Activists blind to necessity of good leadership
AN INTERNAL South African Communist Party document prepared for the party’s conference last month lamented the lack of activism in the ruling tripartite alliance and warned that this may result in the African National Congress losing power.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the activist South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco) insisted communities should govern themselves. It dismissed the need for professionalism and the retention of technical and administrative skills as a ruse by the oppressor to justify continuing its rule; and as a euphemism for racism.
Its campaigns for nonpayment for services resulted in the degradation of roads and water-purification facilities, which hastened the collapse of local councils.
Sanco believed that its revolutionary passion and the justness of its cause bestowed on it the ability to actually run things.
Recently, the activist Economic Freedom Fighters, Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) and their cheerleaders in the Benchmark Foundation rationalised away the Farlam commission’s findings that challenge their ideologies.
They have criticised the police for their tragic mishandling of the 2012 illegal strike at Marikana, while brazenly ignoring Judge Ian Farlam’s finding that the unions’ failure to strike according to the law and to negotiate according to established norms of good labour relations practice, made them partly responsible for what went wrong.
Like Sanco, they readily claim credit for victories that support their cause, but childishly expect that they will be excused for the violence, destruction and loss of life they inflicted, and the parlous state of the platinum industry for which they share responsibility.
Activists’ zeal generally blocks out doubts or reservations about beliefs that, if interrogated, could get them closer to a more complete appreciation of reality — the hallmark of effective leadership.
Unusually for South African activism, leadership and professionalism characterised the HIV/AIDS campaigns that, thankfully, supplanted the pseudoscientific HIV/AIDS policies of the Thabo Mbeki regime.
They were fuelled by passion and characterised by effective leadership, respect for facts and science, as well as ethically and organisationally sound principles regarding how their vision would be implemented. All this channelled their activism and energy to constructive ends.
An activist is like a clever lawyer who is prepared to cajole and manipulate in order to triumph, provoking equally dogmatic arguments and manipulative tactics from his counterpart. They don’t care nearly as much about truth and progress as they do about being seen to win.
This inevitably results in aggressive and defensive behaviour — each at the expense of the other, with little regard for the common good.
This see-sawing dynamic either keeps things stuck or results in violent conflict — where lessons, if learnt at all, are learnt the hard way.
A leader prioritises principle over position; he is like a judge, who is clear about the boundaries of his mandate, his status and how this relates to his overall responsibilities — and is therefore able to command due respect.
A leader facilitates the process of learning. He sets a progressive course for the future; evaluates all sides of an argument and articulates a coherent way forward that will add social, economic, strategic or operational value, rather than favour one set of interests. Hence a judge must eschew populist notions and his own need to win.
In order to accomplish this, he must be able to develop opinions, appropriate to particular circumstances, that integrate opposing values: of fairness versus mercy; of logic and humaneness; of establishing and enforcing boundaries; and letting go or going with the flow.
For SA to progress, many competing imperatives need to be taken into account: the respective interests of the taxpaying middle class, the mass of undereducated, unemployed youth as well as the reasonably educated unemployed workers and lowlevel managers in the middle.
The activist position on any one of these only serves to alienate and discount the other imperatives but they all exist and they are all very real.
Activism can play some role in the process, especially to force issues that are being deliberately ignored. However, the leadership of our country is ineffective and has shown neither the ability nor desire to integrate and deliver a coherent message about how or where and why we are going, and how we all belong in the desired future.
A leader values principle over position and is clear about his mandate
Yudelowitz is joint managing director of YSA and author of Smart Leadership.