Is The World Losing Grip on Quality Leadership in Pursuit of Democracy?

Of late, we have witnessed and will continue to witness the wave of social misfits taking on the leadership mantles across the globe, as people attempt to perfect the concept of freedom of choice.

Leadership is said to be the ability of an individual or a group of individuals to influence and guide followers or other members of an organization.

Leadership is also said to involve making sound and sometimes difficult decisions, creating and articulating a clear vision, establishing achievable goals and providing followers with the knowledge and tools necessary to achieve those goals. Good leaders tend to be extremely good listeners, able to listen actively and elicit information by good questioning.

They are also likely to show high levels of assertiveness, which enables them to make their point without aggression, but firmly. They know how to build rapport quickly and effectively, to develop good, strong relationships with others, whether peers or subordinates. These skills come together to help to build charisma, that quality of ‘brightness’ which makes people want to follow a leader.

An effective leader possess the following characteristics: self-confidence, strong communication and management skills, creative and innovative thinking, perseverance in the face of failure, willingness to take risks, openness to change, and levelheadedness and reactiveness in times of crisis.

Thus, as we make choices of leaders, we must put into consideration that the person to lead must measure up to this.

On the other hand, democracy is a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free and fair elections

Democracy is a form of government where people have the ability to elect their leaders and more than one party to choose from is available (Andrew Thagard, Junior, Stanford).

A Democracy is a system which places priority on allowing the common individual the ability to express his or her ideas without fear of persecution or arrest (Paul Cruickshank, Sophomore, Morrissey).

So it`s these democratic concepts that we of late following in selection of leaders, and because people must be left with the freedom to choose their leaders and also the majority concept embedded in democracy must be adhered to , we are now forced to accommodate which ever leader the majority elects, despite the fact that many would not have passed the test but since they have been elected by the majority through democratic processes then we are ready to go.

We have few case of individual leaders across the globe who have been elected in leadership positions who many have judged unfit in the first place to have a chance on leadership, in USA for example we have the incumbent president who up to date half way into his term of office many Americans have refused to pass him as sane and fit to occupy the white house, yet they find themselves with no choice but to contend with him since democracy dictated against their very wishes.

In Uganda we have a parliament where 1/3 of members that wouldn’t even qualify to be LC1 chair persons in the first place but are deliberating and passing laws on our behalf , we are picking kids in their senior six vocation or first years of their university education as Members of parliament, we are picking comedians, musicians, and other social misfits in the name of exercising democratic principles, and sacrificing quality leadership in the name of democracy. Come 2021, we are posed for so many surprises.

In Luxembourg Xavier Bettel, the former mayor of Luxembourg City between 2011 and 2013, is the country’s first openly gay prime minister so he moves around with a fellow man as a wife as a first husband or whatever they call such madness, but who would have thought that in his life time such a thing will be openly heard of, but because he was democratically elected what would those opposite to having him as their leader do?

In France the president is married to literally his mother since her last born has the same age like macron (her husband), this only would be enough to disqualify him before the social upright communities but the evil of democracy has eroded all the social morality and we now accept anything provided the majority dictates.

In Ukraine, another comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy is rumored to be winning the presidential election, yet when he announced at midnight on New Year’s Eve that he was running to be president of Ukraine, many pundits dismissed the move as a public relations stunt.

Now, the man who has no political experience and few clear policies appears to be on the verge of replacing the real-life incumbent.

Campaigning on little more than his charisma and a desire for change, he won the first round of the country’s presidential election last weekend.

Most opinion polls suggest he will beat President Petro Poroshenko by a considerable margin in the April 21 runoff.

So, what happened to the breed of leadership that we used to admirer, have we run out of quality leaders or they have kept away and left the field to be occupied by social misfits avoiding spoiling their good earned reputation or democracy is that bad that it collects everything on its way and dumps it on our door steps as leaders.

Are we losing a grip on quality leadership in pursuit of democracy??

For God and The Pearl of Africa.