The Leadership Crisis is Jamaica

Leahcim Semaj, Ph.D. - Change Agent

In my interaction with a broad cross section of Corporate Jamaica I have noticed a pattern that is now quite common to struggling companies. We could say that these are the factors that retard their progress. Lets list them.

1. Poor Leadership
2. No Succession planning
3. Not hiring the right people with the right skills and personality
4. Failing to Identify and responding to Training Needs
5. Ineffective motivation and reward systems
6. Lack of relevant and timely information about your internal customer
7. Lack of relevant and timely information about your External customers
8. Failure to Implement Standard Operating Procedures

Poor Leadership
Lets examine the first factor today. Later we will examine other areas. The buck must stop somewhere, whether in business, politics or the home. We are a nation that is over managed but severely under led. My good friend Mutabaruka has so accurately diagnosed the situation as resulting from the host of Management Studies courses. He asks the question, “Where are the ownership and leadership studies courses?” When employees don’t do what they are supposed to do, I blame management. The manager did something wrong to the employee or failed to do something right for the employee. Could be the wrong person was hired (or fired). Either way the worker did not hire himself. So I place the blame at the top.

We now know that leadership is the highest component of management. It provides vision, direction, values and purposes. It can inspire people to work together for the common good. Organizations require three essential roles. These are producers, managers and leaders.

PRODUCERS - To get the work done
MANAGERS - To remove role conflict and ambiguity
LEADER - To provide vision and direction

ITS ALL IN THE BRAIN?
Brain theory research explains why some people are excellent producers but poor managers or great managers but weak leaders. We live in a left-brain dominated world. The dominant elements are words, measurements and logic. The subordinate functions tend to be creativity, intuition and artistry. The Old Order was the work of "half-brained" executives. Today, in The New Order manager must also be a leader, so the need to develop the subordinate side of the brain. One big problem is that this dichotomy is more pronounced in men.

MANAGER: primarily left brain work
LEADER: primarily right brain work

Managers must Change - From Supervisors to Coaches. Coaches help teams solve problems. Old Order bosses design and allocate work, supervise, check, monitor and control work. Today teams can do these things for themselves.
Leadership seems to be the marshalling of skills that are possessed by a majority but used by a minority can be learned by anyone and denied to no one. You can learn leadership on the job, in life, everywhere, all the time by anticipating, by participating by listening to others

For Jamaica to enter The New Work Order executives must also change from
Scorekeepers to leaders. They must be able to influence and reinforce employees' values and beliefs by their words and deeds. This means that they
must manage by example. They must practice visible management. Warren Bennis, in his book 1997 “Managing People is like Herding Cats” illustrates the transition that is required.

An article appeared in the Wall Street Journal years ago suggesting that we should get rid of management. Why? People don't want to be managed, they want to be led. Whoever heard of a world manager? World leader, yes. Educational leader, Political leader, Religious leader, Scout leader, Community leader, Labour leader, Business leader. Even Gang Leader. What do they all have in common? They lead. They don't manage. We are often reminded that you can lead your horse to water, but you can't manage him to drink. So if you really want to manage somebody, begin by managing yourself. If you can do that well you will now be ready to stop managing and start leading.

WHAT THEN IS GOOD LEADERSHIP IS

• Constantly striving to know and understand more about everything
  
• Avoiding isolation - get good information from a variety of sources
  
• Taking it all in stride - both success and failures are usually temporary, both provide valuable lessons
  
• Recognise weaknesses in yourselves and others
  
• Setting goals and meeting them
  
• Passing on credit to others for their personal contributions
  
• Finding and using the right resources to accomplish a task
  
• Turning every situation into a learning experience
  
• Understanding the use of power
  
• Being realistic about the present, but willing to dream
  
• The ability to inspire others to work together as a team
  
• Acquired through the experience of everyday life
  
• Getting people to reach for goals that they may think beyond them
  
• Enable member to enjoy the process of tackling and solving difficult problems
  
• Let team members know they are needed and appreciated
  
• Create a climate of growth and opportunity
  
• Unlock people’s fears and insecurity
  
• Discriminating between truth, wishful thinking and hard facts
  
• Knowing the tangible and intangible skills of every team member, then helping them to put the skills to work.

Setting example for others
“He that gives good advice builds with one hand. He that gives good counsel and example builds with both. But he that gives good admonition and bad example builds with one hand and pulls down with the other” FRANCIS BACON