Transformative Leadership

Leadership is about influencing and has evolved over the years. Leadership can be transformative, transactional, and situational. Transformative leadership (TL) is good leadership and is very much linked to issues of fair practice, democracy, and addresses itself to both individual and public good. There are four sides to it—idealistic influence, where a leader behaves in an exemplary manner that followers want to respect and emulate. Followers attribute to him/her some extra ordinary capabilities and feel he/she is worthy of leadership. TL is equally associated with inspirational motivation in which the character or behavior of a leader enthuses, and stimulates those around him/her. FL creates intellectual stimulation; such leaders encourage and promote creativity and innovations among followers. TL makes individual consideration—a leader pays attention to individual needs for achievement of growth within the organisation, e.g. staffs have to be trained, refreshed and retooled – allowing personal development for individual staff in order to align them for the achievement of organisational goal, greater good. Transformative leadership thus promotes good programming and good programming is gender programming.

Pads for Girls in Uganda: Are we asking the right questions? ***

Pads  for Girls in Uganda: Are we asking the right questions? ***

KAMPALA: Recently, both mainstream and social media kept us engaged with all kinds of opinions on Ministry of Education’s failure to budget for or supply pads to all girls to increase their school attendance. These debates come in the wake of also another controversial issue of the “the presidential handshake” in which a group of government officials were alleged to have received huge sums of money in reward for winning two major oil cases. The public seemed at pain in trying to understand why the ministry of education would fail to provide pads for girls in school while only a few government officials who draw monthly salaries from government would receive allegedly 6 billion shillings in reward. Public debates and questions were then directed to “why can’t ministry of education provide pads for all girls when government can find 6 billion for a handful of paid officials?” But is this the right question to ask? Here is why I don’t think so!

In the context of education sector that is at the heart of the conversation on pads today, we have seen that the gender gap in primary school at enrollment has been almost closed, but that girls from the least wealthy households have a low transition to secondary school due to poverty and negative social norms issues of child marriage, teenage pregnancy and so forth. We also know that Girls miss an average 48 days in an academic year due to menstruation hygiene^[1].  Hence girls tend to lag behind the boys as they miss four days of school each month, i.e. 10% to 20% of the school days^[2].

Of course, there are many other reasons why girls drop out of school. Sociocultural practices and beliefs also make it difficult for adolescent girls to continue their schooling in case of child marriage or pregnancy. It is also important to note that girls, and particularly younger girls, have fewer social assets than their male counterparts such as reliable peer networks, safe spaces in the community to gather and meet friends, and access to media and public messaging.^[3]

Having said this therefore, the question around government handing out pads to all girls seems unrealistic, irresponsible and unsustainable. It promotes tokenism and a type of dependency that takes away dignity from girls. In the long run, it can institutionalise other elements of parenting too. Also tackling the debate in a manner that mixes issues of corruption in government and menstruation makes us miss the real opportunity to solve this problem of pads for our children. We should talk against corruption always; just as we should talk about sustainable supply of pads to our children, regardless of whether or not billions shillings are misappropriated.

Pads can be provided in schools by senior women/men teachers as part of emergency. I have two suggestions on how government can make it easy for girls in schools and out of schools to access and use pads and I will discuss it in a later paragraph below.

In asking government to supply pads to all girls, we must first of all understand that two factors remain ideally constant in all of this—the fact that the girls and women will continue to menstruate monthly and that they have been doing so since the existence of human race; and the fact that parenting role, or at least some form of parenting and responsibility happens (should happen) irrespective of the level of social and economic status of the family. This does not in any way negate the fact that the concept of parenting in the changing context of society today is increasingly under threat from various factors including the growing poverty disparities. It is also important to mention that many irresponsible parents have simply abandoned parenting under the guise of poverty, when in fact, they are just not interested in taking responsibility of bringing up children in this changing and difficult context. Not providing pads to your daughter, be it modern pads or the locally made (out of cotton cloths) is bad parenting. Government cannot or should not parent your child for you when you are still alive.

I grew up during the war in northern Uganda where we did not have access to modern pads even if the parents could afford them then. I saw girls being taught by their peers or responsible adults how to cut and stitch cotton materials—every girl had at least 3 of these and would wash and reuse them. This was not necessarily the most hygienic approach, but it kept girls going.

So, I propose to the government and the line ministry of education the following:-

1. 1.     Remove taxes on locally produced pads, including reusable pads as well as taxes on the materials for making these pads in your upcoming budget and encourage local companies or “investors” to put money in the production of pads. This action should potentially bring the cost of a packet of pads (with at least 10 pieces) to UGX500 – UGX800 hopefully. This means that in one term of three months, households would spend roughly UGX1500 to UGX3100 for the non-reusable pads; and much less, I suppose for the reusable ones.
2. 2. Ministry of Education can issue a circular within a matter of days to all schools, including private schools to purchase at least 3 cartons of pads, depending on the school population of girls per month/term. This issue can then be inserted, with a stroke of a pen, in the check list of school inspection for the inspectors to follow through. Budget from where? For government schools, the ministry can ring fence a small amount of money within the school facility grant to schools. The amounts I am talking about here, are so insignificant, so small that it will even disappear within the overall Ministry budget.

With these emergency pad allocation per school, girls could be provided with pads as part of emergency relief—for instance when the menstruation starts while you are in school, or when your dress gets soiled and you did not carry enough supply to last you for the day etc.

With this, the critical question to ask government is: where is its commitment to sustain its existing policy directions around UPE & USE? For it is not a lack of money, not a lack of technical expertise to ensure all girls do not miss classes due to menstruation.

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[1] The World Bank (2005). Toolkit on Hygiene and Sanitation and Water in schools: Gender Roles and Impact.

[2] The World Bank (2005). Toolkit on Hygiene and Sanitation and Water in schools: Gender Roles and Impact

[3] Adolescent Girls Vulnerability Index, 76

Local Government Management

            Ordinarily, Local Government are complex work environments where leaders are confronted with all kinds of ethical conflicts yet, as the Australian Local Government Code of ethics asserts, not a single guideline can effectively solve this.

            Today, several guidelines have been instituted by associations, local governments themselves to deal with ethical dilemmas of local government management as it relates with media, budgets or as it researches or is researched and also as it governs its members. I want to focus on code of ethics governing member behavior in local government management.

            Several ethical guidelines where reviewed for this post and these included the principles advanced by the Local Government Managers Australia (LGMA); the International City/County Management Association-ICMA (2008) code of ethics; United Kingdom’s (UK’s) Department for Communities and Local Government consultation paper on codes of conduct for local authority members and employees and many others.

The LGMA is the leading professional association representing managers and aspiring managers in local government throughout Australia and Asia-Pacific. It was founded in October 1936 by Raymond West and, since that time, has continued to expand its charter and membership services and now has around 2,500 members.

According to available literature on the LGMA website, their main business is to “promote excellence through the advancement of local government management” (Local Government Managers Association-National Office, 2012). The ICMA on the other hand is no different. Founded in 1914, this association that now supports about 9000 ‘cities, town and county experts’ works to “create excellence in local governance by developing and fostering professional management to build sustainable communities that improve people’s lives worldwide” (International City/County Management Association , 2012).

            The following guidelines identified from both the ICMA Code of Ethics (2008) and the LGMA principles are considered potentially useful in facilitating organisation change in local government management here in Uganda. Secondly, their adaptation and or implementation in Uganda would mean more people benefiting from social services. Starting with the ICMA Code of Ethics that provides the foundation of local government today since 1924 when it was first adopted by the founding members; code eleven “Handle all matters of personnel on the basis of merit so that fairness and impartiality govern a member's decisions, pertaining to appointments, pay adjustments, promotions, and discipline” and code  twelve “Seek no favor; believe that personal aggrandizement or profit secured by confidential information or by misuse of public time is dishonest”. Let me discuss these two first.

            Code eleven, means two things in the Ugandan case, where the chief administrative officers (CAO) who are the CEOs of all local governments, will not discriminate in their selection, recruitment, deployment of human resources on the basis of sex, age, tribe or other social status of individuals seeking employment in local governments across the country. Code eleven also means that not only will equal opportunity exist in recruitment and deployment but that the best and capable staffs fill the positions of service provision at that critical level. Decentralization of governance in Uganda was in many cases misconstrued to mean creating employment for the ‘sons of the soil’ and many individuals got on to positions not because they were the most capable but often because they happened to be locals of the area. This has been done at the expense of quality service delivery.

            If code twelve is implemented by local governments in Uganda, it would mean: women and children are able to walk into health centers and receive free government services which are normally supposed to be free but because officials have negated this particular principle, they then ask for a reward for an action government would have normally paid them to do already. It also means that communities will not have to bribe officials for a borehole to be constructed in their neighborhood but that allocation of such a borehole would be on the basis of a well researched evidence of need for water in such a community. Code twelve also means that members of local government or the councilors will not use their position to influence to solicit for personal benefits from vendors or other entities supplying goods and services to the local governments.

            The next two principles from the LGMA are related to the two above: Principle A.6 ‘Objectivity and independence’ -

Members must be objective in undertaking their professional duties. Objectivity is a state of mind which imposes on an individual the obligation to be impartial, intellectually honest, and free of conflicts of interest. There are two aspects of objectivity and independence; these are the judgment which comes from being mentally independent and the freedom from personal relationships which avoid impairing or appearing to impair the ability of the member to exercise objectivity and independence. Safeguarding professional objectivity and independence is a matter of integrity.

 The last code of ethics considered for this post is code number A.2 Honesty, propriety and integrity -

Members must act with honesty, propriety and integrity in the pursuit of their professional duties. Honesty includes acting with sincerity and not lying, cheating or stealing. Propriety is to behave correctly as befits the duties of a member’s professional responsibilities and role. Integrity refers not only to knowing what [the right thing to do is] but having the moral strength and courage to act on one's convictions and on principle rather than expediency.

The two are particularly helpful in the Ugandan case where politics at all level of government, including local government, introduced the notion of tokenism. This paradigm of tokenism not only reduces community members from citizens to clients but equally robs communities of full right and power to demand accountability from their leaders in local governments.

I would personally embody these last two ethical principles and I would, given chance, introduce them as part of organisation change. I note, however that, there are still some civil servants who have always sought to remain objective, independent, polite, humble, just, and honest. The frustrations with trying to be this type of person is in the fact the social norms of those around them are not the same as theirs. Changing the social norms around them in the form of organisation change would be the ideal.

Code eleven highlighted above would however prove challenging to implement in the Ugandan typical rural setting. There are local governments so remotely located with no amenities like electricity, water and entertainment. In some western districts of Uganda for instance, even though job adverts are published as widely as possible, no one applies to go because of the fore mentioned. Chief executives of such districts and their elected leaders end up head hunting for ‘born of the area’ or ‘sons/daughters of the soil’; challenging the issues of merit, objectivity and integrity of local governments.

Acting on conviction and principle is difficult where certain policies do not recognise those individual values. For instance, at my place of work, the organisation car does not carry non-staffs and where that has to happen, approval must be sought and obtained well in advance and a waiver form signed before such as person boards the vehicle. Here is a typical situation: you come across a mother in labour with no means of transport to the nearest health centre which is five kilometres away and your heart tells you to help; what a dilemma would this be? Does one follow their heart or stick to the rules?

At this moment, I think ethics is cannot be successfully practiced singly, one requires a change and commitment to it involving the whole group.

Bibliography

International City/County Management Association . (2012, May 5). Who we are. Retrieved from ICMA: http://icma.org/en/icma/about/organization_overview/who_we_are

Local Government Managers Association-National Office. (2012, May 6). Code of Ethics: Part A - Fundamental Principles . Retrieved from Local Government Managers Association: http://www.lgma.org.au/default/ethics_1

Ethical Violation

The concept of ethics is many times understood to be a private affair! It conjures different meanings to different people. To some people, it is for religious people (God’s business) or strict judges of behaviour of others (Institute of Ethics and Development Studies: Uganda Martyrs University, 2006, pp. 2-16). Whereas to others, as Fieser, (2003) it involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behaviour, to others, it is about values, morals, principles and accountabilities.

Whatever meaning is adopted, its application to leadership in organisations has seen many professions, associations and public institutions adopt unique practices that have over time been written or un written codes of conduct for members belonging to such organisations.

Ethical violations occur far too often in the different enterprises today so that codes of conducts in many organisations are simply irrelevant. This has in some instances created new cultures at the work places contrary to prescribed practices within the codes of conduct. The outcome of a survey reported by Al Gini (2004) as quoted by Hickman (2011) provides the best evidence here-that “because of the perceived low ethical standards of the executive class, workers feel justified in responding in kind…” and such responses will include not reporting for duty, stealing organisation property or diverting them, poor performance and many others.

In Uganda today, media reports and perception index conducted in the general public identify the institutions of police, judiciary and politics as avenues where the greatest violation of ethics take place. For this discussion, I will focus on an institution I had the chance to work with and one of its leaders.

This institution dealt with human rights, sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) among other issues. I had the privilege of working with them on mainstreaming gender and rights into their training curriculum and standard operating procedure (SOPs) or what you would call code of conduct while handling SGBV.

Women and girls were later interviewed in one district about their experiences with this institution staffs as they went to receive services that the institution offered at the time. This was in order to assess the effectiveness of previous interventions (mentioned above). The shocking revelations of the women: -

“The boss came in and found me being interviewed and he said to me, ‘what did you do that your husband had to beat you this much?’ I felt judged and knew I would never get any service or protection at all if the boss could speak like that”

In many parts of Africa just like in Uganda, wife beating for instance is so normalized because tolerance levels for such crimes is extremely high that a staff hired to provide protection services to victims of SGBV would normally not find it a problem to ask such a question in spite of the principles of non-judgemental attitude embedded within the ethical practice guide. Another lady had this to say: -

“Had it not to have been the strong will of the female officer; the boss wanted my file destroyed to kill the evidence. He had already negotiated with my husband who had also paid him some money. I would have just lost my child and property like that”

The said officer eventually lost his position when follow up was done, but the women continued to shun services offered by this institution giving them such a bad publicity.

This is how I see it: ethics as a concept appears to govern us more individually and interpersonally but in a public sphere, leaders’ decisions may pretty much be influenced by other forms of cultures and hypotheses based on other social considerations e.g. wife beating is a means to discipline a wife, women do not own property and many others-making ethical violation an all so easy task to accomplish in offices by the leaders.

Reference

Fieser, J. (2003, June 29). Ethics. Retrieved March 7, 2011, from The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy: Ethics: http//www.iep.utm.edu/ethics/

Institute of Ethics and Development Studies: Uganda Martyrs University. (2006, March). Module 9 Ethics and African Development. Nkozi, Uganda: Uganda Martyrs University.

Benefits and Costs of Strategic Planning in the context of Weak Civil Registration in Africa

Benefits and Costs of Strategic Planning

The subject of leadership, leading and being led is normally an interesting one and one of the critical elements in leading for most public and non profit entities has to do with strategic planning. How can one discuss strategic planning in a context where civil registration and vital statistics systems are limping? There are several African countries that are however "breaking with broken systems" and I am happy Uganda is one of them. Post-mortemly, let me attempt to discuss the cost and benefit of strategic planning based on an experiences and lessons from countries in Africa who gathered in Kampala between 1 - 6 of September 2013 and talked civil registration and vital statistics:

A senior member of the European Parliamnet recently correctly remarked that “for many living in the developed world, it is unthinkable for the birth of a child to go unregistered”  and this is because these countries have functional birth and death registration systems and secondly because of the value placed on registering births such as recognition and protection of children’s first right – the right to identity and existence as stipulated in the Convention on the Right of the Child (CRC) that came into existence in 1990. In the case of Uganda, while birth registration is compulsory for all, by 2006, only 21% of births had been registered. Causes attributed to this scenario as discussed in workshop or seen during field visit monitoring have been costs associated with birth registration, discouraging distance people have to walk to the sub county and district authorities to register and the general lack of awareness on the need to register. Initially Uganda Registration Services Bureau, an entity mandated by law to carry out civil registration in Uganda, with support from partners like UNICEF printed certificates and supplied local governments with these items to reduce cost and distance. Several local governments were financially assisted to carry out social mobilisation to increase awareness on the need to register birth. Birth registration increased from 21 percent to 30 percent in 2011.

Given the above scenario, some thing radical must happen, a strategic intervention requirng strategic thought and plan is required. With strategic leadership from URSB, credible evidence such as the Uganda Demographic Health Survey (UDHS 2011) among others were reviewed, which indicated that more than 56 percent Uganda’s births are happening in the hospitals of Uganda; secondly, other factors considered by government included the wide spread availability and use of mobile phones in Uganda and with this in mind, URSB developed a strategic plan that saw it work with software developers to come up with what is now being referred to as the mobile vital records system that uses both web based and mobile phone applications to register births at the community level and hospitals in real time and mothers get to receive birth certificates for their children in real time too. 

Considering Bryson's (2011) definition of “strategic planning as a deliberate, disciplined approach to producing fundamental decisions and action that shape and guide what an organisation… is, what is does, and why” (pp.8), it is extremely applicable in this case. What can be the gain here is “effectiveness, responsiveness” of the work and the benefit directly impacting the people of Uganda. The cost of having not planned this way before has been in terms of time lost and the amount of money spent vis-à-vis the return on investment – a movement from 21 percent to 30 percent between 2006 and 2011. Roll out of the mobile vital records system would certainly give a biger milage or coverage of birth registration.

Reference

Bryson, J. M. (2011). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 

Hon Minister of Ethics are you criminalizing breastfeeding in Uganda

Kampala; April 12, 2013

Hon Minister of Ethics I am Wondering….

I watched a local talk show (On the Spot) hosted by one Patrick Kamara on a local television – NTV; in which the Hon. Minister for Ethics, Rev Fr. Lokode defended without tiring a bill that has provoked wide spread response from within and outside of Uganda; The Anti-Pornography Bill 2011.

For a moment, I thought the minister had appeared on the television to ersatz Ugandans but hell no, he was very serious about what he was saying. So, I wondered further whether the Hon Minister believed in what he was saying or that he was simply seeking to fulfill his mandate of being Hon Minister of Ethics and creating visibility for that ministry.

I wondered more on the intentions of this bill and he was quick to mention that among other things, he wants to protect the women; from what Mr Minster Sir? Why wouldn't you deal with the “what” first? The concern for women of Uganda lies in fact that 16 of them will die off today before the sun sets while trying to give life. It is unethical for 16 women to die in Uganda while giving life – “save mothers giving life” as opposed to saving women from some imaginary fear residing in your spirit because the women will be raped and defiled even if they wore an hijap. Dealing with rapists and defilers would be a lot easier for your ministry as opposed to curtailing women’s and men’s dressing, dancing, gesturing etc. I am actually wondering Hon Minister Sir, what explanation you would give to women and girls on 6 months old babies, 3 years old children defiled some times by their own fathers, uncles, neighbors and so forth.

On the face of it, as if the bill is being made for city dwellers only; what about the women in the countryside? Hon Minister, do you realize that your bill is actually criminalizing breast feeding by our mothers?  - The one single most important sex role women play to facilitate their gender role. For in your definition of pornography, you ably described it as the exposure of breasts, thighs and genitalia. The benefits of breast feeding to new-born in their first 730 days of life are enormous and women will breastfeed in their gardens, in the bus, home, office etc.

I think that your moral assault is seriously misguided  Hon Minister because the corruption trajectory in this country is going up and sure corruption at this point in time would be your priority – I could for sure understand your frustration if your ministry came up with a bill castrating all those implicated in stealing of government money. Once again, I feel that you are choosing to go for the soft target – women’s and men’s bodies as opposed to dealing with the criminal mind.

Lastly, I am wondering Hon Minister, how do you intend to enforce this law? We already have the penal code section 166, the UCC act and many others. Where do you draw your example in this region on the existence of such? Which precedence do you want to set? I think that legislation based on moral grounds as opposed to evidence based legislation go no further. I must admit that I am yet to read the bill, but I make these observations after watching this passionate Hon Minister.

Informal Leadership and Followership

Informal leadership can be a good example of shared leadership. An article by Crage L. Pearce and Jay A. Conger describes it as one in which ‘individuals who are not formally appointed as leaders can rise to the occasion to exhibit leadership and then step back at other times to allow others to lead’ (Craig L. Rearce, 2010). Followership on the other hand, is about the people who get led formally or informally. Over time, this has evolved though, it is more about engaging as Robert E. Kelley (see Gill R. Hickman, 2010 pp.181) describes it, followership is being actively involved in facilitating attainment of an organizations goal without necessarily losing one’s independence or ability to criticize the same organization’s work and work methods.

In distinguishing and illustrating the relation between the two concepts above (informal leadership and followership), a practical example on the operations of a loose coalition of women that campaigned for peace in Uganda is here below used. Uganda Women’s Coalition for Peace (UWCP) was a loose network of women from the grass root, diaspora, and women in positions of leadership; formed and remained active during the 2006 – 2008 peace process between Government of the Republic of Uganda (GoU) and the Lord’s Resistant Army/Movement (LRA/M), mediated by the Government of South Sudan (GOSS) and facilitated by a UN Special Representative of Secretary General (UNSRSG) His Excellency President Chissano of Mozambique.

The LRA, a vicious rebel group, had waged wars and committed atrocities in northern part of Uganda for 20 years. At the beginning of the peace process, women felt let out (not involved) in spite of the fact that they had born the biggest brunt of the 20 years old conflict (lost their husbands, children, were raped, abducted, maimed and killed). During the national consultations on the peace process, women as a group were not consulted and therefore felt that the outcome documents (agreements) would be gender neutral or gender blind, meaning it would not include there issues such as sexual violence and bodily integrity of women, witness protection issues (for women who would have been raped by big commanders for instance), compensation for victims of rape and defilement and many others.

As followers (of the men at the negotiation table I suppose) women across Uganda mobilized themselves, consulted widely, demanded and met with the Presidents involved – Dr. Riek Macher (GOSS), John Chissano (Mozambique), and Mr. Museveni of Uganda. Among their demands were: - being present at the negotiating table from both the LRA and the GoU side; being granted observer status at the talks; and above all their issues included in the outcome documents. All their demands were granted. They drafted, informally, agreements on accountability, compensation, reconciliation, and justice and cease fire. These were all passed informally to the men (leaders) in the negotiation room through women (who by this time were inserted into the process). This was followed by intense lobbying. When the agreements were finalized, they were one of the most gender responsive agreements of any peace process of our time today. It was unfortunate that the outcome documents of the piece process remained un signed up to today.

In the above case, women were initially (at the beginning of the peace process) followers while the men led the process (leaders). The followership roles however changed when women mobilized themselves and took charge and ensured that their issues were well inserted into outcome documents of the process. They had become informal leaders. Leaders (the men at the table) in this case were associated with power, importantness (who is who – all were presidents, vice presidents, commanders or UN envoy), guns, and probably with big egos as well. The similarities in the two roles women played (followership and informal leadership) were that women had no appointment letters, titles or guns. They remained just a team comprising of women from all walks of life that had to self manage for a common cause - “Peace at all cost”. The one difference, in the two roles women played had to do with influence in decision making. As informal leaders and on behalf of the women of Uganda (because of cause not all could go to the peace process), they were able to influence decision makers at the table. As followers, they were a bunch of vulnerable, aggrieved victims.

Informal leadership therefore empowers followership. As strategies, both can actually be useful in achieving a particular goal. Their (followership and leadership) success in delivering a goal appears to be dependent on the good will of the formal leaders (men at the table in this case).

  

Bibliography

Craig L. Rearce, J. A. (2010). All those Years Ago. The Historical Underpinnings of Shared Leadership. In G. R. ed., Leading Organisations Perspectives for a New Era (pp. 167 - 180). Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Gill R. Hickman (2010). Leading Orgnisations. Perspective for a New Era.Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.