Leaders needed in every sphere

There is a critical shortage of good leaders within the region.

This is the view of Barbados’s Representative to CARICOM, Robert “Bobby” Morris, who delivered remarks at the press conference to launch the Barbados Youth Leadership Retreat 2012 at the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development recently.

Youth leaders drawn from public and private secondary schools
across the island in attendance at the press conference.

The CARICOM Ambassador stated that unfortunately, in the region when one thinks of leaders, they tend to focus solely on political leaders, failing to see that leadership is not always based solely on status, but also on the influence that potential leaders can have on a nation.

“Unfortunately, within the Caribbean context, leadership relates mainly to the political sphere and we do not give enough attention to cultural, social, religious, business, artistic and other leaders. Again, we concentrate on what may be called maximum leaders, without recognising that leadership is not always associated with status, power or authority, but more with influence.”

Therefore, the region must develop good leaders within the region in a variety of sectors such as agriculture, which is important to the progress of the CARICOM region.

“The development of cadres of leaders is of the highest priority as they have a tremendous role to play in the advancement of our countries and of our Caribbean civilisation as a whole,” said Morris.
He added that a lot of time has been invested on developing different types of leaders who would have the capacity to function in a wide cross-section of the regional developmental agenda.

“Much time and intellectual effort has been spent on examining leadership on all of its various dimensions. There used to be a focus on the characteristics which good leaders should have – issues like honesty, integrity, dedication, to mention a few. The emphasis has then changed to leadership styles: charismatic, autocratic, laissez-faire and then to situational leadership, which is related to environmental consensus and currently, there is some discussion about transformational leadership – those who bring significant change.”

He explained that charismatic leaders are the ones who display certain attributes and a personality that attracts people to them; democratic leaders, who allow people to have freedom of choice; autocratic leaders, who tell you what to do and when to do it; laissez-faire leaders, who give the least amount of direction to their subordinates while at the same time trying to maintain control through less obvious methods; situational leaders, who demonstrate their leadership skills based on the situation that they are placed in; and transformational leaders, who transform what they do, make it different and change things for the better. (PT)