Four ingredients President Ruto should have on his menu

President William Ruto is welcomed by Kenyans abroad when he arrived in London, United Kingdom to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on September 19, 2022. [PSCU, Standard]

Regardless of who they voted for, Kenyans of goodwill agree that President William Ruto's success is our collective success.

He promised to turbo-charge agricultural productivity, support the manufacturing sector, build a working housing market, and make universal healthcare a reality.

These are noble developmental goals squarely within our reach as a people in a generation if we are serious and willing to organise ourselves to achieve them. To this end, how should Ruto and his advisors think about his presidency? I suggest they consider the following four guiding principles.

First, they should accept that they will make mistakes and won't solve all problems in five or even ten years.

It is important to cultivate a government-wide willingness to learn and improve, as well an internalisation of the government's limits. Only failures fear feedback.

Second, they should develop a broad-based developmentalist policy agenda, and then focus on an implementation timeline that targets specific subsets of the whole. Ruto and his team have finite cognitive resources and time.

Therefore, he needs a clear focus on specific policy goals each year. His leadership will be measured by his ability to convince the public and civil servants that he is passionate about results. Otherwise, he will be spread thin and guaranteed to fail.

Third, Ruto should promote an ethos among civil servants of working for the private sector in all its variation - from the fabled mama mboga to the firm that employs thousands.

Economic policy officials' key performance indicators should be tied to private sector growth, and not their budgets or number of programmes.

Resources and talent should be directed to sectors that maximise average Kenyans' economic freedom and wellbeing. Finally, Ruto would be served by having an external mechanism of evaluating his team's performance.

One option is to establish an economic and social council composed of scholars and professionals with little incentive to prevaricate.

All leaders face the danger yes-men. Smart leaders overcome this problem by consciously cultivating mechanisms of accessing truth.

The writer is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University