Introduction:
Most modern corporations and efficient public bodies provide management training for staff, both to help them do their current roles well and as preparation for promotion. It is what is expected of staff, and most importantly, of clients, that the people looking after their interests have the competence and skills to do so efficiently. Politics, however, is different. People quite often enter politics, with no management training apart from their formal and professional education.

In the case of Barbados, since a high proportion of our politicians are lawyers, they come in the majority of cases having not even had a junior to supervise or an office budget to manage. Yet, on appointment to the cabinet, they often find themselves with thousands of staff and million of dollars to look after. It is a horrifying prospect.

I remember a couple years ago asking a senior politician if members of cabinet received any private training in management and budget control before taking up office and/he told me no. I Britain, senior members of the cabinet receive private tutorials on how to manage staff and on controlling a budget.

Civil Servants:
In Barbados it shows, from civil servants frustrating ministers in trying to push through their policies, to the regular submission of supplementary budgets to top up projects that have had very poor cost/benefit analyses.
They get away with it because they know they are unlikely to be sacked or even transferred, and, in the majority of cases, the ministers do not understand the administrative complexities. Politicians understand rhetoric, the to-ing and fro-ing political combat, but not how the machinery of government works. We only have to look at the present government and how it is caught in an administrative gridlock to see how an unprepared elected political party can lose its grip on the handle of government. For this the people suffer.

Leadership:
But, as management 101 states, leadership is different to management. Leadership is about seeing the promise land and taking his or her team with them; it is about being a Moses, giving your team the confidence in your ability and vision to follow you where you ask them to. It is about strategic skills, intelligence, including emotional intelligence, trust and the ability to assess and lead individuals as people. However, people are not born leaders, although some are more naturally gifted than others. All these skills can be taught.

There is an interesting book by London Business School professors Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, Why Should Anyone Be Led by You, which should be compulsory reading for every public servant on supervisory or management grade. As the title says, because you think you are a great leader, why should others be led by you? At the very least, a good leader must have emotional intelligence. It was Daniel Goleman who first brought the term “emotional intelligence” to a wide audience with his 1995 book of that name. Goleman suggest that while the qualities long associated with leadership—such as intelligence, toughness, determination, and vision—are required for success, they are insufficient. They also need self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill, he recommended. These qualities may sound vague, but Goleman is convinced there are direct ties between emotional intelligence and measurable business results. Despite the ensuing global debate, Goleman’s view remain one of the reference anchors on the subject.

Every supervisor and manager knows you do not lead teams but individuals: from the rebel who would not cooperate to the one who is prepared to whistleblow on their colleagues. They know that there are some workers who, no matter what, will continue to see a supervisor or manager as the worst thing since slice bread. But good leaders get round these problems, they learn to manage the rebels as well as the hard-working and cooperative members of the team. Most of all, good business leaders and mangers know that standards are important, which is particularly important if there are differentiating factors that separate the manager/leader from the majority of the team. In such circumstances, even the slightest difference will be played up and exaggerated, including attempts to avoid taking direct instructions from the team leader.

However, unlike business leadership, however, political leadership calls for different, more expressive qualities. A political leader does not have to be able to do everything him or herself, but a measure of their leadership qualities is the team they have behind them to implement policy, to turn grand sounding ideas in to effective policy on the ground.
Political leaders must be able to command support in the nation, get the people to follow them, and even in tough times to give them the benefit of the doubt. Whatever the circumstances, a good political leader must be able to face the public and explain the situation and give them a roadmap out of the troubles.

Good political leaders are not shy, they do not hide away, they do not keep quiet for fear of tripping themselves up. When ordinary households re feeling the pain a good political leadership steps forward and offer his/her hand to guide them to the new Jerusalem. Good political leaders are prepared to sacrifice themselves for their followers, they do not just talk the talk, but walk the walk.

Conclusion:
We all know of highly skilled and competent colleagues who are put in charge and become little Hitlers overnight. Equally, we all know people who have been average at their day jobs, but when put in charge just took off, showing qualities that s/he had never shown before. Good leadership is about putting round pegs in round holes.

Selecting someone for leadership, therefore, calls for a lot of objective assessment, not just promoting a friend or relative or member of the old school of lodge, or even the person who talks loudest. Some first rate leaders are reflective, thoughtful, analytical, and often think before they act. As someone once said, referring to business, different situations call for different types of leadership. In mergers and acquisitions, a sensitive negotiator should be at the helm, whereas many turnarounds require a more forceful authority – someone not afraid to upset those who are comfortable in their positions.

So, a good political leader in a time of austerity would not be afraid to impose cuts right across government so as not to be unpopular. They would not be afraid to act in the interest of the majority, rather than to please a small minority, they think of the nation, rather than the party. In the final analysis, they need emotional intelligence to get the best performance out of their charges. And, too, they should be aware of their own limitations.