By Sir Fosuaba Mensah Banahene
Leadership is, perhaps, the most written-about topic in the area of social dynamics or psychology and the reason cannot be far-fetched. The lack of Leadership is, perhaps, the most critical problem facing society today and it affects all sectors; Government, Church, Family, Labour, Education, Business, International relations and so on. Without some members playing “leading” roles, a group can scarcely achieve its goal. The role of a leader is key to the life of any group. In 2008, one social scientist stated that there are over 35,000 books and publications on leadership, and yet, in our world today what can be called successful leadership-situations scarcely abound. Obviously, with such a plethora of views from experts, one can only expect an equal enormous outpouring of definitions and meanings to explain the word, “Leadership”.
As a guiding thread to the understanding of how the Social Doctrine of the Church upholds leadership, this writer adopts the following for the meaning of leadership: “an art or process of influencing people so that they strive willingly and enthusiastically towards the achievement of goals of the group he is part”. With this, one can surmise that people who work to assume leadership roles in their organizations aim at applying their talents and knowledge to influence others for the good of the organization. Such persons are not coerced in any way and their motivation stems from their determination to help the organization or society they work or live in to achieve their goal.
They see themselves as instruments of change. Consequently leadership, as a tool in change dynamics, has several models but it is not the purpose at this time to discuss these models/theories, though a couple of them may be referred to in some of the subsequent topics.
The concept of leadership is sometimes used so carelessly to suggest that it is only the one who presides over an organization, social or otherwise, that is a leader and all others are not.
There are also those who think that there are people who are “born-leaders” and therefore, theirs is always to lead irrespective of their motivation, skills and knowledge. Sometimes, too, people look at Leadership as if it is a managerial science and, therefore, they attempt to apply quantitative methods to guide and assess performance. Each of the above three scenarios can be described as fallacious and misnomer for the following reasons:
1) The primary purpose of leadership is not the assumption of the top organizational or hierarchical position within a group though a person playing the role of “leading” more often gets approved for such position. To be able to influence a group to recognize a credible pathway in its march towards a set-goal is rather the primary element in leadership. In this respect, we become Leaders, irrespective of our position on the organizational chart, when we are able to influence others or some of the others by our methods or skills or ideas, to follow a path that credibly points to the achievement of the set-goal of the group or society. Indeed, one does not necessarily have to be in an “office-holding” position in his group or organization in order to be a leader. The Catholic Social Teaching urges individuals not to be obsessed with becoming “office-holder positions” but to primarily and objectively let their purpose prioritise their activities in the group. The Teaching draws attention to what the Gospel says: “But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt 6: 33).
2) Each person created in the image and likeness of God has a latent quality that enables him to engage in social dynamics to exhibit his or her particular talent in given situations. It is through engagement in group activities that one is able to identify and sharpen their innate quality of leadership ability. Therefore, leaders emerge from the womb of social encounters: peers and people in the community or organization freely engage with each other and as they do so their talents get triggered. Throughout history, great leaders have always emerged as a result of their encounter with social conditions, occupational engagements, community work or phenomena of suffering and depravity. Therefore, persons who are leaders could not have been born to be so, much in the same way as no-one was born to be, say, a mathematician. The idea of “born leaders” is, arguably, a hanging concept.
3) Thirdly, there is a thin line of difference between “Leadership” and “Managership”. Even though a Manager may play Leadership role at times, he works essentially towards achieving set targets given him and so is obsessed with “doing things right” as stipulated for him while the leader, obsessed with making his group achieve the best for the holistic good of the group focuses on “doing right things”. There is a palpable difference between “doing things right” and “doing right things”. While the former assesses accomplishment based on ability to drive or influence others to do remotely prescribed things (already boxed), the latter assesses accomplishment based on ability to motivate others to do things the group initiates and accepts as being in the best interest of the group.
