Delegation lessons from Mandela

Great leaders are masters of the art of nurturing talent and the humility to know that masters as they are or might have been they still have to delegate.

South Africa’s first black president Nelson Mandela perfected this by not only delegating while in office, but also doing the ultimate delegation which was to retire after only serving one term of office.

The opposite of this are those that chose zero or little delegation. We have all seen the dramatic tragedy of failure that met those that defied the wisdom of having to delegate and went on to assume the impossible feat of going everywhere and doing every task, however trivial it was, by themselves, to the extent of going to distribute sweets at kids’ birthday parties.

They came to a tragically dramatic finish that even surprisingly surprised them to the extent that everyone ended up surprised that the surprised were indeed surprised, especially because everyone, except the surprised, saw the writings on the cloth that this approach was a sure highway to a tragic finish. Such is the brutal reality of the “game” that it sometimes punishes those who are not very clever and fail to listen and see the signs.

The reasons for the latter, those of us leaders with the passion and zeal to do everything on our own and not allow others who are employed and are better qualified to do the task do the job, is very simple. It is borne out of the greed for praise and accolades. A somewhat misguided perception that “as a leader I must be seen to be out there doing the work and giving out the goodie goodies”. I must be visible so that I increase my appeal, presence and electability. A product of an intellectually depleted and myopic understanding (more accurately misunderstanding) of the power of marketing where one thinks that visibility is everything. Poorly thought through visibility is poison.

Such pursuit for philanthropic vanity in the guise of being seen to be of a kind and benevolent disposition to the less privileged worked temporarily when people were of limited awareness about where such largesse by individuals who a while ago were commoners of limited means like everybody else and now were the super gifted with abundance. It cannot deliver endearment by the masses anymore in this era of enlightenment to all courtesy of a liberalised mass media.

Therefore, the pretenders to the largesse of philanthropy found that their “father” Christmas machinations miserably failed to deliver their aspirations and they got the shock of their lives.

Such has been a great lesson to all of us and one can only hope that we all understand that when we are given a job to do what is important is to get it done thoroughly in a transparent, honest and efficient manner so that in the words of one leader “let the fruits of thy labours speak for thee”. Going around dispensing largesse and doing work for everyone will not only be an investment in futility but a drain not only on the community resources but will also just wear the doer out.

History is for us to learn from, although it may appear that in some endeavours history has the malignant tendency of repeating itself in the most vivid of fashions.

Yet, it is our hope that as seen by what we have seen so far, early days as other may caution, there is a semblance of departing from old habits and a seemingly healthy dose of signs of not only delegating but the lack of that insatiable appetite to be visible at all costs; even at kitchen parties and engagement anniversaries.

Such posture sends a message like Barack Obama said on his first inauguration and I quote loosely: “This is time to set aside childish things”. Put simply, there is work to do and it will be done by making sure that such things as getting CEOs of quasi and government institutions stay in their offices and not tail gate the leadership to every engagement in the name of outdoing each other as to who is most loyal to the cause. Such days it seems, are hopefully numbered.

Lastly, just some sympathy to those who delude themselves that the second tenant of the State will tire of going to the office at headquarters. Well, they might just be in for a long haul of waiting because knowing the gentleman as some folks do, you might be in for some surprise. So, just get used to doing an honest day’s work.