‘A functional Human Capital base will drive innovation’

VANESSA IWOWO, a management scholar at the London School of Economics in this interview with STEPHEN ONYEKWELU evaluates the constraints and opportunities of leadership development in Africa. Excerpts .

What is the kernel of your talk “Innovative Governance in Africa” during last year’s LSE’s Africa Summit?

My talk on ‘Innovative Governance in Africa’ focused on drawing attention to the fact that “leadership, without follower-ship, simply cannot occur”. Leadership is one of a relationship between ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’ and the core of this relationship is ‘people’, Innovative Governance in Africa must thus prioritise and indeed romanticise (if need be) people – above any ideology or political manifesto.

It is believed that the political consciousness of ‘leadership as people’ is sure to drive necessary action in this regard. In essence, the first step towards Innovative Governance would be a total paradigmatic overhaul, a complete re-orientation of the approach we take towards leadership and governance in Africa, to recognise that leadership is first, foremost and always, about people.

I believe that this sort of thinking would not only prioritise followership but would definitively articulate our collective goals, objectives and aspirations – keeping them at the heart of policy making.

Political campaigns are commonly built on a foundation of failed promises and the perpetuation of unmet basic needs from previous dispensations. The present campaign is perennially centered on the same unfulfilled promises from yesterday, the provision of basic (and I reiterate the most basic of) infrastructure; food, roads, water, electricity, education and healthcare. These are basic things that make any modern society human and functioning. Every political dispensation is voted in on the back of the rhetoric of “providing basic infrastructure” only to turn around and fail, leaving an old rhetorical foundation for the next dispensation of politicking to ride on, taking people for a whole new ride. Even though the cycle is as vicious as it was before, the people are further de-sensitised from the rhetorical impunity and political abuse that they have to go through. However, I believe a leadership which instead made ‘people’ its driving force would break this vicious cycle.

Is your expertise in the development of African Leadership political, social, economic or much more?

My expertise is in Leadership Development. Specifically, the dynamics processes and challenges through which this occurs. Leadership is a social construct and the expert knowledge of this phenomenon is transferable across all spheres of human interaction within a given society, be it social, economic or political.

How could corporate leaders leverage on your research or expertise? You might be aware we are a business publication, business owners, CEOs, business managers and entrepreneurs count on us for credible information to facilitate their decision making processes.

As an academic, I write quite a bit and what this means is that I am required to disseminate my research findings in the form of books/book chapters, monographs and journal articles. So one way of doing this is to get a copy of any one of these publications. I am also keenly involved with the practice of Executive Leadership Development – this is one practical way through which I can constantly ensure that knowledge generated from my research on leadership in Africa is transferred directly to the leadership of industries, particularly in the area of policy-making and contextualised solutions suited to the rather unique socio-cultural and socio-economic terrain of the African Continent

What are the key drivers of effective corporate leadership or governance?

People. There is a strong, yet largely unrecognised economic case to develop your people. A highly functioning Human Capital base is always guaranteed to drive innovation, and this is what keeps your competitive edge sharp. It also takes care of the issue of employee turnover and, especially in economies where unemployment levels are above average, it is far easier to strategically invest in your Human Capital. However, the reverse is usually the case and, in this sort of scenario, employees are often exploited which is unfortunate. What this has mostly translated to is a dumbed-down workforce with latent untapped creative energy and which continues to supply minimum requirement for remuneration and that is just what the organisation gets minimum supply; what a waste!

What particular challenges does leadership development face on the African continent?

There are many, but among others, the issue of context is a big one and this is the idea that ‘leadership is a one-size-fits-all’ design.  It is indeed little wonder that many leadership development interventions fail. I hate to say this, but the idea of leadership development has been procedurally abused. It is not unusual for someone to pick up the latest Management fad from the latest book (usually from the US) and build a whole leadership development programme around this, forgetting that, many a time, this idea is just what it is a fad! We fly in ‘experts’ to come and tell us how to develop leaders in our own backyard.

We do this because we think that whatever knowledge we have or that we have generated within the context of our own experiential reality is inadequate because ‘nothing works in Africa and west is best’. We forget that leadership is something that occurs in a lived and experienced context and therefore any problems we face occur in context and the possible solutions to those problems are also likely to be generated, negotiated and tested within that same context. But instead of taking this organic approach to contextual problems, instead we run off to find quick-fixes – often from the latest Anglo-American management/leadership ideas – forgetting that those solutions have been developed in that particular context, against the backdrop of those contextual fixtures and as such designed to work within that particular environment.

It is impossible to super-impose leadership paradigms from one cultural society onto another. You may wonder if there is universal applicability of leadership theory, my answer to this is a resounding No! Leadership knowledge is constructed, it is contextual and, more often than not, it is shaped by strong cultural forces that impinge upon that context. So when we talk about leadership development, we really should be asking developing ‘what’?

Would you have some compelling statistics to share on leadership development in Africa?

Leadership in Africa is still relatively under-researched, and one of the major problems I encounter in my own work is a dearth of literature in this regard. Up until recently we were yet to evolve the conceptual frameworks for leadership capacity building in Africa. It is those theoretical conceptual frameworks that we still have to develop in order to be able to generate the empirical evidence that we need. I am happy to say that work has earnestly begun in this regard.

STEPHEN ONYEKWELU