Turning the Nigerian public servant into a transformational leader requires the development of distinctive competence of adapting existing public managers to the challenges posed by the imperative of development complexities and the ever changing policy environment, rather than focusing unreflectively on the mechanisms of rules interpretation and application.
The topic of leadership has been constant in any discourse that touches on Africa, especially Nigeria. Whenever the question arises on why Nigeria or any of its component parts has not been able to reach the fullness of her potentialities and gifting, the missing piece in the picture is always leadership, and it is not just anything but the right leadership.
Undoubtedly, leadership is a heavily explored concept. A quick Google search of its meaning will produce 269 million results. Despite the massive number, I doubt if definition is the issue in interrogating leadership as a concept; rather it is the action and performance records that are usually in contention.
Although there are as many definitions of leadership as there can be, I will define it as the art of leading others to deliberately create results that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. A systematic interrogation of leadership through the prisms of the fundamental indices of this definition is therefore necessary.
If we are able to define leadership, then where do we situate transformational leadership, which is a higher derivative of leadership? As leadership is an instrumental process and technique serving as a means to an end, leadership experts have developed models and styles based on different methodologies in relation to followers and dynamics, to reduce ambiguities associated with the concept.
The transformation leadership model as a theory was introduced by American political scientist, James Macgregor Burns, and he described it as playing out when “leaders and followers make each other to advance to a higher level of moral and motivation.” Therefore, leaders who fit into the transformational leadership model are able to stimulate and inspire their followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes and, in the process, develop their own leadership capacities.
The agenda for public service leadership, especially in the twenty-first century, has been conditioned by complexities associated with a fluid development environment, changing ideas of what government should do in managing the development process and rapidly evolving global conditions shaped by ever-shifting political and economic variables. These challenges encountered by different governments across the globe were made more complex after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the globalisation of terrorism, as well as the confounding threat occasioned by climate change, including Hurricane Katrina and Tsunamis, among others, and not to mention the menaces of Boko Haram and herdsmen, here at home. Today, complexity has become the core feature of most policy issues, yet governments are ill equipped to deal with complex problems.
The transformational leadership model was not expected to be effective and was less common in public organisations, in comparison to business systems, largely because the transformation methodology is almost at variance with the transactional bureaucratic mechanisms of public service. However, in fast growing economies, public policy makers have deployed systems thinking and future research approaches, with attendant successes, in national change management programmes. So, in addressing complex problems, including but not limited to economic recession, poverty, jobless growth and income inequality, national disasters, whose causes and effects are blurred and with no clear solutions, radical approaches implied by transformation have been deployed by totally changing long-established system and deep-seated culture change.
In positioning the public service as the agent for the actualisation of the developmental objectives of the state, its systems, structures and work culture have to be reinvented through implementing change programmes that deliver positive impact. Conceptually, while change fixes the past constraints, transformation creates the future. So, a public service transformational leader is a change agent who, with insider advantage, has a deep understanding of the current state of the system and its constraints.
It is in this sense that issues usually arose with respect to the issue of whether the target of change can also be the tool for change. Whoever leads the change process, without an intimate knowledge of the current system AS-IS, is delusional in trying to transform it.
A public service propelled by a transformational leadership model will promote a change agenda that ensures that public service values and democratic governance codes guide the actions of government and public officials throughout the system. It will produce leadership sensitivity that promotes institutional adaptations in the public interest…
Transformation results from an orchestrated and well led chain of events that successfully implements change strategy and transition plan. A strategic factor in the transformation process is leadership and it is responsible for the engagement of people, including managers, in creating, adapting to and meeting the demands of the anticipated future. This means that a transformational public service leadership becomes real if it envisions and designs the future state and employs strategic interventions to chart the desired course in arriving at the change destination.
There are three dimensions to transformational leadership and these are Idealised Influence, Inspirational Motivation and Individualised Consideration.
Idealised Influence combines the characteristics of charisma and clear visions and passion. These attributes must be present in those considered as role models, to be respected and trusted by their followers. Leaders with idealised influence are good communicators, and are able to connect with their followers at an emotional level. Their visions and passions are reflections of their real life experiences and it helps them build trust, inspiration and respect to win their followers’ engagement.
Aside this, Inspirational Motivation in a transformational leader is manifested in the leader’s capacity to communicate a compelling vision and hold high expectations. It entails building team spirit, a sense of belonging that facilitates ownership, loyalty, creativity and shared values that create motivation for sacrifice and oneness. Individualised Consideration involves the technique of listening, mentoring and coaching and, it puts premium on followers as asset value to be invested in for collective benefit, commitment that creates a supportive environment.
These well tested frameworks can be applied to the Nigerian condition but it is important to address our minds to the more important question of why change oriented policies in Nigeria witness perpetual transition and arrested development.
It is a familiar narrative that Nigeria is not short of vision, development plans and ideas, but that the devil resides in the details of execution. This means that some of our past leaders have implemented policies and programmes that created varying levels of changes that unfortunately get trapped in their transition phases. Suffice to say some past leaders were far-sighted, competent and exhibited considerable measure of understanding of how to manage change. However, most of these change initiatives were often mired in perpetual transitions, and they struggled to overcome structural limitations in achieving the desired transformation owing to reasons of poor programme design, poor resource allocation, unstable macroeconomic climate, lack of disciplined execution, policy and project discontinuity, capacity deficit, political interference and the Nigerian Factor, to name just a few.
Transformation, on the other hand, requires decisive transitions with multiple programmes and projects, delivering significant outcomes capable of adding up to ignite massive multiplier effect to drive the national economy towards an envisioned new future state. Different from changes and transitions, transformation is unpredictable, iterative and experimental, requiring a level of risk taking and strategic policy intelligence, passion and commitment different from the traditional transactional leadership approaches for which public service is renowned. It also requires a transformational leadership model with capacity to take strategies and implementation actions through continuous adaptation to overcome obstacles and exploit opportunities.
In other words, it takes a transformational leader to identify the missing connection between an existing public service mission, management culture and the public interest. This is actualised through a commitment to building a public service that embodies the aspiration of the people and the underlying values of the nation as espoused in the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policies, as enshrined in chapter 11 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
A public service propelled by a transformational leadership model will promote a change agenda that ensures that public service values and democratic governance codes guide the actions of government and public officials throughout the system. It will produce leadership sensitivity that promotes institutional adaptations in the public interest, in measures that enhance management capacity and organisational performance required to ignite national structural transformation. The ensuing change will identify asset, empower the workforce and recalibrate the culture of public institutions to deliver improved outcomes.
With these would come high expectations and investments in continuous learning and incremental system improvement, as it understands the nuance of context, including the diversity, thought patterns, strengths and weaknesses and, leverages the knowledge to initiate interventions to support all and sundry to fulfill their respective aspirations and potentials.
Turning the Nigerian public servant into a transformation leader requires the development of distinctive administrative leadership competence to reinvent the civil service into a self-motivated category with muscle to operate the administrative system so that every functional ‘joint’ is aligned to the Service’s mission and with a transformation focus.
Transformational leaders are public-spirited with the servant leadership spirit and therefore put the needs of others before their own, and create opportunities for others to lead. To be effective, such leadership is collaborative, facilitative and supportive in interpersonal relationship and lives by example so as to be able to build trust.
Turning the Nigerian public servant into a transformational leader requires the development of distinctive competence of adapting existing public managers to the challenges posed by the imperative of development complexities and the ever changing policy environment, rather than focusing unreflectively on the mechanisms of rules interpretation and application.
The new public service would be armed with new philosophical and values foundation managed with competences underpinned by new intellectual concepts and paradigm shift covering the processes of the governance framework, manpower planning, recruitment, training, skills set, career management, capacity utilisation, performance management system as well as organisational values and culture. This new orientation would entail the development of a public service leadership model that reflects the methodology for the envisioned change, and such a model would evolve from a definition of a competence profile for future leaders.
Furthermore, this will be enhanced by the deployment of predictive tools of future research based on concepts of what form the future public sector will take and possible challenges. New parameters for the identification, selection, training and mentoring of the best and brightest would be developed and reinforced with the development of other frameworks for identifying, selecting, mentoring and training the ‘best and the brightest’ and then link incentives with performance for better leadership and management development programmes.
This would be followed by the second step, which usually involves the setting up of new institutions or systems for identifying, developing and pipelining potential leaders in the public service, like the Senior Executive Service (SES) as in the United Kingdom, Singapore, U.S.A and Australia, while management training would be linked with professional development programmes to encompass leadership development.
Turning the Nigerian public servant into a transformation leader requires the development of distinctive administrative leadership competence to reinvent the civil service into a self-motivated category with muscle to operate the administrative system so that every functional ‘joint’ is aligned to the Service’s mission and with a transformation focus.
The public service that would function in this new light would initiate and maintain deep rooted culture change and would prepare, motivate and propel others to cope with, and adapt to, changes and give strategic shape and content to policies that can transform the society at every level.
The tendency is to lionise the decisive and inspiration leaders like Singapore Lee Kwan Yew. But the reality is that although the individual at the top does matter enormously, the essential transformation dynamic involves creating the context where leadership can be exercised at all levels.
Many of Nigeria’s past leaders in the public policy space have implemented series of change initiatives that were trapped in transitions that struggled perpetually with transformation and sustainable development. The reasons are not far-fetched. Our take is that transformation approaches offer a much greater challenge than the typical change management programmes that we are familiar with and have seen.
Tunji Olaopa is executive vice-chairman, Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP); Email: tolaopa2003@gmail.com, tolaopa@isgpp.com.ng
This is the text of a lecture delivered at the Nigerian Baptist Convention National Civil Leadership Summit held at Bowen University, Iwo on 24-26 July, 2018.
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