By Sir Fosuaba Mensah Banahene
“…..Whoever wants to be a leader among you
Must be your servant…….For even I, the Son of Man,
Came here not to be served but to serve others.…..” Mt 20: 26-27
Leadership can be typified in several valid ways but only two modes of leadership are discussed here because of their ever-present nature within groups. These modes are Positional and Situational leaderships.
We tend to place far greater emphasis on positional leadership but in reality as far as service to one’s group or society is concerned, both positional and situational leaderships are of equal importance. Indeed, positive impact comes from relationships and service rather than the position one holds.
Positional Leadership
Leadership is said to be in a positional mode when a person holds a formal headship position to which he or she has been elected or appointed through due process. In our Associations and Organisations, headship positions are named variously as President, Chairman, Chief Executive, Director, and so on.
A positional leader is the first responsible officer of the group. He presides or chairs formal meetings of the group and represents the group at the highest level of external engagements. He, more than any other member, represents the values, norms and aspirations of the group and in most cases enjoys the privilege of being the final officer to endorse the society’s formal, valid decisions. In view of this, the positional leader must be knowledgeable and also demonstrate a never-ending search for improved and increased knowledge.
The leader must rise to the status of an exemplar or epitome of the image of his organization. Because of his exalted position, all other members place their trust in him and hold the expectation that he would always put the interest of the society above his own.
In this respect, he is always expected to guard against violations of the approved rules and regulations of the society to ensure that discipline is maintained at high levels. Above all, he takes on the role of a purveyor of satisfaction and love within the group he heads. Power naturally accrues to him by virtue of his position as head of the Organization and he takes the privilege of being the one who dispenses authority and disciplinary action.
But all this is based on the fact that he abides by the rules of the group through observable personal examples. If he discharges his responsibility in a good manner he ends up earning the confidence of the members of his group. A positional leader must invariably be elected by the group in a fair and free manner.
Unfortunately, some positional leaders of societies in the Church and in the wider public organizations forget that a measure of a leader is what he does with his power; they flagrantly abuse the trust reposed in them to the extent that they may even flout the group’s rules with impunity and misuse the resources accruing to the group for their own selfish ends while holding the other members to obedience to the same rules and regulations.
Not only that, they may have lost their shine as leaders due to their failure to learn further strategies that support group advancement and yet they would not give way to other members who may be more diligent and better prepared to advance the interests of the group. Since we all rise to our level of incompetence, positional leaders should not endeavour to perpetuate themselves in office for too long; others, probably with brighter ideas and more efficient capabilities, may be waiting to take their positions. Such leaders build around themselves sycophants who support them to legitimize his continued stay as head of the organization for unending periods.
A leader who does not know or accept that his reign comes to an end at one time as regulated by the group’s own guiding document so that others may step into his position to enable the group or society benefit from different talents is, to say the least, a shameful dictator.
Situational Leadership
Situational leadership, on the other hand, is circumstantial and scarcely positional. It arises out of ad hoc circumstances or events and thrives on “expert power” or “referent power” or unique abilities.
In cases where the group has come to its wits end in an activity in spite of the efforts of the positional leader, a situational leader may emerge to advance the course of the group’s activity through the display of some abilities hitherto unknown to the group or even to the person himself.
In a group’s life, we may sometimes find that the most effective participant to be someone who is not the positional leader. His ideas more often than not create the pathway for the group to advance better towards the group’s goal. He does not by this claim to be the formal head of the group but he is a leader since he leads by his influence arising from superior attributes.
A situational leader may also emerge in some extreme circumstances. For instance, in a sudden outburst of floods people in their desire to stay alive or save property follow or listen more to those who are able to satisfy their urgent needs momentarily. Positional leaders may themselves listen to the “situational leader” in such circumstances.
Invariably, the situational leader’s role is ephemeral since the circumstances that showcased his abilities may themselves be short-lived. But sometimes too, when the effect of a situational leadership becomes so phenomenal the leader moves into positional leadership in a welcoming environment.
Examples can be found in the rise to power of statesmen in history. Some situational leaders when acknowledged in substantial way tend to capitalize on their situation to forcefully place themselves as positional leaders. Such leaders eventually destroy their groups and themselves as they invariably tend to clamp down on dissenters and abandon the rule of law.
Whether positional or situational, the leader should see himself primarily as a servant to the cause of the group he belongs. He must eschew “boss-iness” and put on the cloak of servanthood, for as human beings God expects us to be humble servants.
