Tweet
A Deficit Of Leadership
Published: Friday | June 11, 20100 Comments and 0 Reactions
"In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve" (attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859).
JAMAICA SUFFERS from a deficit of leadership. I believe one of the reasons the calls for Prime Minister Bruce Golding to resign are not louder is that there is no obvious person of quality in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) at this time to take over the leadership of the party and the government!
I also believe that one of the reasons the calls for the Government to resign are not louder is that there is profound (and wise) reluctance to return to a People's National Party (PNP) government under its current leadership.
One cannot forget Edward Seaga's statement made when he was leader of the Opposition, that there was no one in his party who was capable of replacing him as leader. If that was true, it was largely his doing, as earlier he had presided over the departure from his party of several persons of quality who might have been prime ministerial material.
And this is the conundrum facing any political leader: how to hold on to leadership while at the same time encourage the emergence of a cadre of new blood - quality material - able to provide for an orderly leadership succession; after all, persons with the ability to lead may develop that ambition, and might challenge the incumbent for the top spot before they are ready to go! The tendency is for rulers to hold on to power while purging the party of leadership competition, which means that when the day for a leadership change arrives there will be few, if any, suitable candidates!
The PNP has been better at holding on to high-quality leadership material, although its recent succession has been a messy struggle. Their difficulty is their long romance with the garrison model of political leadership they copied from Seaga. Almost all their current crop of senior leaders have been schooled in the old politics, which is why they have a hard time selling themselves as agents of change. The party may have a cast of suitable succession characters, but most cut from the same old mould, with little reason to choose them, and without exceptional quality to help to choose between them.
Quite content
Civil society also lacks good quality leadership. The captains of Jamaican industry have largely been content to sit back and collaborate with the political leadership, as long as there is no interference with their ability to make money. Civic leaders, with the exception of a few visionaries and malcontents like those pesky environmentalists and human-rights activists, assume very little moral leadership.
In my community-level work over the last decades I have so often seen good up-and-coming local leaders directed away from lives of civic service by offers of partisan position. Once in politics, these persons become tribal and unsuited for the sort of impartial community leadership our society needs. Over the last decades, our political parties have starved our society of quality leadership material by suborning much of it.
The Church also suffers from a deficit of quality leadership. Religious leadership requires persons not too enamoured by the things and pleasures of this world. In our highly materialistic and sexualised culture, persons like this are getting harder and harder to find. And in an excessive effort to choose ministers who are doctrinally 'safe' (i.e., orthodox) the Church often deprives herself of persons who might be able, with the maturity which comes in later life, to provide it with sound leadership.
Exemplary persons needed
And so, at this time of crisis when Jamaica is poised to make a great moral leap forward in its politics and its social arrangements, it suffers a deficit of leadership in the Church, in civil society and in the political arena. We need exemplary persons to take us forward into the new Jamaica - sustainable development without garrisons and endemic corruption. South Africa had Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, India had Mahatma Ghandi, and Singapore had Lee Kuan Yew. Jamaica needs visionary leadership capable of true nation building rather than party building. From whence will this leadership come?
"In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end" - Alexis de Tocqueville.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic Deacon.
Published: Friday | June 11, 20100 Comments and 0 Reactions
"In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve" (attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859).
JAMAICA SUFFERS from a deficit of leadership. I believe one of the reasons the calls for Prime Minister Bruce Golding to resign are not louder is that there is no obvious person of quality in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) at this time to take over the leadership of the party and the government!
I also believe that one of the reasons the calls for the Government to resign are not louder is that there is profound (and wise) reluctance to return to a People's National Party (PNP) government under its current leadership.
One cannot forget Edward Seaga's statement made when he was leader of the Opposition, that there was no one in his party who was capable of replacing him as leader. If that was true, it was largely his doing, as earlier he had presided over the departure from his party of several persons of quality who might have been prime ministerial material.
And this is the conundrum facing any political leader: how to hold on to leadership while at the same time encourage the emergence of a cadre of new blood - quality material - able to provide for an orderly leadership succession; after all, persons with the ability to lead may develop that ambition, and might challenge the incumbent for the top spot before they are ready to go! The tendency is for rulers to hold on to power while purging the party of leadership competition, which means that when the day for a leadership change arrives there will be few, if any, suitable candidates!
The PNP has been better at holding on to high-quality leadership material, although its recent succession has been a messy struggle. Their difficulty is their long romance with the garrison model of political leadership they copied from Seaga. Almost all their current crop of senior leaders have been schooled in the old politics, which is why they have a hard time selling themselves as agents of change. The party may have a cast of suitable succession characters, but most cut from the same old mould, with little reason to choose them, and without exceptional quality to help to choose between them.
Quite content
Civil society also lacks good quality leadership. The captains of Jamaican industry have largely been content to sit back and collaborate with the political leadership, as long as there is no interference with their ability to make money. Civic leaders, with the exception of a few visionaries and malcontents like those pesky environmentalists and human-rights activists, assume very little moral leadership.
In my community-level work over the last decades I have so often seen good up-and-coming local leaders directed away from lives of civic service by offers of partisan position. Once in politics, these persons become tribal and unsuited for the sort of impartial community leadership our society needs. Over the last decades, our political parties have starved our society of quality leadership material by suborning much of it.
The Church also suffers from a deficit of quality leadership. Religious leadership requires persons not too enamoured by the things and pleasures of this world. In our highly materialistic and sexualised culture, persons like this are getting harder and harder to find. And in an excessive effort to choose ministers who are doctrinally 'safe' (i.e., orthodox) the Church often deprives herself of persons who might be able, with the maturity which comes in later life, to provide it with sound leadership.
Exemplary persons needed
And so, at this time of crisis when Jamaica is poised to make a great moral leap forward in its politics and its social arrangements, it suffers a deficit of leadership in the Church, in civil society and in the political arena. We need exemplary persons to take us forward into the new Jamaica - sustainable development without garrisons and endemic corruption. South Africa had Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, India had Mahatma Ghandi, and Singapore had Lee Kuan Yew. Jamaica needs visionary leadership capable of true nation building rather than party building. From whence will this leadership come?
"In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end" - Alexis de Tocqueville.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic Deacon.
Comment