On the 11th of August, the InterAction Leadership Association of Uganda, launched its Leadership Discussion Forum as a platform of discussing critical contemporary issues in leadership. The first discussion topic was “Ethics and Leadership”- presented by ILAU Patron and CEO of Capital Markets Uganda Mr. Japheth Katto As you can imagine, many views and opinions ensued. For instance,
1. What is Ethics?
2. What are the connections between Ethics and Leadership?
3. What are the challenges to Ethical-based Leadership?
4. Why does unethical conduct seem more convenient to human behavior than the opposite? i.e. Why are people in Corporations, Organizations, Companies vulnerable to unethical conduct even in the midst of strict laws and regulations regarding professional ethics?
5. Why does the populace condone unethical behavior of their leaders like corruption and abuse of office? (You probably know of a couple of leaders in your community who have behaved unethically but still attract a big following or public sympathy. Why is society becoming more and more reluctant in condemning wrong doing in leadership?
6. Should strictness and adherence to ethical behavior begin from places of occupations where rules and regulations are in blue-prints or should families and then schools be the seedbed for nurturing ethics?
7. Why do continue to be treated to Corporate and Organizational scandals like the case of Enron, BRD,BCCI, WorldCom etc?
8. Where does culture come in to influence Ethics?
9. What is the place of religion in the quest for Ethics and good leadership?
10. Etc
These are but a few questions that came up during the launch of the Leadership Discussion Forum held at the British Council Offices here in Uganda. You definitely already have your opinion on the topic and the debate is wide open for discussion as we look to build our nation with responsible leadership as its pillars.

Ssuna Ambrose Allan
Uganda.

Allan!

A couple of year ago now, the realism as to how simple yet fundamental “ethics” should be, was brought home to me by a discussion on a business TV programme “Talking Business” in Zimbabwe on ZTV, of a president of the Association of Directors
the programme presenter.

“Imagine a father/parent that foregoes the ‘good’ living today, so that he can ‘invest’ in the future of the children...with a view to ‘reaping’ the rewards through the future success of the children...and the commitment, the return of both the faith and favour by these now successful adults to being responsible for the welfare of the now retired and ‘not-so-well-off’ parents”.

What you have is a material and such other progression throught the generations/ages of such a given family...what others would choose to call “success”. Than the shortsightedness of the parent that would rather preoccupy the self with “having a heck of a good living today, and forget tomorrow for it will take care of itself”.

I think the same rationale should the guiding principle of business planning today...in the way that it relates with other corporates, with employees, and with communities.

To put it bluntly, a little more wisdom and not so much ‘intelligence’, in the way and course of doing business.

After all, isn’t “a family” our simplest and most basic form of an “organisation”, whatever the aspirations? So, why not pick up a few of it’s abundant and ready cues provided by it?

Allan, Mwape-
I meet you once again, with pleasure, in search for answers. I hope that we shall continue seeing more and more light, as we tirelessly pursue such topics as these. There is a tendency to tread upon these issues as common place. Yet, the genius is separated from the confines of the more common being by his/her ability to drool over the same thing for hours on end until patterns begin to emerge. With emerging patterns formulae are designed and consequently solutions to problems are found. May I therefore say Bravo, Allan and Mwape! Bravo, Bravissimo!

There was a recurring motif about leadership from the Red Indian, the Greek, Roman, Zulu king, Indian Maharajah to the Samurai. This amazing relation ship was the sovereignty of the gods/God over the king or queen of the day. This was long before the advent of Jesus of Nazareth, Mohammed, Buddha or even the Dalai Lama. There was a common sense in the ‘primitive ages’ that the earthly ruler was subject to a supernatural being and the ruler’s powers were greatly to the extent the he/she was an earthly representative of God.
There are present day remnants of this belief. Even the most pagan of American presidents will seek God’s blessings for the great nation, especially in times of crises. Uganda has a great motto, ‘For God and my country’. We come under oath in our courts of law in the name of some form of God. Our constitutions are endlessly littered with the three lettered word. Irrespective of which convictions or belief there appears to be some form of concession that indeed leadership comes from and is governed by God or gods. I hope and pray that in our groping in the dark about this subject we find rest in beginning whatever debate there may be on ‘Ethics and Leadership’ on this historic and eternal premise. Mike Novak once wrote that a, ‘a free society is a moral society or it is not free at all’. He also wrote that, ‘Where millions of people are guarded by an ‘inner policeman’-a conscience-the number of real policemen can be few. But among people without such restraint, there aren’t enough policemen in the world to make society civil’.
Last night I was impressed by the reasoning of a panel on television which, among many things, happened to comment on, in good faith, comrade Chissano’s latest decoration, namely the Mo Ibrahim cash prize of $ 5 million. Their submission was that the average African president could as well make $ 5 million in a day! And therefore whoever was thinking of forcing them into early retirement with such a miniature offer was only bluffing! Yet they had the sagacity at the end of the night to conclude that the symbolism of the prize was more than its face value.
Ladies and Gentlemen, as Mwape suggests, albeit, in a different context the Family should be starting point, therein do we find the smallest classes and the most sincere environment for learning either vice or virtue. The leaders we have are the leaders we deserve! This is one of the hardest truths that I have heard. President Milton Obote spent a lot of air time peddling his ‘common man’s charter’ across the Ugandan terrain. He was duly rewarded when the most common of men, IDD AMIN, became his unwanted predecessor. History will prove that Amin was a true creation and prodigy of the Ugandan society of his time.

Great reactions to the topic from you Mwape and Solomon.
I with no doubt deduce from your reactions a consensus that ethical behaviour should or must deliberately be nurtured from our basic social stratum-the family. This would therefore downplay the impact of laws in blueprints or those engraved on stone tablets for man to observe. Which is why throughout the Old Testament of the Bible, God struggled with man due to the latter’s continued failure to adhere to written laws even when it was obvious that the consequences of breach were as grave.
I am therefore in high spirits to see that your views fit in well with my earlier article on leadership under the title “The hidden treasure”.
I concur with you Solomon that no societal or organizational restrictions will ever restrain man if not backed by man’s owe of some supernatural being and yes these are all values that do begin from our families.
Remember that old adage, “It takes a whole village to raise a child”?, but it surely will take a lot of solid, stable, ethical families to create ethical leadership.
what do you think, the debate should rage on.

Hi there. I think you had interesting debates because of the importance of the topic leadership and ethics.
As you know the biggest problem of Africa is not poverty, Aids, Diseases etc. but solely leadership. Ethics must have a different meaning for our “great” African leaders, prompt to give lessons to all they meet in their way while they have the worst behaviours of all.
How can your people dye of starvation and that at the same time you fly from Africa to Geneva for only concert and come back at the end of that concert?
I don’t want to bother you with other instances of the like but i just want to say that we the younger generation have a long way to go simply because we have bad inspirators. Mandela is one the scarce leaders we need to seek our inspiration from.
Yankhoba SEYDI, Dakar,Senegal