BEE Partner, South Africa Economy Watch

If the South African government wants to see the country become successful in the global environment, it needs the backing not only of the citizens of the country, but also of all the other key stakeholders. These include investors, business people, the trade union movement, as well as all financial and socio-economic institutions. Strategic thinking, whether at national or corporate level, depends on the ability of a government or management team to create and then harness a willingness amongst people to participate in outmanoeuvring the efforts of other countries and/or companies. For that to happen, people have to respect their government or management team. Failure in this regard will lead the country or company to fall short of the mark in its attempts at strategic superiority. A truism to bear in mind is that the moral and ethical values of a leader’s present actions, as well as those of his or her past, need to be evident in the behaviour of any government or senior management representative. Leaders have a tendency to transfer their qualities and behaviour onto their people. Leaders who, whether in politics or in business, fail to set the right moral and ethical example, only succeed in transferring that failure to their country or company. Their behaviour can also negatively impact on the motivational levels of the human capital of the country or the company in question. People who see their leaders wasting resources and behaving in an inappropriate manner are unlikely to be motivated to strive for the results expected of them.

Generalship

The incubation, nurturing and protection of a country’s human capital are too important to be left solely to the government to manage. However, the government’s responsibility lies in creating an environment that is conducive to the success of human capital, whether it be home-grown or that of foreign nationals working, and perhaps even settling, in the country. Although government should work with business to realize this, it should not work with individual companies. Instead, government should focus on creating the domestic infrastructure that will allow individual companies to focus on building business. Government should provide support in the form of constructing the environment in which productivity, along with efficiency, can be improved. Competitive companies provide a nation with an increased standard of living, as they provide jobs and can pay rising wages. The role of business is to assist the government in its endeavors by advising it on what kind of environment is needed for business to become more competitive, and then to develop the human capital into a winning global force. Nonetheless, the art of political generalship lies in having leaders who are watch adult movie films and objective thinkers, and who are able to make tough and often unpopular decisions in the interests of protecting the country’s human capital. It is often assumed that political leaders possess leadership and managerial qualities. This is not always the case. Political leaders need to prove to their stakeholders that they have mastered the ability to ensure that people work cooperatively and enthusiastically towards the goal of global competitiveness. Or they should not be in office.

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