IMPACT for Transformative Leadership by Professor Akin-Tunde A. Odukogbe

IMPACT FOR TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP

By

Professor Akin-Tunde A. Odukogbe

Leadership can now be described as the science and art of galvanising a group or groups of people to act toward achieving an agreed and documented common goal.

While people can be made to perform the different tasks of a goal, being transformed to understand the necessity for, principles behind and benefits of the performance and the goal, continuing the actions and coping with any side attractions / effects associated with the performance require a lot from serious and positive leaders. The expectations of success may be demanded more from the leaders but are by no means whatsoever limited to them. A tree does not make a forest.

First, the leaders need to have the mindset, skills and track record of leading appropriately. Secondly, such leaders must possess the ability to type people into those deep enough to see the visions being espoused and have the necessary attributes to carry them out. Thirdly, the leaders must be able to supervise the group or groups to keep them focused on the goal and ensure the methodologies and processes are not corrupted. This is more so, given the dynamism of circumstances surrounding and/or created by humanity.

First requirements from the leader. Mindset. Skills. Track Records.

For a leader to make an impact, she/he must show evidence of the above three characteristics and more, from her / his interactions with the group, or as documented. The mindset to be a leader and transform people can be innate or acquired, and may be obvious from childhood in the organizational approaches exhibited by a young child. It may also result from training and/or circumstances. The mindset becomes obvious in the interpersonal skills developed and deployed in the individual’s relationships with others; such as oratorial skills, great listening abilities, empathy, and serving others through honesty, hard work, humility and humour. These qualities, when practised repeatedly over time, make the followers see through expounded goals and key into such. Once convinced and transformed, they are energized into working to achieve the goals. This is often why some people argue that leaders are born not made while others take the opposite view. 

This leg of the tripod supporting the impact of a transformative leadership can be seen as the art of leading.

Second requirement. Ability to type people.

In any group of people, whether naturally selected or according to need, their characteristics will vary. Many communities of human beings follow the Gaussian curve, when these characteristics are plotted on a graph, with two minorities, one at either end of the bell – shaped curve; one positive and the other negative, or the one lower and the other higher than the average majority. These characteristics and their distribution affect many human endeavours resulting in progress, stagnation or retrogression. 

The leader needs skills to identify those with the right characteristics to be in the forefront of the transformation. This is a huge task, since humans are complex and can put up appearances not in tandem with their actual practices. Nonetheless, in as much as ‘not all that glitters is gold’, human beings can or be made to discard their ‘impurities’ when challenged, with reference to the statement by Abraham Lincoln that ‘the test of fire brings out the best in steel’. Therefore, in choosing those that will micro-lead the people in small groups, a leader has the task of not only being able to ‘scratch the surface’ looking for gold, but also to discern those not yet in possession of the best characteristics albeit with the potential of doing so. 

This is a great and continuing task, considering that attrition of selected front runners will repeatedly occur and replacements constantly required! The major problem for the leader being that searching for the ‘pure golden character’ or refining a flawed one can be very time-consuming and energy sapping with no guarantee of right decisions. This middle one in the troika can be an art but is now done more scientifically with structured recruitment exercises and retrieval of data on individuals intended to fill positions, the latter stretched to their progenitors.

Third requirements. Supervision. Keeping in focus. Keeping the goal from being corrupted.

The leader, having been certified fit to lead, and she/he having chosen mini-leaders, still has the onerous task of ensuring these three items termed the third requirements. This last part of the triad is more science than art. This is because, in ensuring that focus is kept, supervision requires scientific monitoring using key performance indicators, thereby generating hard data which are constantly analysed and correctly interpreted. The results should be relayed back to the people (preferably first to the micro-leaders, then to the majority) in order to continue to motivate them and enable them to see when and where to increase efforts.

The admixture of these three groups of requirements are obvious in various proportions in acknowledged transformative leaders all over the world. Be it political, religious, ethnic, business or other groups.

However, this essay will not be complete without talking about the followership. Leaders evolve and emerge from amongst the followers, and most often reflect their characteristics. Therefore, the expectations placed on the leaders must of necessity be seen as applicable to those micro-leading others, whether groups are of three or thirty or thirty million people! 

In homogenous societies, where the human characteristics are close, all the above may be easier to attain. Where diversity is very profound, great challenges may occur with reaching consensus on goals, although homogeneity is no guarantee of harmony.   

Akin-Tunde A. Odukogbe

Professor / Honorary Consultant, Obstetrics and Gynaecology.