The success of implanting a health and healthcare program in Mbengwi District starts with building leadership. Change requires change in lifestyle. Village leaders called Fons dictate village lifestyles. To facilitate change resistant requires deconstructing the old ways that conflict with the new. Supporting this concept‚ Eric Hoffer wrote‚ “In a world of change‚ the learners shall inherit the earth‚ while the learned shall find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exist”. We start by defining what is leadership and how it facilitates change. The leadership-working Symposium organized in Mbengwi District involving the 31 villages of the region supports this. This is the first collection of the leaders for the first time.
Bass notes that transformational leadership is leadership that creates vociferous and positive change in followers (Bass 1985‚ 19). Bass agrees that the way for leaders to transform others is to help each other‚ support each other‚ and motivate each other to succeed. The success of each member leads to the success of the organization. The role of the leader is to provide moral support and motivation to perform and help others to be better leaders (Bass 1985‚ 19-31). It means leaders should have the ability to train members to be leaders as well. Like Burns (1978)‚ Bass believes that the extent to which a leader is transformational can be determined by the influence of the leader on the followers. Leaders look for strategies and opportunities for team members to succeed. Followers need to trust‚ admire‚ and possess loyalty and respect for their leaders. Leaders work hard to earn these qualities. Bass and Avolio in 199’ mapped effective leadership styles of managers and commanders to be:
- Individualized consideration: The leader attributes are attending needs through mentoring‚ coaching‚ and active listening to team members. Leaders should show empathy and open different channels of communication to assist followers. Appreciating and motivating followers to self-development and to intrinsic motivation for their tasks is critical.
- Inspirational motivation: Leaders develop a vision for followers. The vision must be inspiring and appealing. It means communicating the vision with optimism. This causes followers to act and produce.
- Intellectual stimulation: Leaders take risks‚ and they get input from followers. It is a talent for instilling creativity. In essence‚ leaders nurture followers to think independently and share with the team for team success. Bass’s theory is that there must be mutual learning between leaders and followers.
- Role and identification model: Bass and Avolio note that the leader provides communal design of vision and purpose‚ values and norms that give meaning to work (Bass and Avolio 199’).
Studies show that at the core of a successful project are an effective leader and a team of performing managers trained in leadership and managerial attributes. “A transformational leader is someone who is able to inspire and intellectually stimulate colleagues to perform beyond normal expectations and personal self-interest to achieve challenging team goals” (Mann 2005‚ 7’). The results of previous studies indicated that leaders were born. However‚ recent scholastic work opposes this view. Instead‚ they cite research that supports learned leadership attributes. Despite these differences‚ there is consensus that effective and strategic leaders select‚ train‚ and support performing managers. Effective managers create results that are embedded as culture. Culture is a way of sustaining change.
According to Brinner‚ Geddes and Hastings:
As soon as possible in the project life‚ there is a need to start building a trusting relationship with the principal stakeholders so that the work can be done to satisfy the acknowledged mutual interests. Thrust must be maintained and built throughout the project. Trust grows out of good experience. Bad experience produces pain and anger which tend to have lasting effect than good experience (Brinner‚ Geddes and Hastings 1990‚ 74).
Team participation depends on effectiveness of managers. Raelin notes that‚…when people participate in designing a change that they see as desirable‚ their self-identity often becomes tied to the successful implementation of the change (Raelin 200’). Managers should be stewards of the people. Raelin supports stewardship by noting that the servant-leader is more interested in listening first in order to open up avenues that might help the subordinate to solve his or her own problems (Raelin 200’). Success is not about the servant but what he or she does for the master to succeed. The steward is unselfish about providing the best services to the master.
Raelin questions how team members can become leaders. This question has redefined the debate of not only if leaders are born but if leaders have certain attributes that can be learned. If leaders cannot come from within teams‚ then team empowerment cannot be a way to sustain change. Raelin and other scholars claim that‚ if leaders encourage mutual learning‚ change becomes a product of teamwork. Previous theories of born leaders are inconsistent with team development and empowerment‚ since there is no literature that supports traits for born leaders. Hiefertz believes that our society and organizations need leadership that is based on adaptability (Hiefertz 1994). He debunks earlier theories by noting that leadership is developed‚ not inherited. It means that leadership changes with goals‚ and leadership styles need to be adaptable‚ situational‚ influential‚ facilitative‚ and collaborative. These are all learned attributes.
Argyris indicates that corporations will find it hard to survive‚ let alone flourish‚ unless they get better work from their employees through communication (Argyris 1999). Argyris illustrates that managers often talk to employees to find out problems to be addressed instead of having employees reflect on what types of problems need to be solved and how to solve them. The leader plants pride and feelings of mission within the stakeholders‚ enhancing their performance capabilities‚ and providing personal example. The followers trust and emulate this leader‚ identifying with the goals. They internalize the attitudes and goals and act in this “spirit” even when the leader is not around (Bass 1985).
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