Vusi Ndala: A psychological leadership character

Vusi Ndala: A psychological leadership character: "To achieve our national goal of becoming a developed nation, South Africa needs leaders with a leadership character of psychological orient..."

A psychological leadership character

To achieve our national goal of becoming a developed nation, South Africa needs leaders with a leadership character of psychological orientation. Yes, a leadership style with a psychological character. This term may be familiar from the literature perspective. But I took liberty to put a different meaning to it. To put it appropriately, I extended the branch of describing the meaning of this term, psychological leadership. It stems from my observations of leadership characters, debates and the state of leadership engagements in South Africa for the past few years mainly on socio, political and economic issues. I apply this term to be relevant to both private and public sector leadership, the latter being inclusive of both politics and government. This term, according my definition, it does not in any manner refer or mean to emphasis literature description of the psychology of leadership/ leadership psychology/ psychological leadership. According to literature, psychology of leadership or leadership psychology, as the terms are used interchangeably, is characterized by a clinical analysis of what leadership is, who's got it, who doesn't and why, etc. According to Judy Gerstel, Health Editor of The Toronto Star in 2001 wrote that Blair and bin Laden, Churchill and Hitler have one thing in common: They persuaded people to follow them. That is psychological leadership, the mental manipulations and persuasions of leaders to those they lead. Another connotation ascribed to this term, is that leaders should know and understand the mental state of those they lead in order to lead them better and successfully.

Mine is not to accentuate this meaning, but to give depth to the already defined literature meaning, the application of known psychological variables of the followers with a strategic intent of building a leadership character that has a positive impact to those that are being led. It is leaders’ challenge to take cognizance of these psychological variables when disposing their leadership responsibilities. The purpose is not to bore you with the fad of defining the art of leadership. My intention is to stimulate your thoughts like I have been by the whims of my passionate observation of leaders’ characters.

My meaning of the leadership style of psychological character simply refers to the in-depth understanding of one self’s state of mental disposition as a leader and insightful recognition of psychological risks of those being led when they aren’t led, supposedly, in the right direction or misled. What are these psychological risks? First, in order to arrive at a common understanding, let’s define what is psychology? Reader’s Digest Word Power Dictionary defines psychology as the scientific study of the human mind and its functions or the mental characteristics or attitude of a person. Out of this definition arose psychologists as professionals to advance and apply the meaning and science of psychology. Being a leader and having studied how the mind works, the characteristics or attitude of a person, I am under the assumption that any leader will be in an advantaged position to lead with a style of psychology. And most notably it would be much easier for a leader to understand the psychological risks of the followers.

Now, the risk of ignoring the psychological risks of those being led, poses higher risks to the integrity of the leader. Simply put, understanding the risks of mental disturbance to the followers when they are misled is akin to a road sign that points you to a direction and remain fixed where it is installed. It does not know whether a place it directs you to is safe, rocky or not. So, a leader should not be like a road sign. A leader points to a direction and lead the followers to that direction in the context of fulfilling their mental state which will possibly with the most likelihood contribute to their healthy minds and thus fruitful contribution to the intended course by a leader and presumably ultimately to the trust, confidence and leader’s integrity. In business and in other organizations filled with the intent to sustainably succeed, the philosophy of getting the followers to buy-in to the leader’s roadmap is through a vision, a philosophical statement that is intended to drive the behavior and attitude of all in the organization to achieve long-term objectives and goals. It begs the question if those leaders have the psychological character in their leadership style, given the slow pace of transformation progress in the corporate sector.  

My reference to psychological risks emanates, as an example, from the service delivery protests and recent public strikes we witnessed in the recent past. Why would citizens in a municipality behave in a way that seeks to destroy property and sabotage infrastructure that they mean to build in the fist place? It doesn’t make sense. Could that be a psychological risk that our leaders could have strategically identified? Take a young boy who smuggles homes as an example. Yes he could be driven by hunger to commit such a crime. But why he could not explore an option of begging for food and instead commit a crime. I would then assume that he was mentally not fit to think that positive, his attitude (negative mental state), which resembles a psychological risk drove him to commit a crime. Looking at it differently, the volley of words and expressions of our political leaders (young and old) that permeate the media more than we could absorb and apprehend resembles a lack of understanding of one’s verve of psychological disposition in the milieu of those being led. Is this a psychological risk for leaders and followers? It is through these and other similar questions in both the private and public sector leadership that triggered and stimulated my thoughts to painstakingly locate the relevant meaning of the type of leadership that is needed in South Africa given the current state of development discourse.