African News

[1/1] BBC News - Africa
The latest stories from the Africa section of the BBC News web site.
[1/15] Somalia moves to evict squatters

[2/15] Blasts rock north Nigeria cities

[3/15] SA 'resurrected singer' detained

[4/15] Ghana 'lucky' to be in last four

[5/15] Egypt 'to try foreign NGO staff'

[6/15] Militants 'hit Nigeria pipeline'

[7/15] ANC youth leader appeal dismissed

[8/15] Cairo clashes over football anger

[9/15] Famine 'over' in Somalia, UN says

[10/15] Many die at S Sudan peace meeting

[11/15] Malaria toll 'is twice as high'

[12/15] Uganda signs oil production deal

[13/15] Sinai gunmen release US tourists

[14/15] Ivorians defend coach's approach

[15/15] Mali captain hails Eagles' spirit
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Leadership Quotes


  1. "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."
    — Peter F. Drucker

    "Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results"
    — George S. Patton

    "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."
    — Dwight Eisenhower

    "A leader is a dealer in hope."
    — Napoleon Bonaparte

    "I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?"
    — Benjamin Disraeli

    "The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it."
    — Elaine Agather

    "Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too."
    — Robert Half

    "Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women."
    — Groucho Marx

    "The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet."
    — Theodore M. Hesburgh

    "The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it."
    — Theodore Roosevelt

    "A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd."
    — James Crook

    "People cannot be managed. Inventories can be managed, but people must be led."
    — H. Ross Perot

    "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."
    — The Bible

    "Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility."
    — St. Augustine

    "Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all."
    — Dwight D. Eisenhower

    "Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes."
    — Lewis Grizzard

    "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him. But of a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves."
    — Lao-Tzu

    "It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead -- and find no one there."
    — Franklin D. Roosevelt

    "What you cannot enforce, do not command."
    — Sophocles

    "The question, 'Who ought to be boss?', is like asking, 'Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor."
    — Henry Ford

    "To lead people, walk beside them ... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ... When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves!'"
    — Lao-tsu

    "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the ditch."
    — Jesus Christ

    "Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry."
    — Winston Churchill

    "Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself—your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers."
    — Dee Hock 
Founder and CEO Emeritus, Visa

    "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."
    — John Kenneth Galbraith

    "If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever."
    — G.K. Chesterton to Alexander Woollcott

    "The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been."
    — Henry Kissinger

    "No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings."
    — Peter Drucker

    "The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already."
    — John Buchan

    "You do not lead by hitting people over the head — that's assault, not leadership."
    — Dwight D. Eisenhower

    "The best is he who calls men to the best. And those who heed the call are also blessed. But worthless who call not, heed not, but rest."
    — Hesiod
 8th Century BC Greek poet

    "Never give an order that can't be obeyed."
    — General Douglas MacArthur

    "Leadership must be based on goodwill. Goodwill does not mean posturing and, least of all, pandering to the mob. It means obvious and wholehearted commitment to helping followers. We are tired of leaders we fear, tired of leaders we love, and of tired of leaders who let us take liberties with them. What we need for leaders are men of the heart who are so helpful that they, in effect, do away with the need of their jobs. But leaders like that are never out of a job, never out of followers. Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away."
    — Admiral James B. Stockdale

    "Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand."
    — General Colin Powell

    "I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be."
    — Warren Bennis

    "Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better."
    — Harry Truman

    "The leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leaders and followers. ... Leaders, followers and goals make up the three equally necessary supports for leadership."
    — Gary Wills
Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders

    "A leader is one who influences a specific group of people to move in a God-given direction."
    — J. Robert Clinton

    "All Leadership is influence."
    — John C. Maxwell
Injoy, Inc.

    "Now there are five matters to which a general must pay strict heed. The first of these is administration; the second, preparedness; the third, determination; the fourth, prudence; and the fifth, economy."
    — Wu Ch'i (430-381 BC)

    "You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too."
    — Sam Rayburn

    "Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others may receive your orders without being humiliated."
    — Dag Hammarskjöld

    "The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the will to carry on."
    — Walter Lippmann

    "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, 'We did this ourselves.'"
    Lao-Tse

    "People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives."
    — Theodore Roosevelt

    "Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned."
    — Harold Geneen

    "The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant."
    — Max DePree

    "Four rules of leadership in a free legislative body:
First, no matter how hard-fought the issue, never get personal. Don't say or do anything that may come back to haunt you on another issue, another day....
Second, do your homework. You can't lead without knowing what you're talking about....
Third, the American legislative process is one of give and take. Use your power as a leader to persuade, not intimidate....
Fourth, be considerate of the needs of your colleagues, even if they're at the bottom of the totem pole...."
    — George Bush
Former President of the United States

    "Speak Softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."
    — Theodore Roosevelt

    "Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall."
    — Stephen R. Covey

    "He who has great power should use it lightly."
    — Seneca

    "How do you know you have won? When the energy is coming the other way and when your people are visibly growing individually and as a group."
    — Sir John Harvey-Jones

    "He makes a great mistake ... who supposes that authority is firmer or better established when it is founded by force than that which is welded by affection."
    — Terence

    "The leader must know, must know that he knows, and must be able to make it abundantly clear to those around him that he knows."
    — Clarence Randall

    "You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case."
    — Ken Kesey

    "As a leader, you're probably not doing a good job unless your employees can do a good impression of you when you're not around."
    — Patrick Lencioni

    "Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone's following you."
    — Henry Gilmer

    "Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not "making friends and influencing people", that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations."
    — Peter F. Drucker

    "Leadership is the ability to establish standards and manage a creative climate where people are self-motivated toward the mastery of long term constructive goals, in a participatory environment of mutual respect, compatible with personal values."
    — Mike Vance

    "The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do."
    — Andrew Carnegie

    "My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence."
    — General Montgomery

    "High sentiments always win in the end, The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic."
    — George Orwell

    "Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be."
    — Ralph Waldo Emerson

    "In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now."
    — Wangari Maathai

    "I think leadership comes from integrity - that you do whatever you ask others to do. I think there are non-obvious ways to lead. Just by providing a good example as a parent, a friend, a neighbor makes it possible for other people to see better ways to do things. Leadership does not need to be a dramatic, fist in the air and trumpets blaring, activity."
    — Scott Berkun

    "Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others."
    — Jack Welch

    "I think that the best training a top manager can be engaged in is management by example. I want to make sure there is no discrepancy between what we say and what we do. If you preach accountability and then promote somebody with bad results, it doesn't work. I personally believe the best training is management by example. Don't believe what I say. Believe what I do."
    — Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Renault-Nissan

    "If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings—and put compensation as a carrier behind it—you almost don't have to manage them."
    — Jack Welch

    "Make your top managers rich and they will make you rich."
    — Robert H. Johnson

    "Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it."
    — Proverbs 3:27

    "Catch someone doing something right."
    — Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson

    "Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."
    — Paul Dickson

    "Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere as long as the policy you've decided upon is being carried out."
    — Ronald Reagan

    "Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end."
    — Immanuel Kant

    "Management by objectives works if you first think through your objectives. Ninety percent of the time you haven't."
    — Peter Drucker

    "Don't equate activity with efficiency. You are paying your key people to see the big picture. Don't let them get bogged down in a lot of meaningless meetings and paper shuffling. Announce a Friday afternoon off once in a while. Cancel a Monday morning meeting or two. Tell the cast of characters you'd like them to spend the amount of time normally spent preparing for attending the meeting at their desks, simply thinking about an original idea."
    — Harvey Mackay

    "Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish."
    — Marcus Aurelius

    "We cling to hierarchies because our place in a hierarchy is, rightly or wrongly, a major indicator of our social worth."
    — Harold J. Leavitt

    "Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall."
    — Stephen R. Covey

    "Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it . . . ; Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine."
    — David Ogilvy

    "When hiring key employees, there are only two qualities to look for: judgement and taste. Almost everything else can be bought by the yard."
    — John W. Gardner

    "The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided."
    — Casey Stengel

    "A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."
    — John Le Caré

    "I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people."
    — Thomas J. Watson, Jr.
A Business and its Beliefs (1963)

    "Focus on a few key objectives ... I only have three things to do. I have to choose the right people, allocate the right number of dollars, and transmit ideas from one division to another with the speed of light. So I'm really in the business of being the gatekeeper and the transmitter of ideas."
    — Jack Welch

    "So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work."
    — Peter Drucker

    "Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet."
    — Henry Mintzberg
McGill University

    "If you are the master be sometimes blind, if you are the servant be sometimes deaf."
    — R Buckminster Fuller

    "The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work."
    — Agha Hasan Abedi

    "Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast.
    — Tom Peters

    "The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That's the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!"
    — General George S. Patton, Jr.

    "Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
    — Mark Twain

    "Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down."
    — Ray Bradbury

    "People will rise to meet seemingly insurmountable obstacles and challenges if they understand the worthiness of the personal sacrifices and effort. Supporting that understanding must be mentors who provide leadership; without both ingredients, a cause will go unrealized and a mission is likely to fail."
    — Glenn R. Jones
Creating a Leadership Organization with a Learning Mission in The Organization of the Future

    "This the world of white water where we have to change to survive; where we have to develop to thrive; and, paradoxically, where the very act of change increases the risk that we won't survive."
    — Randall White, Phillip Hodgson and Stuart Crainer
The Future of Leadership: A White Water Revolution

    "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
    — Helen Keller

    "Life is being on the wire, everything else is just waiting."
    — Karl Wallenda

    "What leaders have to remember is that somewhere under the somnolent surface is the creature that builds civilizations, the dreamer of dreams, the risk taker. And remembering that, the leader must reach down to the springs that never dry up, the ever-fresh springs of the human spirit."
    — John W. Gardner

    "If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough."
    —Mario Andretti

    "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I . . . I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
    — Robert Frost

    "The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety."
    — Goethe

    "The secret to my success is that I bit off more than I could chew and chewed as fast as I could."
    — Paul Hogan

    "Are you placing enough interesting, freakish, long shot, weirdo bets?"
    — Tom Peters

    "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
    — Robert F. Kennedy

    "A man would do nothing, if he waited until he could do it so well that no one would find fault with what he has done."
    — Cardinal Newman
British Preacher (1801-1890)

    "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures."
    — William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

    "Let's make a dent in the universe."
    — Steve Jobs

    "Progress always involves risk; you can't steal second base and keep your foot on first."
    — Frederick Wilcox

    "Do you want to be safe and good, or do you want to take a chance and be great?"
    — Jimmy Johnson
Dallas Cowboys Coach

    "To win without risk is to triumph without glory."
    — Pierre Corneille

    "Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go."
    — T.S. Eliot

    "To lead people, walk beside them ... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ... When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves!'"
    — Lao-tsu

    "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the ditch."
    — Jesus Christ

    "Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry."
    — Winston Churchill

    "Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself—your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers."
    — Dee Hock
Founder and CEO Emeritus, Visa

    "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."
    — John Kenneth Galbraith

    "If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever."
    — G.K. Chesterton to Alexander Woollcott

    "The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been."
    — Henry Kissinger

Archived Issues

Current Issue Vol.3, No.1
 In an era when Muammar Ghadaffi, the Libyan leader, refused to quit after keeping forty two years in office, in that same era when Houphouet Biogny of Ivory Coast and Gnassingbe Etienne Eyadema of Togo, each kept over three decades as Head of his State and refused to leave until both died in office, and in that very era when many other African leaders who had kept two decades as Heads of their States refused to quit power, one leader whose people were still applauding and the world was praising said: “I have had enough…. Let another leader take over from here.” That leader, Joaquim Chissano, the President of Mozambique shocked not only his nation but the entire world when in 2004 he decided to quit office when the ovation was still very loud. Josiah Holland must have had leaders like Joaquim Chissano in mind when he opened his hands in prayer that: “O Lord! Give us men a time like this demands. Strong men, great minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands. Men whom the lust of office cannot buy, men who possess opinion and will, men who have honour…Tall men, Sun-crowned who live above the fog in public duty and private thinking”

Joaquim Chissano belongs to the different “species” of African leaders. The write-up on him by Bola Borisade is the leading article in this edition. Today, many African countries are boiling because many African leaders have become sit-tight rulers. People are tired of them but they cannot be removed by democratic process. They, no longer make sense as rulers. Their countries are stagnating, their economies are bad. Rather than leave, they prefer to die in office. People who can bring in fresh ideas don't have access to power. The result is chaos in many countries.

The impact of founder's syndrome on Leadership Transition, A Case Study of Kids Alive – Kenya by Dr. David Minja of St. Paul's University Kenya and Linda Ndethiu of Daystar University Kenya is another interesting article. Founders tend to resist changes in the way their organizations are run for fear that, as their influences are minimized, the organizations might drift away from their original missions. In this article Dr. David Minja and Linda Ndethiu provided good insights into how organizations can grow beyond the narrow objectives of the founders into institutions that effectively serve the society.

Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu is the man chosen for African Leadership Profile of this edition. A popular cleric whose opposition to apartheid policy and all forms of injustice has made him become a global figure, Arch-Bishop Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1984. A courageous fighter who neither used the guns nor the tanks and yet achieved his victory, Desmond tutu is one of Africa's most admired leaders.



JOAQUIM CHISSANO:
joaquim-chissano
An African Example of What it Takes to be a Good Leader
Omobola Borisade
Public Administrator & Consultant
Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

Since the 1960s, when most African countries attained independence, the story has always been the same. A lying, crafty politician first appearing as a nationalist, then push through some populist programmes and then unveil what he really is – a real buffoon masquerading as a reformer, an intellectual terrorist in the mould of a Messiah. All but few African political leaders had turned out to be political misfits whose preoccupation is primitive accumulation. Most had bled their countries to almost breaking points. Africa is one continent where some of the leaders are richer than the countries they govern. It is a continent of sit-tight rulers. Muammar Ghadaffi has been in power for 42 years, Cote d'voir's Felix Houphouet – Boigny and Togo's Gnassingbe Eyaedema ruled for over three decades each. Here rulers generally refuse to leave when they no longer make sense. They constitute unnecessary burden to their states, yet they hold on to power. But in this general gloomy sea of despair was one leader who chose to be different. That leader was Joaquim Chissano, President of the Republic of Mozambique, November 4, 1986 to February 2, 2005. An articulate and brilliant leader piloted Mozambique through the transition from a communist to a capitalist ideology, won his country's first and second multiparty elections and made history by deciding not to run for his final term in office. “Let another leader continue from here, I have had enough.”
 
For more go to eJournal



The Impact of Founder’s Syndrome on Leadership
Transition - A case of Kids Alive - Kenya
Dr. David Minja (OD.D) & Linda Ndethiu (MBA)
Dean, Faculty of Business, Communication & ICT Studies
St. Paul's University
Private Bag- Limuru, Kenya


 &

Linda Ndethiu (MBA)
Daystar University

Founders start their organizations with noble intentions. As those organizations grow, only a small number put into account the ways in which their customers' needs will continue to change and how the organization will continue to effectively meet those needs. There is also no consideration given by the founders regarding how their roles will have to change, as the needs of the community or customers also change. Such organizations will over time begin to experience the phenomenon that is known as 'Founder's Syndrome', which has been described as a pattern of negative or undesirable behavior on the part of the founder(s) of an organization. This study focused on how this syndrome impacts on organizational sustainability and leadership transition. The theoretical framework was based on organizational culture theory. The design of the study was descriptive in nature with a focus on a particular organization as the target of study.

The results of the study revealed that organizations go through a lifecycle where it will either go through significant changes or collapse. How the organization manages the change will determine its future survival and growth and in the extreme case, it may be rendered irrelevant. Based on the findings, the researchers made several recommendations that could be applied by any organization that desires to position itself strategically for the future.

Keywords: Founder's Syndrome, Entrepreneurial Visioning and Shared leadership

For more go to eJournal



Nigeria's Promise, Africa's Hope

chinua-achebe
Chinua Achebe
 Is a Professor at Brown University, is the author of “Things Fall Apart.”
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 16, 2011, on page WK12 of the New York edition.

AFRICA has endured a tortured history of political instability and religious, racial and ethnic strife. In order to understand this bewildering, beautiful continent — and to grasp the complexity that is my home country, Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation — I think it is absolutely important that we examine the story of African people.
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African Leadership Profile: The Beautiful Ones

desmond-tutu-s
ARCH BISHOP DESMOND TUTU

By Michael Awe (Editor)
Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu, a charismatic, popular cleric who has been a global personality in the last four decades, is an African of South African descent. You look at him, then you see a rugged figure, the father of his country, a deeply religious man of God, the wise and profound statesman, the indefatigable fighter for human rights, a social reformer of considerable scale yet a man of peace, an extrovert yet the deep sure man of solitude. Desmond Tutu possesses vast and diverse qualities that make his profile extremely intimidating.
For more go to eJournal.

For more go to eJournal
 
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