson thus far. It is only logical to put a stop to the stupidity that we see around us by thinking way beyond self, way beyond this generation and deep into the future, which is the true essence of leadership.
There is urgent need to challenge the status quo (the mess that we are in) and choose to be selfless coming to the realization that it is not for personal benefit that you are placed in a respectable position, but it is on behalf of the followers and the interest of the many. A moral leader places less importance on self, but commits fully towards one’s followers and the broader, greater picture of achieving success for all. A moral leader’s methods of attaining a goal does not step away from society’s ethics and values – the leader does not compromise morals for efficiency. A moral leader takes pride in embracing “good” over “evil”, and is characterized with attributes such as honesty, reliability, and uprightness.
Moral leadership demands applying the moral code of conduct to the strategic and operational management of an entity, business or otherwise. Leadership morality is a function of an individual’s own moral principles in the framework of the political, business and cultural environment in which the organisation is operating. It demands being guided by a moral code which ensures that unacceptable behaviour is condemned in the strongest of terms whilst appropriate behaviour is commended and acknowledged.
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