Filling in leadership void

by Michael Dalali

You may ask yourself why many institutions bother to invest a lot of funds into leadership grooming? This cuts across all the spheres of disciplines in life; from the corporate to non-corporate; governmental to non-governmental and so on.

Having good researchers, academicians and lawyers demands inevitable grooming of individuals in respective fields. So does the leadership arena.

I understand there are situations where one is born with a virtue to support certain kinds of works, for instance the artistic ones. On the other side, individuals can acquire the skills by learning.

There is a contention whether leadership virtues are in-born or created. Whatever side one decides to take, I personally believe that continuous moulding and nourishing of the leadership virtue is of great importance.

From ages and eras, shaping of individuals for leadership has been a critical process towards mastering the work ahead. It was palpable during the era of Jesus Christ, who used his time shaping skills of the twelve apostles as depicted in the Bible.

The Kings and Chiefs also, in different eras, used to groom the then future leaders, especially from within their families. The prospective leader would undergo special training in order to acquire necessary experiences. Even if the kinds of trainings provided might not be as scientific and academic as the ones we have today in political sciences, they were prominent. They certainly created the basis and foundations of current advancements.

With this, brings a meaning when institutions like political parties invest a lot in shaping the leaders. This has been observerd across the world, and the ideologies guiding the parties.

In our country, we experienced such attention on leadership grooming under the Mwalimu Nyerere era.  Mwalimu saw the value of investing a lot in leadership nurturing. Through his party, he invested by establishing Kivukoni College. An institution confined to groom leaders in line with the party principles and vision.

The institute trained the cadres in areas like leadership ethics and principles, party’s ideology and the policies like socialism and self-reliance — “ujamaa na kujitegemea”. It is believed that the institution played a big role in obtaining ethical leaders who acknowledged and respected the pillars, principles and values of leadership.

CCM afterwards abandoned having special institutions for leadership grooming. The expense of missing such institutions in all political parties have started to be felt much by cries of the leadership vacuum from all the corners of our country.

A number of national and international organizations embark to fill the vacuum with leadership programs. Organizations such as Friedrich Ebert Stiftung-FES (with Youth Leadership Training Programme-YLTP), Tanzania Youth Vision Association-TYVA (with School of TYVA Programme) and many others try very much on this. If the exercise was not worthwhile, then why would these organizations invest so much?

By [using] the groomed leaders from programs such as YLTP, who hold and run top positions well in political parties, non-governmental organizations and other institutions reveal the necessity of the process. However, these organizations alone, with minimum funding, cannot afford to accommodate the high demand for upcoming leaders.

It is high time now for the political parties in Tanzania, to re-think on how to establish and invest in academies that will groom leaders for the current and future welfare of the parties and the country at large.

This article was published in 2009.

Related talk:

Partick Awuah  makes the case that a liberal arts education is critical to forming true leaders…