Groomed to lead from the back

Unlike his predecessors, President Jacob Zuma doesn’t fit into the leadership pattern most people expect

DOUGLAS Mabunda, a loyal, dedicated member of the ANC in good standing, says to me: “You political analysts, the media, and the opposition, are so obsessed with President Jacob Zuma – the ANC is bigger than Zuma.”

Mabunda puts it to me that there are many issues engulfing society that are deserving of attention rather than the endless hammering of Zuma. In fact, it is common in the ANC circles to hear of a “broader hatred” against Zuma.

Some ANC MPs have begun to advance this defence of Zuma as a victim of insatiable hatred.

I have no mandate to speak on behalf of others. However, if there are Zuma critics motivated by hatred of the president, that’s wrong. Addressing national issues on the basis of hatred for Zuma robs the nation, and Zuma himself, of genuine engagement. What is meant as a genuine criticism of Zuma’s leadership could become propaganda against him.

I do not think there is an obsession with Zuma. There is, though, a critical focus on him that comes with his position. Our polarised socio-economic conditions with poverty being mainly among blacks, riches among whites, positions expectations of his leadership role at two extremes.

For the poor black majority, Zuma carries the role and personification of the saviour, the messiah. The rich white society expects him to protect their privilege and expand white wealth. Therefore, both the poor and the rich will focus on Zuma but for contradictory reasons.

The difference, though, is that the middle and upper classes have direct access to means of disseminating information. They dominate the spaces of public opinion. As a result, this upper-class criticism of Zuma’s leadership dominates and subtly begins to sound to be correct.

The generic leadership narrative navigates in favour of those who lead from the front. This is where most misunderstand Zuma’s leadership approach: he leads from behind the scenes.

This is different to the leadership approaches adopted by his predecessors, Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. They led from the front. This was commensurate with how they rose within the ANC.

Mandela was a lawyer. Such a profession orientated him to logically develop arguments, ascertain facts and thereafter, argue his case. In his training, he was capacitated to stand up front, and seek to convince his audience towards a certain position to earn a favourable decision. Therefore, he grew in stature as charismatic and a great orator. As such, his rise within the ANC positioned him to lead from the front.

While in prison, the ANC generated the Release Mandela Campaign throughout the world and upon his release, it positioned him in front to face the nation and the world.

Mbeki’s growth within the ANC positioned him to work closely with stalwart Oliver Tambo. Part of his responsibility had been to convince the world that the ANC was not a terrorist organisation, but a genuine liberation movement fighting for human rights.

He had to help convince the world to apply sanctions against the apartheid regime. These duties threw him too to the front of the organisation, preparing him to lead from the front and engage with various constituencies and seek to win them over.

Hence, as president, he would through his “Letter from the President” on the “ANC Today” deal with institutions and personnel he considered adversaries. This was a reflection of how he rose in the ANC.

Zuma worked closely with Mbeki on military projects in Mozambique, Zambia and Swaziland. However, while Mbeki had at some point assumed diplomatic roles within the ANC, Zuma remained an underground military intelligence man.

This culminated in his being appointed the chief of intelligence of the ANC based in Lusaka. He remained central to military underground operations. Even when negotiations started, he worked behind the scenes. These included projects that sought to get the military strongman Constand Viljoen, who advocated for a Volkstaat, to abandon the idea and join the elections.

Thereafter, Zuma was central in working behind the scenes for peace in KwaZulu-Natal, which was ravaged by political violence between the ANC and IFP.

Essentially, his rise within the ANC has always been in sensitive military intelligence underground operations. The ANC has not positioned him to lead from the front, but to lead from behind the scenes. He is not a front-line leader, but the mastermind.

This is where, Mabunda, the misunderstanding of Zuma’s leadership by most of his leadership critics lies: they have a leadership template Zuma is expected to fit into and doesn’t. I refer to this template as the “podium leadership style”.

This is Archbishop Emeritus

Critics have a leadership template he is expected to fit but doesn’t

Desmond Tutu’s style of leadership – standing ahead of a flock that follows.

Zuma operates in the front row through others. Thus, when it comes to the government’s strategic engagement with the public, minister Jeff Radebe assumes the front-row role; in dealing with state-owned enterprises and government relations there is Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa; Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande plays the intellectual frontrow role in dealing with criticism from the opposition; and Speaker Baleka Mbete was supposed to ensure the ANC’s triumph in Parliament.

This is just one of the many approaches to leadership. However, it is not one of the commonly advanced styles in leadership schools. There is nothing wrong with it, as long as Zuma delivers on his mandate.

The one way to determine this, as Mabunda would argue, is to go beyond the individual and look at the performance of Zuma’s cabinet and the government.

If there is over-concentration on Zuma the individual to the disregard of his government’s performance, perhaps Mabunda is right, there is an obsession with Zuma.

However, if Zuma does not lead the government well to fulfil his mandate, which in his position as president he must do, then criticism of him may be valid.

In this regard, most have erroneously looked for Zuma in the US’s Barack Obama, when in essence, they should look for him in Russia’s Vladimir Putin.