NewsRescue
by Usama Dandare,
Leadership assessment can help a leader no matter what stage he’s in his executive career. A constructive leadership assessment is a way of letting leaders know how good their leadership skills really are — and if they are keeping up with the times. An effective leadership assessment also need to highlight strengths and flag up areas of weakness that a leader should have to work on.
On the contrary, grading a leader higher than his leadership indexes will make that particular leader assume he’s living upto expectations and will in turns result to stagnation or decrease in performances.
I don’t know what variables the Centre for International Advanced and Professional Studies (CIAPS) uses to gauge the performances of state governors across the country in their “Governors Performance Index” but whatever the criteria may be, naming Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State as “November Governor of the month” is more or less an unforced error as we say in golf.
At every rung of the ladder, a leader will need different leadership skills both at the personal and organizational level. Leadership assessment can focus on personal leadership, such as the competencies needed to lead a team. It can also zero in on communication skills, conflict resolution skills, effective negotiation skills and the ability to inspire and motivate others.
Other kinds of leadership assessment tools can evaluate project management, strategic thinking, decision-making and problem-solving skills. Such tools are useful in overall evaluations of corporate performance.
In this case, I don’t know what criteria the CIAPS used in gauging the performances of Tambuwal led-administration. To the best of my knowledge and until proven otherwise, Tambuwal has not achieve anything worthy of commendation in the last seven months of his stewardship.
With all sense of fairness, i would’ve hail CIAPS had it been they named Governor Tambuwal the “most traveled governor of the month” instead of rating him high on good governance in the midst of several other performing governors. I don’t have enough time to waste counting how many trips Tambuwal took out of the state since his swearing-in but those who can devote their time said; the governor traveled 58 times since taking over power seven months back. He’s perhaps spending more days in Abuja or somewhere else outside the state than a rookie on a beer run. I stand to be corrected.
The Centre for International Advanced and Professional Studies (CIAPS) should in the collective interest of the nation desist from fooling and misleading our governors, they should come up with an opposite index in which only the worst performing governor of the month will be name. I think that will make the governors sit up and roll up their sleeves rather than praising them even when they deserved no praise. I rest my case!
Usama A. Dandare, a social commentator writes from Sokoto.
