Composure in leadership necessary

The whole idea of having political leaders such as Members of Parliament as well as State Presidents is to help people go through problems and have a better life.

Therefore, it is necessary to have good leaders who are dedicated to their cause. To achieve this, it is up to people to wisely choose leaders for the elective offices.

In countries such as Malawi, where corruption is rampant, some leaders get into power through bribing the electorate voters. This is unfortunate because people end up choosing those candidates with deeper pockets who are necessarily not the wisest. Even dunderheads can become leaders even when it is very clear that they have no idea of what leadership is all about.

In fact, it goes without saying that due to abject poverty Malawians expect their Presidents and MPs to come up with solutions to their problems and not just repetitively talking about mere intentions. Leaders cannot say they lack advice. There is plenty of free advice out there.

The problem is that leaders are not willing to take advice from anybody or listen to what the masses are saying. On advice, some presidential advisers seem to be scared stiff to give the right advice since they want to protect their jobs. Obviously, the advisers might be thinking that their advice can easily be translated by the President to mean. As a result, presidential advisers look irrelevant as the best advice might come from Cabinet ministers.

The idea of having advisers for the Presidents is good, provided they can be listened too, instead of turning them to mere spy masters on the opponents. One can only hope that future Presidents will take note of all the points raised here. The leadership must be mindful that Malawi has no shortage of people with political wisdom to work as a think-tank for the benefit of all.

Above everything else, Malawi needs leadership with composure to handle the many challenges. In fact, it is well known that leadership is the ability to solve challenges. This is paramount in a country such as Malawi, which has countless problems—ranging from perpetual hunger to joblessness—with lack of medicines in public hospitals in between, people continuously look up to the leadership to come up with decisive solutions as soon as possible.

Currently, the presidential candidates for the forthcoming election are campaigning. Everywhere they go the common complaints from people is hunger. What one wonders is that there is a government in place, but what has it been doing? What seems to be the case, all leaders just bury their heads in the sand, assuming the problem will miraculously disappear. In a problem-infested Malawi, Heads of State prefer a culture of silence. MPs mostly prefer to live outside their constituencies to avoid being approached in times of problems.

Meanwhile, former president Joyce Banda can be hailed for her timely decisiveness whenever the country was faced with problems such as food shortage, regardless of where. In fact, she is a leader worth emulating for being ready all the time to face challenges in the country. This is the type of leadership that Malawi lacks.

To show that leadership is a real concern, even Catholic bishops in the country last week issued a Pastoral letter titled A further call for a New Era in Malawi, which calls for servant leadership. The MPs must serve their constituencies while the President must serve all Malawians regardless of their tribal or political party affiliations.

It is very important that no campaign candidate should waste time in corning some rigging styles. Malawians are definitely too sick and tired to waste more time sorting out rigging cases. Let a leader with composure be elected to the benefit of all Malawians.