Why Kenya needs transformative leaders who can ‘walk their talk’

Leadership is a concept that occurs in every facet of life from family unit to an organisation, society, country level and even globally. It is a crucial component of every organisation, society or even nation. More often than not, leadership is seen as the keystone and main driver of change in the society or nation.

However, deciding the most useful leadership model to adopt for the development of leaders and achieving the desired results is a complicated undertaking.

This is exacerbated by the proliferation of leadership models, leaving practitioners and scholars alike confounded on which model to adopt.

Read: One of the hallmarks of transformational leadership at work is successful conflict resolution

Additionally, there are ‘new’ leadership models coming in as fads that every so often take centre stage in leadership but quietly fade out.

These so-called ‘new’ leadership models such as servant leadership imply a theoretical difference, but empirical research shows significant overlap with longer-standing ones such as transformational leadership.

However, one may ask the question, what is transformational leadership and why is it important?

In my viewpoint, transformational leadership is a leadership approach that incorporates certain pertinent and desirable aspects aimed at creating positivity in individuals and teams. This leads to inspired and motivated individuals, teams, and the country as well.

Consequently, organisations and countries alike benefit significantly from transformational leadership.

In a nutshell, transformational leadership leads to benefits such as intellectual stimulation of individuals, teams, or even a country, which in turn leads to increased creativity and innovation. A transformational leader exhibits high levels of empathy and mentorship.

Moreover, transformational leaders positively influence their members by acting as perfect role models, “walking the talk,” enthusiastic and passionate about the ideals they hold dear. They inspire their team or citizens with a clear vision—inclusivity and optimism.

Now that we have crossed over to the new year, can we change tack and embark on a new path of making Kenya transformative?

Looking through history, there are several examples of leaders who fit in well, depicting key traits of transformational leadership. One such example is the late Lee Kwan Yew.

Among many of his transformative and brilliant examples is on how he transformed Singapore from a third world to a first world nation. Besides it is also a marvel on how he transformed Singapore from a net importer of water to self-sufficiency.

Turning to the water issue, having had the opportunity to see the schematic drawings of how they re-cycle their water and also having had the opportunity to visit the country and see how they do their water treatment, you cannot help but marvel.

Yet, you also shudder when you imagine how water is so precious in our country, yet we loose so much of it particularly to Indian Ocean, besides the limited harvesting that is done in the country.

Reading through the book; Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going, one cannot fail to see the transformational leadership that the late Lee Kuan Yew brought to Singapore, which catapulted the island nation from a third to a first world country.

Poring over the book you note that from the start, Lee’s vision for Singapore was of a multiracial meritocracy, “not a Malay nor Chinese nor Indian nation,” but a place where “everybody would have his/her place: equal; language, culture, religion.” Indeed, this was the pledge he gave citizens on 9th August 1965, the day Singapore became independent.

Just like in our own country Kenya, at independence, interaction among the races in Singapore was limited. Many people chose to live in their own enclaves, went to their own vernacular schools and even controlled certain jobs. However, the transformative leadership and statesmanship of Lee Kuan Yew saw the People’s

Action Party (PAP) government put in place policies and measures such as – medium of instruction in schools; racial quotas for public housing estates; changes in the electoral system, inter alia, to enhance cohesion amongst the people.

One may ask, what measures are we as a country taking to enhance our cohesion and integration as one people, one nation, Kenya, as enshrined in our constitution?

What can we learn from our neighbours, Tanzania where it is estimated that there are over 120 ethnic groups, yet they seem to have more cohesion and integration than Kenya with only about 45 different ethnic groups?

Are there practical lessons that we can learn from successful nations like Singapore, or even some of our neighbours like Rwanda in harnessing our nationhood?

This takes us back to our starting question and to quote Napoleon Bonarparte; “An army of sheep led by a lion, will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.”

The writer is Executive Director and CEO of Kenya Institute of Management