Arrogance: leadership killer, or is it?
Two of the most powerful political leaders in Botswana, President Mokgweetsi Masisi of the Botswana Democratic Party and Advocate Duma Boko of the Umbrella for Democratic Change have received a fair share of criticism regarding their respective characters.
Most people would not be proud of a boastful and arrogant leader because that presents cynicism towards the party concerned and politics in general. Despite the veracity of the statement that, arrogance is the leadership killer, nations still have to deal with leaders who suffer from over- inflated egos, which make them believe they matter more than everyone else.
While the focus of a humble leader is to serve others that of an arrogant leader is to be served by those that he leads. Not only does an arrogant leader seek to hoard all the credit to him or herself, his or her personal agenda comes before the collective objective of the organisation he or she leads. “Those who lead with humility, on the other hand, work to support, inspire and develop others,” leadership coach, Lolly Daskal says.
Where arrogant leaders see the need to bully their detractors into total submission, humble ones shine the light on others including their sworn critics and detractors. Bill Treasurer and John Havlik record in their book, The Leadership Killer: Reclaiming Humility in the Age of Arrogance, that life is replete with people who have seen their careers crumble due to arrogance on their part. “Pick up your newspaper on any given day and you are bound to see another leadership’s fail story about a corporate, military, political, sports, or religious leader and put all their entire careers and reputation at stake by doing something shockingly self- sabotaging and un- leadership,” Treasurer and Havlik say in the book. The book continues, “When you get to the root cause of the fail, it nearly always comes down to arrogance. The bigger the ego, the more dangerous a leader becomes to him or herself and to the people being led”. According to Patrick Decker, a researcher, instead of ‘ swelling,’ leaders must grow. “Swelling is how you can tell when new leaders are letting power go to their heads, the surest sign that a leader is headed for trouble,” Becker says.
Some say arrogance is a defence mechanism by leaders seeking to deter the people they lead from demanding answers from them. Politics is a game of numbers hence the need for a leader to be acceptable to his or her colleagues including, and most importantly, the voters.
“Arrogance is very repulsive. It pushes people away,” an anonymous observer says, suggesting that people may shun a political party on account of its arrogant leader. The observer believes that, a leader should be humble and respectful as opposed to condescending, intimidating and arrogant. President Dr. Mokgweetsi Masisi has not been immune from criticisms of arrogance.
“The President is indifferent to public outcries including when he is the subject such as when insinuations of corruption are targeted at him. The state of emergency was actually the product of arrogance on his part.
“His intention was to be able to beat COVID- 19 alone so that he may then brag about it,” said an anonymous observer who feels it is high time for President Masisi to engage the nation on his leadership style which has attracted a lot of public outcry. A habitual late- comer even to party leadership meetings that he is, Boko reportedly never apologises to his colleagues for either arriving late or missing a meeting. According to sources close to the UDC and BNF leaderships, Boko has a tendency of arrogantly brushing aside any complaints about his late- coming.
This has made it difficult even for his colleagues to defend him against the accusations of arrogance levelled against him one of which is that he refuses
to account to his colleagues in the leaderships of both the BNF and UDC for anything.
“When he was asked about the aircraft he used for the UDC campaign, he refused to declare to his colleagues in the leadership both the source of the planes or the conditions for the assistance received from some individuals in South Africa.
“He actually told them to stop whining about it but to, instead, approach their own friends to avail similar support to the UDC,” a source who spoke on condition of anonymity said.
While he always makes the right noises with respect to freedom of the press, just like the BDP leadership whom he always accuses of intolerance towards the media, Boko, who is himself very proficient in both Setswana and English, has shown intolerance towards critical news outlets sometimes casting aspersions on the concerned reporters’ literacy and abilities.
Many people, especially the elderly and conservative believe he should mind his language and tone down a bit especially when he is criticising his opponents in the ruling party such as a Head of State. For instance, he is on record saying the President is lying which many find unAfrican. He once described Former President, Ian Khama, as satan on the floor of parliament. He left the nation dumbfounded when a reporter asked him what he was going to do after the Botswana Unified Revenue Services ( BURS) impounded his car.
“I will swipe another one,” he said.
The UDC leader seems never to miss the opportunity to tell somebody off in an argument apparently with the intention of making the person feel inferior to him. “You and I do not orbit the same planet,” he once said or words to that effect in a quarrel with the BDP secretary general, Mpho Balopi in 2014.
In the same diatribe, Boko also remarked that, the BDP secretary general was, “… taking his right to stupidity to the extreme.” Boko hardly ever acknowledges his colleagues contribution in the struggle. For every success or battle won by the UDC, such as the recent court cases where the UDC prevailed over those who wanted it disqualified from contesting the 2019 general election, he gave credit to himself and himself alone.
The UDC leader was viewed to have demonstrated utter disrespect and arrogance when he insulted past and present BDP leaders at a debate on the eve of the elections. Hence, in the aftermath of the dramatic loss in the general election, the character of the president of the UDC has come under intense scrutiny with opinion being divided on the matter. So serious was the debate that, those who do not like his character called for resignation and immediate replacement. His detractors were of the view that, Boko is not electable because of arrogance. Even members of the BNF, of which Boko is the president, remain divided with regards to what influenced the poll results to go in their disfavour. There is however, no shortage of those who allege vote rigging by the ruling party in explaining the loss. There is also no shortage of those in the UDC who believe Boko has all the qualities of a good leader insisting that dumping him would be suicidal for the UDC.
In an interview chairman of the UDC, Motlatsi Molapisi, described Boko as an asset to the UDC.
“He was a very strong candidate despite our 2019 election loss. He is a strong leader too who managed to bring together opposition parties. This is something that has eluded those before him. Boko is also very brave,” he said.
In a different interview, Molapisi has said that it is unfair to blame the loss of the UDC on Boko alone. Should Boko’s career come to an end, his supporters will miss not only his bravery in telling the truth to power in the age where most politicians are spineless, but his intellectual prowess as well. More poignantly, they will wish they had counselled him to remain assertive without being arrogant, to grow without swelling. More importantly, he will only have himself to blame.