Nigerian Women And Quest For Leadership

Kathleen Okafor argues that Nigerian women have proved their mettle in the search for authentic leaders

With the global ascendance of women to sociopolitical and economic leadership positions, there is the sub-topic of Authentic Women Leadership. An authentic woman leader should first of all have good leadership qualities. What is leadership? Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an organized group towards achieving a common goal. According to Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is a psychological process of influencing followers and directing them to accomplish a certain task or duty. A leader’s style may be autocratic/authoritarian or a democratic leader who welcomes participation. The leader may also be hybrid or a combination of both authoritarian and democratic styles.

To the authentic woman, leadership is crucial because it provides a sense of direction, promotes development of the group, maximises efficiency in achieving goals. An authentic woman leader knows the way, goes the way and shows the way. She directs, guides, coordinates and is capable of initiating changes for the accomplishment of the organizational goals.

Qualities possessed by authentic women leaders include: vision, persistence, initiative, flexibility, good communication and social skills, charisma, dynamism and commitment to organizational tasks/goals. Other qualities include: confidence, honesty, accountability, etiquette, creativity, self- control over emotions and temper, sound judgment and informed decision-making, and being a good listener who is easy to approach and talk to.

A vital question now is: how can women provide competent, effective and result-oriented management of organizations in order to achieve the best results? Do women make better managers of human and economic resources than their male counterparts? Do women have to adapt to male-dominated administrative cultures and expectations in the workplace and other areas of socio-economic interaction? These are some of the issues that are discussed under the topic of Authentic Women Leadership. In essence, it is about women’s natural ability to achieve results and greater socio-economic development by being their authentic, natural selves rather than by simply following male-oriented patterns and cultures.

Women are known to be better at multi-tasking than men: they can coordinate and concentrate equally on several tasks and duties simultaneously while males tend to concentrate on one task at a time. This can be easily observed in women’s historic role in the management of various issues concerning children, offices, clients, clubs, homes, etc. Women can respond rapidly to different problems and issues at the same time and with equal attention and effectiveness. In the workplace, women are usually better able to successfully manage multiple policies or targets. Without losing focus on the big picture, they can micro-manage specific details of various sub-sectors of the general sector. This skill of multi-tasking is certainly very beneficial in a corporate or administrative environment.

In the area of socio-economic and political administration, many examples abound of women who have demonstrated excellent leadership and management skills. During the 2008/2009 world economic recession, Germany astonished the world by being the only developed country that continued to grow while the economies of other developed countries went south. The nation’s veteran leader, Angela Merkel, is generally credited with this achievement. Her excellent economic management and competence ensures that the German economy has continued to grow every year since she took office in 2005. While reducing fixation on the highly volatile financial securities sector which caused the economic crisis in New York and London, she preferred to focus the German economy on the more stable manufacturing, engineering and automotive export sectors. As world stock markets collapsed with banking and financial stocks, thereby bringing down most western economies, Germany’s industrial sector and its exports were able to maintain the country’s continued economic growth, thereby resulting in trade surpluses and increased social prosperity.

Merkel’s cautiousness demonstrates the natural quality of women. Unlike their male counterparts some of whom can be reckless, women tend to be more cautious about risks and where such risks are inevitable, they are more likely to prepare in advance for any negative consequences of the risk. Female business managers and executives should therefore be very attractive to investors and clients who can be rest assured that the company has a sober and pragmatic management team running its affairs. Same applies to public administration and government bodies. Female economic managers such as Merkel will usually emphasize a ‘rainy-day’ fund that is set aside in case of unexpected crisis or emergencies while at the same time working to reduce possible liabilities or threats to economic stability. It is not only in Western Europe that authentic women leaders are found. Africa apparently has her own Angela Merkel in the person of Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s Finance Minister during the governments of Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan. Dr Okonjo-Iweala was able to eliminate all foreign debts owed by the Obasanjo government and this saved the nation so much funds which would otherwise have been used to pay interests on the huge debts owed to the foreign lenders. These funds were re-channeled to social development projects such as infrastructure, healthcare and education.

However, Okonjo-Iweala’s best achievement was yet to come. During the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, she was again recalled from overseas where she was Managing Director of the World Bank, to serve as Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy between 2011 and 2015. Her highly competent economic management expertise made Nigeria the largest economy in Africa, thereby toppling the mighty Republic of South Africa from the top spot.

With a national Gross Domestic Product of almost $700 billion, Dr Okonjo-Iweala was on course to pilot Nigeria’s economy to the $1 trillion mark by 2016, a first for any African country, when the unexpected happened, politically.

Other role models for Nigerian women leaders include the multi-billionaire oil magnate, Folorunsho Alakija and the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed. From the above examples, we can clearly appreciate women’s capacity for good governance, excellent management and result-oriented competence whether in socio-political or economic-financial management.

Apart from the ability to multi-task, women have certain other strengths and advantages over their male counterparts. To start with, most women leaders usually put in more work than males, in order to reach the top of the organization. They are able to defy the odds and this is replicated in their subsequent management of the organization because they are ready to overcome any obstacle in order to achieve targets and excel, the same way they prove everybody wrong by reaching the top. This determination and unyielding energy is vital for decisive, result-oriented leadership.

Women are also naturally good in the art of nurturing things. This is traceable to their natural role as mothers who nurture infants all the way to adulthood (women also sometimes have to nurture boyish husbands who have refused to grow up, all the way to maturity).