Conferences don’t transform nations, leadership does

The four-day Transform Africa Summit 2013, that ended here two weeks ago, was hugely a success by all measures. That it brought from together over 1500 delegates drawn across the globe, from experts in especially ICT, to mega technology businesses (top executives of global technology brands) to policy makers, and, more importantly, graced by six heads of state was more than telling. Telling a story of the yearn for Africa to transform, and to do so through ICT, among other means. That this conference deliberated ways by which Africa can leverage broadband to transform communities, governments and the private sector, is critical for Africa’s development, and more importantly our own, if only these technologies can be applied to find solutions to peculiar problems in our country in particular, and our continent face in general.Listening to each speaker at the summit, and the conviction with which they spoke, one gets hope that, this continent that has for so long lagged behind despite numerous growth enhancing resources is at least realising her problems, and through this realisation, getting half the solution as the adage holds.The problem with such conferences, especially in Africa, however (and they are milliards on our continent), is that, the problems ably articulated by some of our best brains, remain in the conference hall. There is nothing to show for the same by way of implementation in many parts of our continent, unlike in other continents where implementation is not only a culture, but a virtue of able leadership. Not so in Rwanda though, for what our leaders say, and what our leaders do are highly correlated (ie their word is their bond), which is why our country has been rated highly in most developmental indicators owing mainly to ownership of our development agenda by our top leadership under the exemplariness of President Paul Kagame. Lack of ownership and thus commitment to implementation of our best plans/strategies/transformational blueprints is, at the very least, a continental vice and, at worst, ‘a curse’.No common path to prosperityAnd although there is no common path to prosperity of nations, development literature holds that, one common denominator to growth and, thus development, has been transformational leadership in place that ensures exploitation of technology and other growth drivers/triggers that can thus lead to the change in the structure of the underlying economies, from mere captive agrarian economies they are today, to modern economies. This calls for holistic transformation. This is true for all recent structurally changed economies from Asian Tigers to South American emerging economies, and recently, to China.What is even more true is that, all recent winners in the development league have all had to transform their economies, and did so in a planned manner. None of these evolved by omission nor given, nor by assistance from the milliard aid charities. In fact, most of the agenda of many development partners and charities negate the economic transformation trajectory for they insist on high investment in social sectors (which is in itself necessary, but not sufficient enough to ensure sustainable development) and less or none in economic sectors, which only serves to perpetuate aid dependency culture that is only broken through investments in economic sectors, that serve to finance social sectors through the virtuous development cycle, which then ensures sustainable development. Transformational leadershipWe cannot talk of transformation of Rwanda, in particular, and Africa, in general, whether through ICT or other developmental drivers for that matter, if we don’t have/talk of transformational leadership. All these transformational acrimonies: economic transformation, agricultural transformation, social transformation… etc become mere abstracts and antithesis of their reality in the absence of transformational leadership, to own up, and drive these to their accomplishment for the common good.Thus, transformational leaders are those who transform their citizens into leaders themselves. “Transformational leadership approach is defined as leadership that creates valuable and positive change among citizenry. A transformational leader focuses on “transforming” others to help each other, to look out for each other, to be encouraging and harmonious, and to look out for the nation as a whole. “In this leadership, the leader enhances the motivation, morale and performance of his follower group”. (Bass and Riggio 2006: 3). “Transformational leaders are those who stimulate and inspire citizens to both achieve extraordinary outcomes and, in the process, develop their own leadership capacity. Transformational leaders help citizens grow and develop into leaders by responding to individual citizens needs by empowering them and by aligning the objectives and goals of the individual citizens, as a group, and then to those of a nation state.Existence of transformational leadership in any country enhances the motivation, morale, and performance of citizens through a variety of mechanisms. These include connecting the citizens’ sense of identity and self to the project (read nation building) and the collective identity of the nation; being a role model for citizens that inspires them and makes them interested; challenging followers to take greater ownership for their work, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of citizens, so the leader can align citizens with tasks that enhance their performance.Evidence has accumulated to demonstrate that transformational leadership can move citizens to exceed expected performance, as well as lead to high levels of citizens’ satisfaction and commitment of nationals to the nation. This is the type of leadership our country has been blessed with. President Kagame has provided exemplary transformational leadership, without which all other transformations necessary, would have been elusive as is the norm in many African countries. Transformation of Rwanda, in particular, and thus Africa, in general, can only be achieved if we elect transformational leadership. Otherwise, we settle for managers who can only manage routine, and they are many. The writer is an economist and financial expert