A born leader may be honest, humble, lenient, simple, and incorruptible, but a trained leader may greatly vary according to his or her line of influence and inspiration. Opportunistic leaders, on the other hand, are not far from those who often attempt coups d’état, assassinate incumbent leaders, or betray their own countries to foreigners in an attempt to get an opportunity to lead.
This is engineered by their dwelling on revolutionary books and histories of their desired personalities who got leadership in such ways, but the truth is that times are different; the past leaders had to make coups so that the dominated governments by the then foreigners were changed and replaced by native leaders, and more importantly, to expel the foreigners totally from the countries.
Most of today’s leaders are in a rush, which, to me or any other learned fellow, has bad entailments as hurriedness has no blessings. Leadership generally needs too much patience to allow you enough time to eagle-eye areas of weakness in the incumbent leadership and make them your good excuses in your search for leadership. I know impatience runs in families, which means it is genetic, but it cannot run in all families in the world as all leaders in the world are in a hurry to get leadership.
That vividly shows it is an acquired trait, but more importantly, a forced one. The difference between a born and a trained leader appears in the desire for leadership because nearly all born leaders are nominated by observers as they rarely struggle for power, whereas trained leaders are power strugglers as it is part of their training that they must always become this and that simultaneously, that is to say, they are people of “I know”.
Both born and trained leaders have areas of weakness. A born leader judges two sides that have come to him or her for judgment right, not because he or she can’t judge one side wrong but because he or she does not need anybody to feel angry with. A born leader also slows in decision-making and remains neutral and kind whether or not the situation needs it, and this creates mistrust and worsens as the situation may need a quick decision.
In contrast, a trained leader spends the rest of his or her life as a critic or an opponent, which is a sacrifice in Africa. A trained and opportunistic leader is inaccessible, ignorant, and, most of all, corrupt, for the simple reason that he or she will never get an opportunity again to lead and that he or she must loot by hooks or crooks. He or she neither trains upcoming leaders nor allows any dreamer to come closer in suspicion that he or she may be overthrown. Finally, he or she is not a fluent public speaker or a truth teller but rather a pathologically convincing liar.
The goodness of a born leader is that he or she prepares a successor, takes opinions and suggestions, keeps an eye on his or her action plans and the people chosen to help him or her implement these action plans, and develops and keeps the country’s relationships with others, whereas the goodness of a trained leader is that he or she keeps the economy alive, innovates new programs, and maintains security. Both of them are better leaders, but the best leader, regardless of any category, is a leader who has chosen between being liked by politicians or by citizens. It is rare for a leader to be liked by both politicians and citizens, and any leader who wants to be liked by both is a failed leader and is liked conditionally.
The powerful leader is the one who is liked by citizens but not politicians, because citizens are the eyes and power of the country, but politicians are deceivers who only like people based on their demands and interests. Anyhow, a country that goes for elections after a number of years stipulated in the constitution must have its leader liked by the citizens for him or her to win the elections, as there are fewer politicians to make one win, but a country that extends elections must have its leader resorted to being liked by politicians alone to give them more time to suckle.
Undeniably, no person is 100% perfect; even those who claim to be good at leadership may be worse than those who have tried or are trying now, but the general selection is now based on the idea that so is better than so.
The author is a medical student, University of Juba.