Traditionally, our community managers, the elders, used to have time to manage the affairs of the community. They would do so in the evenings after completing their day time activities as they also caught a moment to quench their thirst. When serious issues needed to be discussed like threats of war, they would meet during the day and strategize the way forward. There was adequate time for the elders, both men and women, to take time off and attend to matters of the community. Quality of leadership meant survival or death for the community and so the community built support structures to enable its leaders manage the communities sufficiently.
Today, things are different, one person plays so many roles; you are a father, an employee, business person, driver, church leader, parent in school, friend, son-in-law, caretaker of old parents, husband, neighbor, brother….name it, it is mind boggling! As if that is not enough, one is expected to excel in each one of these roles. With these many roles, important issues tend to slip through our fingers. One of the biggest victims of the super busy person is our communities.
The Community leaders despite their own busy schedules of taking care of their families plus a million other things are also expected to be excellent community leaders. Unfortunately, what we call community leadership is not really that, we have gone ahead and reduced the role to community clerks.
Leaders are supposed to do strategic management of the community; create a mission and vision of the community. Then evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the community and strategize on how to achieve this mission and vision, the current and future micro and macro environmental situations notwithstanding. Are our community leaders currently doing this?
Our community clerks are overwhelmed by rudimentary tasks of cash reconciliations and mundane administrative tasks like calling members of the community (us) to remind us to do the same things that we know we should do like contribute (I feel bad about this because I am guilty). We expect them to give us perfect “mathematics” of all the funds we have contributed. How they manage to do that, is not something we (members) are concerned about. Therefore, the little time that these leaders can spare to make and implement strategic plans for our communities is instead being used to do menial tasks. So what is the impact on our communities?
Most community leadership roles are voluntary roles, but over and above the leaders giving their time and talents for free, they are also forced to use personal resources to run community affairs, their airtime, transaction fees, travel fees, because we are watching our contributions like the hawk. If as much as one shilling goes missing, we brand them all types of names! Most of their plans to take the community to the next level are usually shot down by either politics or lack of funds. When they do not do their duties as expected, fail to meet our very high expectations, we hang them out to dry. They often times become victims of our suspicion, jealousy, politics, name it. We are quick to scrutinize their personal lives, talk about it to all and sundry as if by choosing them to be leaders we suddenly expect them to be better human beings than we are. We are quick to believe every other juicy piece of gossip, that we can vaguely attribute to them, whether real or imagined. It is no wonder that most of the community leaders are mostly exhausted and eagerly waiting for their term to end. Many of them leave these seats scarred for life and wishing they could crawl into a hole to be never seen or heard again. Then we, the members get a chance to choose our next victims! Woe unto you when you are chosen, we do not allow you to back down, we praise you and make you believe that we chose you because we believe you are special and have leadership qualities. You wait, we have your number!
Due to the fact that community leadership is very taxing, the leadership or servitude for most communities is usually put on a rotational basis so that everyone gets a chance to serve. Though rotation of roles is a recommended “training method” in human resources management, it may not be ideal for important roles like community management as not all members have leadership qualities and neither are they willing to learn. Some make such weak leaders that they finally bring down the communities.
The above challenges have resulted into the biggest community glue being funerals. Funerals always manage to bring us together. We are scared, we are not sure, we are very worried about what will happen to us when the grim reaper finally comes knocking on our own doors, of course to carry our relatives, not us. Us, we cannot die and even if we did, that would be someday else’s problem.
What would happen if we were able to have better leadership and management of our communities? If we were able to move from a funeral driven community?
We might as a neighborhood be able to sponsor school fees for those very bright kids in the neighbored slum school next to our very posh estate so that instead of producing ingenious thieves that terrorize us day and night, they instead get a chance to go to school and become responsible citizens. We, however demand that we get a police station built in the neighborhood. Have you ever heard that honey always works better than vinegar? Honey is always the best cure for a troublesome neighbor than vinegar, I have learnt from experience. Then, there is also that part that Jesus told us to do……”To love our neighbors”.
If we empower our leaders and get better management, that nightmare road on our way home may no longer be a problem, that communal funeral expense risk we all fear so much might be transferred to an entity with bigger shoulders like an insurance company. Those toilets in your former local government primary school that still gives you nightmares 20 years later might be made half decent for use by young minds using them now. Why allow existing nightmares to haunt the next generation?
The potential of our communities is unfathomable…we have just not yet explored it!
