Sunday, June 16, 2013
Mandela the Africans leader
Ailing
former South African President, Nelson Mandela, is the only person that
deserves to be addressed as a leader in the world today, Prof. John Adair, the
world’s first professor of leadership, has said.
Adair,
the chair of the United Nations Strategic Leadership Centre, made the assertion
on Saturday in a keynote lecture at the ‘Emerging Leaders Conference’ organised
by The Punch Newspaper in conjunction with Guardians of the Nation
International, a non-profit leadership development organisation, at the
Congress Hall of the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja.
“The
only person who deserves the title of ‘a leader’ in the world today is Mandela.
He is the one that stands out,” Adair said. He added that, while most leaders
eventually lose their moral authority, Mandela had remained credible over the
years.
Adair
went ahead to speak of a need for great leaders in Nigeria.
He
noted that Nigeria deserved great leaders in order to harness the country’s
abundant resources.
He
said, “The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people because the
greatness is already there; the task of leadership is to draw it out.
“Nigeria
is a great country — with about 186 million people, full of human and natural
resources — there is no question about it. The question is, do you have great
leaders? Nigeria deserves great leaders.”
In
order to have great leaders, Adair said Nigeria as well as other nations, must
invest in the development of young, aspiring leaders.
“Many
political leaders emerged without training and preparation. There is need for
training for aspiring leaders.
“I will
like to see Nigeria leading the way among African countries in providing
opportunities for aspiring young leaders,” he said.
Adair,
who is also a lecturer on military history and adviser on leadership training
at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, United Kingdom, and Associate
Director of The Industrial Society, said there was a need to convene a
conference that would work out a strategy for leadership development in
Nigeria.
He
stressed that the working group must not necessarily be politicians.
Emphasising
the importance of leadership training in the performance of leaders, he said,
“Never condemn people for being bad leaders when they have not had the
opportunity to understand leadership.”
He
said, “There is a revolution from old style management to leadership; a large
leadership industry has emerged, billions of dollars have been invested in it
but does it work? Has the world become a better place?
“There
are question marks — there is a great deal of nonsense that is being talked
about as leadership. There is a need to establish leadership on very firm
foundations.”
He
identified integrity, fairness and justice as some of the attributes of true
leaders.
“A
leader should be the servant of the people. Success in any organisation or
nation depends on leadership at every level.
“What a
leader needs is practical wisdom and the ingredients are intelligence,
experience and goodness. You could be appointed to a leadership position but
you are not a leader until your appointment has been ratified in the hearts and
minds of those working for you.
“You
cannot transform people into leaders overnight, what you can do is to take
people with potential and add value to that potential,” Adair said.
He also
advised Nigerian authorities to tap the leadership potential at the grassroots
by improving living standards in the rural villages.
“If you
improve the standard of living in all the villages by 10 per cent, imagine the
difference that would make,” he said.
President
of GOTNI, Mr. Linus Okorie, also spoke of the need for true leaders in Nigeria.
He
said, “Our nation is in search of leadership — we want people to emerge and
help save us from our current reality.
“The
founding fathers of the country got it wrong by not outlining any ideology for
the country.
“The
nations that make progress in the world are nations that invest on developing
the leadership potential of the young ones, changing their thought patterns to
a possibility mindset.”
The
conference, which had over 1,000 young people in attendance, has the theme,
‘Leadership for Transformation: From Potential to Performance.’
Dignitaries
who spoke in the course of the two-day event include the Chairman of Punch
Nigeria Limited, Wale Aboderin, Minister for Youth Development, Inuwa
Abdul-Kadir, and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Power, Amb. Godknows
Igali.
Author: Kingsley the Analist
Kingsley is a blogger. He is the owner of True Love site and the owner of Kingsley.com. Kingsley love the internet and he is a briliant researcher with interest in Mass Communication and the new global world. He is an internet guru Read More →
Related Posts:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments: