Our Assumptions May Have Been Wrong All Along

Do they know what they are doing?

I have written materials about corruption in general and more especially, corruption in the developing societies. I have seen in person the long lasting physical effect of corruption; the latent and the tertiary effects as well. Corrupt leaders who misappropriate funds may be underestimating the wrongs they are causing to their immediate societies and beyond. In this material, I will be discussing the character flaws of these people that are in positions of authorities that the citizenry sometimes does not understand and as such, do not ascribe these flaws to these individuals per se. Theses persons that the people choose do cheat and take advantage of, these people they directly or indirectly deny their nationals right and live privileges.

Is it only greed?

Some may argue that corruption is as a result of greed, I subscribe to that same assumptions too, and to a greater extent, however; I will hinge my take on the fact that corrupt leaders are skill-less, to say the least. Somewhere in Google search; corruption is said to be a dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery. In dishonest or fraudulent conduct analysis, you are forced to separate corruption in the context of actions and activities. I believe that a skilled artisan and or craftsman always endeavours sincerely do the right thing when engaged is his craft to the best of his ability. On the other hand, corrupt leaders are in many ways, not skilled artisans to say least. And these people that are in a position to make complicated functional and operational decisions that require integrity.

What does “Skill-less” mean?

My take is this and please hear me out. I believe that we are genetically programmed not to do the wrong thing on purpose. Reflexively, our genetic programming, orientation, and human decency fends off purposeful-wrong doings in most cases. Humans, as differentiated from other instinctive mammals have a fail-safe that is called reasoning; these reasoning has led me to believe strongly that a skilled artisan will not and cannot intentionally do a bad job while carrying his or her craft; never! How can a qualified and skilled electrician intentionally set a building ablaze by connecting wrong cables? The worker can only do such a thing for a reason that matches the actions with the expectation of impending consequences. I am sure some techies reading this material will understand where I am about to go with this following example. I am of the opinion that a skilled computer hardware technician will not force-insert a memory card into a slot slated for the processor or hard drive. When a product that needs assembly is assembled right, there should be no screws or parts insufficiency. Instead, there may be extras. That OEMs intentionally throw in the box to save careless assemblers the hassles. Relating the analysis above to corrupt leaders and leadership; financial, behavioral and conduct misappropriation shall we say is caused by lack of required skill set. That these boys and girls at the helm of affairs do not know what they are doing, what they are supposed to do and how to go about acquiring supportive hands; as such, they repeatedly go down the wrong path?

It is mind boggling

We have all heard of mind-boggling corruptions; according to the Nigerian president, that plagued the country infrastructure constructions. These were believed to have been spear-headed by erstwhile leaders who were intentionally handing out of the national cake, and in some cases, an outright conspiratorial of few privileged bushwahzees to unendingly share monies or give a blind eye to the sharing of monies earmarked for the societal build. One is forced to ask the reasons these monies are siphoned and diverted into personal purses; I think they lack leadership skills, investment skills and for what it is worth, they are without management skills. They are aloof with what to do next with the unplanned stolen wealth. They are persons whose responsibilities are critically over their heads, and for the fact their above height ego is an obstacle in their line of sight, drilling down for solutions becomes out of pace with norms and cultural commonalities.

What is money to them?

I mean, common knowledge tells us that money is a tool, and a means for acquiring intended ends and not the end itself. Correct me if I wrong but technology has not developed edible currencies, yet that is also a legal tender unless I am living in the past but I have not seen expensive comfy beddings made out of raw dead presidents. We can exchange the dead presidents for the comfy beddings, that I know of but stashing in them in whatever storage facility, environment or climates calls questioning of those monies values and the storer’s skills. Agreed, nefarious wealthy people in developed countries also stash monies away in foreign banks and the monies are not invested, but that is different. Those monies, though, despite the criminality of its intentions but are acquired in most cases legally and are stashed away for purposes bothering on mainly tax evasion. For what purposes are monies earmarked for infrastructures in developing societies and are stashed in banks in developed countries?

You will do what you know how to do

I know and believe that there are successful leaders whose successes are dependent on their abilities to judge and assign people to functions for which they are best suited, or to manage organizational culture directionally. The skills for leadership varies and can be acquired if a leader drills down. First and foremost, though, there should be a novice acknowledgement and the willingness to learn. Leaders in the developing societies are either too confused to know that they are confused, too overwhelmed to know that they are in too deep. Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication, they say, and keeping it simple is a mantra that escapes the unsophisticated. Ignorant pride in leadership leads the herd to the dark alley of common deceits towards space and time of waste.

The question is, how do we evaluate skills of leaders? Note that I have not said “leadership skills”, but instead, acquired skills that guarantee that functional artisanry of managerial leadership is a skill set required of the developing societies leaders and managers. There is no doubt that you cannot wrongly do wrong of that which you rightly know how to do right. Now, how do you get the right people with the right skills on to the right positions so that their know-how are used in the right places for the right functions? Remember, this is not an exoneration, it is, however, a case for human decency, forthrightness and integrity of sort to admit what you do know, learn what you do not know and outsource that with which you need help in doing. Like always, let me hear from you.

OJI