Kalungu-Banda urges a new approach to leadership in Africa

Kalungu-Banda urges a new approach to leadership in Africa
By Wana Kalala and Speedwell Mupuchi
Mon 23 July 2012, 07:30 CAT

AFRICAN leaders need to revisit the notion of leadership as servanthood, says organisation and leadership development consultant Martin Kalungu-Banda. And Post editor Fred M'membe says African journalists should always seek good journalism and strive for excellence.

Making a presentation on the theme 'Leadership in Africa' at a media forum on Friday ahead of yesterday's CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Awards, Kalungu-Banda (right) said many leaders on the continent, whether in government or the business sector, were surrounded by advisors who had lost their individual voice and frequently specialised in second guessing what the leader wanted.

"One person with power, and everybody starts second guessing that person with power, and Cabinet meetings quite often are not Cabinet meetings; they are either announcement meetings or instruction meetings. Most of the times, the relationship between a leader especially of a political nature and those around them are those relationships between one adult, a big headmaster, and extremely timid children," he said.

Kalungu-Banda, former advisor of late president Levy Mwanawasa, said the major challenge facing Africa was not poverty or the lack of housing and social services, but that those entrusted with leading had no room to engage in thinking about the challenges they faced.

He said people in positions of authority need to devise mechanisms that would enable them engage constructively with those they lead.

"The higher you go, the less truth reaches you. So you need to get a mechanism for getting down. In your own system as an organisation, as a business, when you start seeing one another as collaborators into the mission of the institution, into the mission of the country, relations become different," he said.

Kalungu-Banda said African leaders had lost the notion of leadership as service, and had instead adopted the biblical creation narrative.
"African presidents can actually 'mimic' God. 'Let there be a central bank governor', and there is. 'Let there be headmaster of X', and there is; 'let there not be primary school', and there isn't. It is unnatural for human beings to have such overwhelming power," he said.

Kalungu-Banda said the role of leaders was to inspire those around them.
"The primary role of leadership is to create an environment which those you are leading can think in the best way possible.

You are not expected to know all the answers. No matter how good, intelligent and educated you are, you just won't have all the answers it takes to take your society, your organisation to where it ought to be. Create an environment where those immediately around you are and in the different circles are thinking partners," Kalungu-Banda said.
He called for a re-defining of the concept of leadership in Africa.

"In a modern state, we've never sat down to define how our leaders and ourselves engage in order to continuously increase the betterment of our systems. Other than the early immediate post-colonial efforts made by Leopold Senghor, Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, with their own philosophies, we have not sat down as a continent to re-define leadership in the context of a modern state," he said.

He also urged the media to use the "phenomenal power" it wields responsibly.
"In addition to your courage, in addition to your power, think of the possibility that you ought to be intellectual scavengers; because one line of knowledge for people like you won't do. You must be as interested in psychology and neuroscience and biology as you are interested in literary style…How human beings change must be something you are deeply interested in," Kalungu-Banda said.

He said the continent was changing at a fast pace and its leaders should inspire citizens to tap into the richness "within ourselves".
"(African leaders) can do symbolic gestures that help us to search for our own giftedness, for our own talents, and then together we can create a better continent," said Kalungu-Banda.

Friday's media forum was attended by media practitioners from across the continent, as well as finalists of yesterday's CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Awards.

And speaking on a panel discussion on Ethics in Journalism at Chaminuka Lodge ahead of yesterday's CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Awards, M'membe urged journalists to defend the practice of journalism whenever and wherever it is threatened.

The panel also comprised Joyce Mhaville, managing director of Tanzania's ITV, Kim Norgaar from CNN International and Gbenga Adefaye, general manager and editor-in-chief of Nigeria's Vanguard.

"By that what I mean is, the greatest right in this world is the right to be wrong. The issues we are dealing with are difficult issues, they are very difficult, complex issues; it's not a question of wrong or right, it's not a question of black or white; these are not like laws, laws are very easy to define. You know when the law is broken. Ethical considerations are complex issues that require discussion.

But the bad journalism that you are condemning today may produce good journalism tomorrow," he said. "…there was a time when Nelson Mandela was called a terrorist in prison by the Western media. Today, the same media is praising Mandela in all sorts of ways. The African National Congress was a terrorist organisation, SWAPO was a terrorist organisation, ZAPU, ZANU, FRELIMO were terrorists organisations. MPLA (Angola) was a terrorist organisation. The Western media carried those stories.

We saw the worst journalism that I can talk about in the reporting of the Western media in this region. One white person is killed in Rhodesia, it is coverage the whole world; hundreds of people are massacred in Kassinga in southern Angola, it's not a story. But that will not stop me from defending the Western media when it is attacked. I am not defending a bad story per se, I am defending the right to journalism. I am defending something that is more supreme than one story or two stories or a thousand stories."

M'membe challenged the media to defend the right to gather information and disseminate it consistently and continually.

"Whether a journalist is wrong or right, I will defend them. I am not defending the wrong act, I am defending their right to do their job. There is no profession where people don't get things wrong. People are dying in hospitals, killed by doctors, most of them don't even go to prison. I get a story wrong, I am sent to prison.

We have to defend journalism, and there is distinction between a bad story and the general practice of journalism. One wrong story does not make me qualify to be condemned for life. A bad newspaper today may be a good newspaper tomorrow that will serve society, the world and humanity," said M'membe. "Let's defend journalism simply because it is journalism…This is the appeal I make to all of you: defend journalism for the sake of journalism, even the journalism that you disagree with, defend it, defend the journalist you detest the most when they are attacked. But when we gather like this, let's critically look at our work in the spirit of criticism and self-criticism."
Mhaville urged the journalists from across Africa to defend journalism at all costs.

She called for media houses to educate their journalists on ethics.
"It's very important for the African media to learn from each other, we should not only depend on the western media, BBC, CNN because they carry the world agenda, it's high time to have an African agenda in the sense of "I need to get news from Nigeria to hear what the Nigerians are saying and from Southern Africa to hear what the South Africans are saying," she said.
Mhaville said only journalists could defend journalism in Africa. She also challenged the media to have ethics that were implementable.

Adefaye challenged journalists to do for themselves what was credible.
Norgaard also challenged journalists to reflect on why they became journalists.
He noted that the quality of journalism of the independent media in Africa was changing.

"Governments are changing, the economy of Africa is changing, we have a great future ahead in our profession as journalists," said Norgaard.
Several African journalists expressed various concerns like low pay and taking bribes that affected the practice of journalism in many countries.