Leadership visionaries abound in public sector

By Samuel B Macharia

Kenya is at a crossroads if the severe water shortage, energy crisis, increased insecurity, burgeoning youth unemployment and runaway corruption are anything to go by.

The way we navigate the road to the future will determine the legacy we leave for future generations. But Kenya is a great country that has overcome similar challenges and weathered different storms before.

Her people are not only indefatigable and resourceful but also innovative and resolute. The most remarkable test was the ethnic clashes that followed the fiercely contested general elections of December 2007. With tremendous support from the international community, the country returned to normalcy.

The first order of business should then be ensuring economic stability and growth, fighting negative ethnicity and fostering national healing.

The challenges facing this country are many and can only be solved through committed and visionary leadership. There is a deafening cry for competent leadership in politics, church, and community level as well as in business. The public continues to demand improved service delivery from Government.

In 2007, Kenya won the UN Public Service Award for improved service delivery. She must endeavour to build upon such successes and add value to the level of service delivery.

Insecurity remains one of the greatest challenges. The public must play a greater role to improve security in their neighbourhood by working closely with police. According to Sir Robert Peel, the founder of modern policing, "the basic mission of police is to prevent crime and disorder".

Practical platforms

The public must help root out law breakers through the concept of community policing. By lowering our behaviour standards, we weaken the moral fibre of the society. As sociologist Emile Durkheim put it: "When the mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are enforceable."

Who will give hope to our youth? Where are the role models? Youth are drinking themselves out of relevance despite practical platforms of engagement like Kazi kwa Vijana initiative and bold statements that make up Vision 2030?

The Company of the Year Award organised by Kenya Institute of Management continues to generate a lot of interest. The awards prove we can move from effectiveness to greatness.

It was heartening this year when public sector organisations competed for the awards against their counterparts in the private sector. The commonly held truism that the public sector has little to offer compared to the private sector was smashed to smithereens. The CEO of the Year Award went to Julius Kipng’etich, the Director of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). The win was not surprising.

Kenya Wildlife Service has continued to grow from strength to strength under his stewardship, and like he said during his short acceptance speech, he owed his success to the team that works with him. Not surprisingly, the human capital manager of KWS bagged the Runners-up Manager of the Year Award.

In KWS’ excellent performance, what makes some leaders transform hitherto poorly performing organisations into High Performing Organisations? How do they create formidable teams? How do they develop and retain confidence among staff? How do they win the cut-throat war for talent? What strategies do they utilise to increase the return on human capital investment? We have excellent examples of public organisations from which we can draw lessons.

Not surprising

Some of the lessons can be applied at national leadership level. The Asian Tigers and other countries in the West have experienced similar challenges at some point of their development sojourn.

We should embrace these best-fit and best-practice approaches to managing organisations to meet the aspirations of our people.

Kenya is a great country. She should strengthen institutions, develop values and ethics, do away with impunity, and have managers become accountable for their actions — individually and collectively.

—The writer is a senior lecturer, Kenya Institute Of Administration.