Jamaica needs a good leader to reposition the economy

As Jamaica stands on the threshold of crisis or opportunity, we must consider the critical role that leadership plays in the running of an enterprise or in the running of a country.

The country needs good leadership in every aspect of activity. Good leaders possess vision, not raw ambition. Simply put, leadership is the ability to lead and motivate a nation to achieve its desired goals.

History is replete with examples of leaders saving their nations from great economic or military crises. Other leaders have failed at their mission, with tragic results for their people in the short and long term. Some leaders were groomed by mentors over many years and given progressively more challenging assignments to hone their skills, test their temperament and allow them to evolve into a leader who can deal with temporary setbacks and disappointments, as well as great success.

These situations are either accompanied by great arrogance or necessary humility and hardly anything between. Other leaders arise from almost nowhere, seizing the moment of opportunity and sometimes perform with little difference in success or failure from those schooled to lead.

Intrinsic qualities

The jury is out on whether good leaders are born or are created, but it is my belief that the intrinsic qualities of good leaders are in-born, but are either stifled or developed by circumstances and socialisation. Above all else, leaders must have passion and patriotism and be willing to make personal sacrifices for their country and be trustworthy, not deceptive. A leader must empathise, be able to feel the pulse of the people, and act on principle, and put their country first above personal or party political gain. This is also diagnostic of good leadership and failed leadership.

Leadership of a nation is an awesome responsibility. It embodies the power of life or death over the entire population, and can create or destroy critical relationships with other nations in the global community of nations. There is usually little room for error. There is rarely a second chance if opportunities are missed or mistakes made. Nations usually get the leaders they deserve and that reflect their present situation and aspirations.

Good leadership engenders good followership. An unruly people are likely to spawn leaders who are undemocratic and autocratic, and reflect their norms and values. A disciplined nation often selects leaders who adhere to discipline and good governance, and who are likely to carry out the tasks of state in a manner conducive to good public order and the well-being of its people.

The dark side of leadership is arrogance and a narcissistic belief in one's predestiny and right to lead the people. It denies the reality that the selection of the country's leadership should be resident in the will of the ordinary people who form the electorate, and who periodically have a real choice as to who will govern them, and how they will be governed. True leaders must first show humility in return for the great trust placed in them by their people or they will not last.

Leaders may be categorised into one of the following styles, ranging from participative leadership, relations-oriented leadership, transformational leadership, charismatic leadership to autocratic leadership. Ironically, these categorisations are sometimes matters of academic convenience, as leaders often migrate from one category to another at different times during their tenure, depending on changing circumstances and the people being governed.

Transformational leadership

In today's world where the global context is changing rapidly, there is an evolution to knowledge-based economies and a greater insistence on transformational leadership to change the paradigm and cope with uncertainties. Governance challenges deepen under such circumstances as human resources must possess higher skills, technical knowledge and innovative capacity to move the country forward. The leader must marshal these skills for the benefit of the nation, as a precursor to rapid development. Such skills and talents are, however, highly portable and move quickly from one country to another, if not properly challenged and motivated by the leader and his/her Cabinet, in a functional, inclusive and growing economy.

With the imminent departure of Prime Minister Bruce Golding, the eighth prime minister since Independence, Jamaica is at a crossroads. The people selected Mr Golding based on a belief that with him as leader of the country, our society would be significantly and positively transformed economically and socially and would have witnessed improved standards of good governance and accountability. This belief now appears unfounded. The jury is giving a verdict. By his imminent resignation at this crucial juncture, Mr Golding gives credence to the view that he has failed as a leader of our nation and has not delivered on his promises, along with his Cabinet colleagues.

Our nation must be saddened by this development, as it transcends politics and raises profound questions of who really was this person by whom we were led, how we were led, and where we were led. The answers to some of these questions may lie in other undisclosed reasons for Mr Golding's departure that might surface over time. None of these reasons are likely to bode well for Jamaica. As a fellow Jamaican, we must wish Mr Golding well as he takes the self-inflicted, long walk to the gallows of political oblivion.

In reconstructing the reasons for the failure of leadership evident here, we must reflect on the attributes of leadership that are most likely to lead to success or failure in modern Jamaica. Clearly, Mr Golding was one of Jamaica's most experienced and knowledgeable parliamentarians, a prerequisite for leadership. Reasons for his failure must be sought in personality traits, managerial capacity, detail orientation, delegation skills and, importantly, the quality and preparedness of the team he led. If the latter is the case, no leadership change in the JLP will fix that deficiency, unless there is a rebuilding from the ground up of these necessary skills and talents; something that requires some time in the wilderness to do.

It is patently obvious, that the 18 years in Opposition that should have been used to prepare the governance team was wasted, and the Government that he led lacked critical managerial experience in some areas. Had things been different, the business of the people may have prospered under his leadership and different results achieved. However, there is no accounting for bad judgement of both Mr Golding and his Cabinet, who share the collective responsibility for an ill-fated decision to protect a now-convicted drug lord, by deploying the full resources of the State in his defence against extradition. This was unpatriotic and unforgivable, and a challenge to the notion of collective responsibility underlying the Cabinet in the Westminster form of government, where all are joined at the hip like Siamese twins in collective decision-making.

Importantly, the philosophy of the party and the Government that Mr Golding led may have been out of sync with the economic and social realities of a modern Jamaica and its place in the global community of nations. This was compounded by a seeming inability to transition rapidly from electioneering to the challenging demands of governance and the imperative to hold on to state power for more than one term.

Mr Golding may well have been entitled to believe, as the rest of his Government did, and, unfortunately, as many still do, that the panacea of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme and its pro-cyclical policies would have led to economic success that he and his administration could now revel in; rather than the shocking reality that we have grown our indebtedness dramatically, shrunk our economic base, mobilised an equal number of persons into poverty, while failing to record more than anaemic growth over a short period in the past four years. This is not the miracle that was promised. Good leaders don't make excuses; they must take responsibility for producing results, even in difficult times, as the successful leaders of our neighbours Guyana and the Dominican Republic have done.

Abandoning failed strategies

Of all the challenges facing Andrew Holness, the tapped Golding replacement, the greatest is that of moving the economy forward, which will require abandoning failed strategies. This comes against the backdrop of storm clouds of likely recession hovering over our major trading partner, the USA, the looming spectre of debt defaults within the European Union and its potential impact on the euro and global economic stability. The risks of contagion and bank failure internationally are high.

Having used up the IMF resources instead of going to the private debt market first, the country has, unfortunately, been strategically positioned on a one-way street, where its fortunes for the foreseeable future are tied to the IMF and require urgent renegotiation.

Future prime ministers must take a more strategic approach to repositioning the economy around a new set of principles that are not reliant on trickle-down economics and the primacy of skewed incentives to the upper end of the private sector and provide better policy execution. A better balance must be achieved. No matter who is selected by the JLP as leader, the people will ultimately decide when fresh elections are called. The JLP or the PNP can have any leader it chooses; but the country must have the leader it needs.

Ralph S. Thomas is a senior teaching fellow and joint appointee of the Mona School of Business and the Department of Management Studies, UWI. He is a financial consultant and was a vice-president of the Bank of New York-Mellon. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and ralphthomas003@yahoo.com.