South Africa is experiencing many challenges that include the high and unacceptable levels of unemployment, poverty, crime, inequality, poor quality of education and immigration.
I believe at the heart of these challenges is the deficit of leadership in SA. This leadership challenge is not only present at the national level, but it can also be seen at the provincial and municipal levels.
The general assumption in SA is that politicians are leaders. It is also presumed that the same politicians should occupy government positions based on their political affiliations.
It is the same leaders and politicians who have the onus to make important legal and economic decisions on behalf of the country.
Leadership is conventionally described as simply the action of influencing or leading a group of people or organisations.
Leadership in the government context should mean the ability of an individual to influence, guide and inspire people to work towards achieving national goals.
Government leadership should be directing people in the right direction in all departments.
As much as leadership and governance are usually used interchangeably, they carry different meanings in practical terms.
Governance is focused on implementing and following the policies that have been established. It should be understood as a sub-concept of leadership since there could never be governance without competent leadership.
On the other side leadership is the prerequisite of governance at all levels of government and other organisations.
The much bigger challenge that SA is facing is the leadership. This is not to suggest that the country is doing a great job at governance.
One of the most important components of leadership is the ability to collaborate with your peers.
Leadership in government should mean collaborating with other political parties for the betterment of the people, not for self-interest. What we have been seeing in SA is the inability of the so-called leaders to collaborate when necessary.
Leaders of these political parties frequently put their interests first, not the interests of the people.
It should actually be seen as a misnomer for South African people to expect certain individuals who were elected by a certain percentage of delegates in a political organisation to be leaders in government and to take the country forward.
As much as our government is built in such a way that politics should dictate, people should see that there is no leadership in politicians.
The lack of collaboration has been witnessed in various parts of the country. For instance, the municipal government coalitions are not sustainable. This is because political leaders do not negotiate for the people, but for themselves when it comes to coalition agreements.
The lack of collaboration is also present at the national level. The 2024 election outcomes meant that no party could govern alone at the national level.
This called for a form of government coalition and, indeed, the government of national unity was established. Certain political leaders refused to be part of the GNU since their “personal” conditions could not be realised.
Others wanted to be part of the GNU so that other “left-wing” political parties would not form part of the coalition and in their words “destroy the nation”.
The GNU is unstable because it is clear that the politicians are pulling in different directions. For instance, the 2025 national budget could not be presented in February for the first time in democratic SA. This was due to different views in terms of the VAT hike. Collaborative leadership could have foreseen that and prevented this from happening.
Investors are unlikely to plough their resources in an economy as politically uncertain as ours.
We need leaders who will collaborate and cultivate a conducive environment in a manner that potential domestic and foreign investors will ultimately invest in our economy.
Our economy has been stagnant for a long time and there are no prospects for it to expand.
The South African economy will not grow by accident. It needs leaders, with or without positions, to adopt short-term and long-term strategies for this growth to happen. There can never be a creation of job opportunities in an economy that is not growing.
The developmental state can never be realised without sustainable economic expansion. The population without jobs will continue to suffer and die from poverty. Children will continue to die from malnutrition.
Crime statistics cannot improve at this level of unemployment as people are continuously motivated to pursue illegal means of generating income. One would go as far as suggesting that these issues could get worse if the leadership situation does not improve.
SA does not need leaders who assimilate and import foreign policies. It has been proven that this strategy is not a panacea. This is not to assert that case studies and empirical evidence should be avoided. Our economic plans should be original and applied within the context of the country
Successful economic performance is a precondition for accomplishing national objectives.
Central to the challenges the country faces is the leadership crisis. None of the socio-economic challenges can improve without competent leaders in place.
Beyond the institutions, the country needs men and women of integrity. The country needs inspirational leaders who, when they speak, the nation listens.
We need leaders who represent the country, not a certain race, faction or tribe.
In the knowledge that we are dictated by politics, we need competent political leaders, not chaos-driven and populist leaders.
Sinalo Ngcotsho is a second year master’s student in economics at the University of Fort Hare.
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