They say attitude is everything but no one says what kind of attitude is needed. What kind of attitude is required? Moreover, no one is taking responsibility for the attitudes we have been exposed to in this country that has brought us to where we are today. But if attitude is everything, which I agree, don’t we all need to fix our attitudes? Including all our leaders? Don’t we all?

Some time ago on one of our youth leadership platforms I had a debate sort of with my senior Mckingtorch Makafui Awuku if his memories will serve him right about this attitude fixing issues. He tried so well to explain to me that everything was dependent on leadership. I understood every single argument he made but I kept on my side that there was a “Ghanaian Attitude Thing” which doesn’t really promote development and that we needed to check it. He went further to explain more about leadership and insisted that if I really understood the concept of leadership i would’ve changed my position on the points i raised. I kept my argument that the definitions and concepts of leadership needed to be looked at in a different context and different methods applied in the case of Ghana if we wanted good results. You know what? I understand now more than ever that it’ll take LEADERSHIP TO BRING MEANING TO LEADERSHIP, read that again? Yes!

We have overhyped leadership concepts in this country that people have a tall list of what they think they deserve. We keep checking and keep expecting without doing much on our sides to help achieve any good results. I mentioned FOLLOWERSHIP in our debate. I was of the view that if we could be teaching leadership concepts everywhere then it was high time we started developing a curriculum on followership.

Today, our leaders are telling us to fix our attitudes first. They are right and wrong at the same time. What kind of followers have they churned out for themselves over the years? Have they forgotten Leadership and followership are intertwined? Why are they now pushing us away to go and fix our attitudes first before we demand from them what is expected of them? Were they really interested in having good followers that could contribute to their success as leaders? How much have they invested in developing “quality” followers?

Yes, it is high time we fixed our attitudes to stop following people because of personal gains. In this country of ours, the psychological paycheck of following people exceeds the psychological cost of doing same. In other words, the physical benefits of following a leader who even lies about everything far outweighs the actual cost of being a follower. So people prefer to be psychophants and ignore their follower vigilantism duties. You are asking us to fix our attitudes, yes it is a good thing but where should we start from?

According to Kelley (Op.cit., 2008) there are different types of followers.

1. The Sheep: passive in their thinking, the leader does everything for them and they have no yes or no voice. Anything goes.
2. The Yes-People: passive in their thinking but always on the leader’s side.
3. The Alienated: they think independently but always negative in their thoughts and actions.
4. The Pragmatic: let’s call them the “Bugabuga” people, they exert energy without much thinking.
5. The Star Followers: they think independently, have positive energy, they agree with and challenge their leaders. They ensure proper accountability and great success.

Now Let’s ask ourselves how we can all fix our attitudes to move the first four kinds of followers to the fifth one. Is the Ghanaian Politician ready to stop creating the #Sheep kind of followers? How about the #Yes_People? Will the Opposition parties stop being the #Alienated all the time? Have we stopped our footsoldiers and political land guards from being just #The_Pragmatics? I think we need #Star_Followership and if we fix our attitudes in the right ways we shall achieve that. But the big question remains, “How much is the Ghanaian Politician for that matter our leaders, willing to invest in Star Followership? Is that what they really want? In any case, we can’t achieve any perfect leader-follower relationship but it is also true that there are star followers in this country who have been diligent in their duties and they have every right to hold the leaders accountable to #fixthecountry. It is therefore an insult to tell everyone to go fix their attitudes and themselves first.

IT TAKES LEADERSHIP TO BRING MEANING TO LEADERSHIP.

#fixthecountrynow

Anne_Ethel_Writes