Ideate

South Africa needs us to become leaders

by Fred Roed on 20/08/07 at 11:30 pm
4 comments

What.

On.

Earth.

Is.

Going.

On?

Am I missing something? Are we living in a country where logic and rationale are locked in the same room as the coelocanth?

I’m not normally a reactionary guy, but, aye freaking caramba, the past few weeks have been ‘challenging’ – to say the least.

- The president fires the health deputy for an unauthorised trip, and then refuses to look twice at the head minister after proof is held up in the national newspapers for misdemeanours far worse.

- Mugabe gets up in front of Africa’s leaders and the world’s diplomats, after leading his own country into one of the worst financial crises this continent has ever seen, and gets a standing ovation.

As an entrepreneur and devote ambassador for this country, I’m confused now as never before. I firmly believe that good leadership is not just important for this country to make it, it’s impossible for this country to excel without it. The current bunch tells us that there is too much ingrained weirdness; too many promises made in the past; and too many bad choices for them to turn back and right the wrongs that are happening now.

Don’t get me wrong – I know there are many good things we can look at; that this country is doing a lot of things right. It’s not all gloom, doom and disaster. This does not, however, mean that we can ignore the bad. We must act, and act smart. This is not a war, it’s not about Us vs. Them, or ‘taking out the enemy’. This is more about turning around and making a difference – each of us in our individual capacity.

We want our leaders to lead. In that case, each of us must become leaders in our own space – our families, our teams, our companies.

We want our leaders not to steal. Then we must all give back that which we have stolen – software, tax money, CD’s, hand towels from the business trip hotel rooms.

We want our leaders not to lie. Then we must focus on being honest – to our wives, our girlfriends, husbands, our clients and our colleagues.

We want our leaders to solve the problems of poverty, housing and AIDS. We must then, in our lives, look around us and see the opportunities to make inroads into the very same areas.

…and so on.

All this won’t prevent the feeling of impotence when you read about the next wave of blatant dumbass regulation that our Zimbabwean neighbours enforce on their people, or the next scandal that goes strangely unpunished by a senior member our government – but hopefully, it will make a difference in the long term. It will also give us authority to talk about all of this stuff, without being hypocrites. Who knows – maybe it’ll rub off on the guy in your team who becomes president; or maybe your smarter younger sister gets nominated as the Premier in your province.

Who knows – maybe it’ll be you? After all, a recent census put Ideate top in the category of ‘Blog with the smartest readers in the country‘.*

*Not really true, but I reckon we’re pretty close.

Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.

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