Every morning in Africa the Chicken crows to signal a dawn of a new day, as the day breaks she gathers her little chicks behind her and in her leadership they unquestionably follow. This is unlike the Duck because for reasons best known to her, she trails the leadership of her baby ducks.
Part of these reasons, I think is to instil the values of responsibility, accountability and leadership at a tender age: To seed a Yes You Can mindset.
I can only imagine this as a Duck mantra - I wholeheartedly believe in you still; although with certainty you will slip, and sometimes slumber, and stumble as you search your way through the sapping situations of life, but know that the price you are paying for the gains of tomorrow far outweighs the pains of today. And this is the reason I have yielded to your leadership at such an early age.
The above depicts the conflict of ideas in the leadership of Africa. A clash of thoughts between the old-school generation of Chicken leaders who unashamedly believe leadership and innovation are synonymous with age versus the new school generation of Duck leaders whose source of ideology is the maxim of Albert Einstein - “the significant problems we face cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we are at when we created them.”
Year in year out, Africa’s ruling elite class continues to cling on to an obsolete season of Chickens and fiercely resist every attempt of the Duck generation to emerge.
Why? Could it be they hate this change to happen, or are threatened by the possible resultant effects? After all, we have seen what the Ducks can do when giving the chance in Corporate Africa.
We see Ducks build globally competitive enterprises amidst far reaching avalanche of obstacles.
Whenever the door of opportunity to compete on a parallel field in any part of the world, field, or human endeavour is opened, repeatedly we’ve seen the African Ducks rise to triumph.
As Nigeria continues to painfully take in the scoff and slap of the world on her Chicken dominated leadership- Obama’s preference of Ghana, G-20 snob among others. Now is the time to trade this dispensation of Chickens for the long held back era of Ducks. As the country comes to terms with the futility fixing its international brand without examining what happens within its borders, may she also cut-loose millions of her Duck population in hibernation and eagerly awaiting their season of manifestation.
“To every leader there is a season”, Peter Drucker, the father of managerial Ducks rightly opined, so are a swarming generation of Ducks preparing to outface the long overdue season of Chickens in Africa. To all the Chickens like Mugabe, El- Bashir, Mr. 7 points agenda and his team that see power is their birthright, ready or not, take it or leave it, the Ducks are coming real soon!
