In the recent past President Cyril Ramaphosa initiated special measures such as the declaration of a national lockdown in response to Covid-19.
These were to ensure that South Africans abide by the regulations intended to stop the spread of Covid-19 and to find workable solutions.
These efforts saw many local political parties and critical stakeholders such as researchers agreeing on a plethora of measures taken to fight the pandemic and generally speaking in one voice. In addition to these sectors it is of paramount importance to ensure that more community structures play a critical role during these difficult times. This debate is essential as they also have a critical role to play.
Thus, my purpose here is to suggest some of the practical measures that can be taken to ensure that community leadership practically contributes to the measures taken in finding a solution to the pandemic.
It is imperative to use the principle of multi-faceted leadership that includes community leaders, to avoid a “top-down” approach, which only superficially engages local stakeholders in crises.
As history is replete with evidence that in situations where grassroots leaders were not deeply engaged, or where the process was top-down, critical grassroots stakeholders did not develop a sense of process ownership and a lasting commitment to ensuring that proposed interventions were sustainable.
Evidently, it is not enough to superficially engage some of the intended beneficiaries as “support for the plan must start with the grassroots”.
Global trends show that it is essential to tap into the lived experiences of a multi-faceted leadership, which involves active citizenship from grassroots structures such as ward or street committees and civic movements.
The following forms of leadership, namely, ideal, inspirational, process and visionary leadership matter in this context. These types of leadership styles express themselves as follows.
Individuals who offer the essential ideas and concepts that persuade communities to accept the initiative to move to identified actions provide ideal leadership.
Closely tied this, there would be a need to get support from community leaders who are endowed with visionary leadership qualities.
Process leaders ensure that the procedure as agreed upon by the rest of the stakeholders towards the desired objectives are followed.
The forms of leadership described here exist in our communities.
In order to achieve a single objective it is of cardinal importance to ensure that a narrowly designed message based on scientific reasoning is communicated on reputable platforms, with the vigour with which it requires.
As in his book titled Philosophy 100 Essential Thinkers: The ideas that have Shaped Our World, author Phillip Stokes states: (WVO Quine - 1908-2000) who was “widely regarded as America’s greatest living philosopher” firmly believed that “ only science can tell us about the world: it is the final arbiter of the truth”.
Thus during these difficult times it is crucial to ensure that only scientific messages prevail.
The ability to create a new vision and to communicate that vision to the public is equally important.
As Professor Richard Levin reminds us, “change takes place through daily transformative acts of ordinary people leadership it’s not about a position on a pyramid”.
“Leadership is each one of us.”
* Mokoena is director for research and policy in the Gauteng department of social development. He writes in his personal capacity.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.