Situational leadership transforming a community

Leadership can be general or it can be situational and applied to specific communities. Although the fundamentals are the same, they’re applied differently based on the environment. My main principle is that leadership must influence others to pursue a goal that is common among the followers – they must feel that they have something invested in it.

In the Bible, Jesus walked down by the Sea of Galilee and said “follow me”. Leadership has to be transformational and motivational and needs to achieve common goals while influencing people.

In small rural communities in Jamaica, for example, how the principles of leadership are applied may differ from large cities in America because culture and the nature of the problem will shape the kind of leadership, and in these smaller communities, leadership has to be demonstrative where we lead by example. It has to be based on integrity and the leader must demonstrate that what you say, you mean, and what you mean, you do.

The leadership must be based on respect and come with a degree of bravado – it cannot be timid and weak. The leadership ought to be respectful but direct and honest.

ADMIRABLE AND GENUINE

In pursuit of a Doctor of Transformational Leadership (DTL), a number of leaders in Jamaican society were interviewed to gain a better understanding of the concept being studied. One of them, Dr Henley Morgan, dubbed Jamaica’s ‘Father of Social Entrepreneurship’ and the founder and executive director of the Agency for Inner-City Renewal (AIR) – a social enterprise that caters to the development of Trench Town, one of the grittiest inner-city neighbourhoods in Kingston, Jamaica – has a general attitude towards helping people that can be seen as admirable and genuine. Indeed, the tag line for his organisation reads: ‘Save Trench Town and you save Jamaica’.

Whereas it may seem as a stretch to believe that this is necessarily true, it is very plausible, given that Trench Town is one of the most well-known inner-city communities in Jamaica and it has a significant influence on surrounding neighbourhoods. As a microcosm of the wider country, cities and towns should be given special attention if one is to change the fortunes of an entire nation.

Dr Morgan employs a people-centric and human-based leadership style, as evidenced by his desire to earn people’s respect and not just sympathy for the plight of the residents of Trench Town. He wants to spur people into action by making Trench Town a place worth saving by creating healthy perceptions of the place, contrary to what is popularly disseminated through the media, and is actively working towards making people buy into his vision for the community.

Dr Morgan’s example is one for transformational leadership that is both situational and identifies with the concept of coalescing around a common objective to achieve our goals and influence people. This main principle can be used to advance business operations to reach its highest level of efficiency and productivity.

A GOOD EXAMPLE

He has demonstrated a capacity for getting the best out of his employees – his staff complement is only five persons – and yet they have collectively managed to earn nearly J$600 million for the entity in only one year. Consequently, I believe that his example presents a perfect opportunity for us to use a wide range of motivational techniques to achieve similar outcomes with small-sized staff by allowing them the personal freedom and flexibility to do the necessary work that will garner maximum results.

If we want to be able to serve small communities and small groups of people with a specific emphasis through transformational leadership, then we have to go the extra mile to deliver significant value added for the customer and, in so doing, show that the whole is much greater than merely the sum of its individual parts, and that everybody is committed to an organisational focus.

- Jacqueline Coke Lloyd is a leadership and people development consultant and managing director of Make Your Mark Consultants. Email feedback to editorial@gleanerjm.com.