Leadership is the glue that brings individuals together, focuses them in a particular direction and keeps them moving. Leadership is neither a person nor a position. Leadership is the link or connection between those in positions of power and those at the mercy of that power. The higher the quality of the link or connection, the better the performance or results. But no amount of leadership can substitute forever for individual failures or shortcomings. As a result of our society being built upon prejudice and privilege, instead of talent and planning, a significant amount of our human resources capital remains trapped in cesspools of incompetence, corruption and poverty.

Even fifteen years into democracy, we still have no reliable systems of identifying, selecting and developing people with the best talent or potential. The few truly talented people like Lucas Radebe and Steven Pienaar, who actually become successful, depend on too much personal effort and pure luck to be discovered and serve their country. I still maintain that South Africa, despite its rich endowments, is a society that makes it extremely difficult for its young people to become successful.

Even among white people, as I stated in part one, mostly because of the injurious injunctions of apartheid, which made self-application optional, instead of making it mandatory, by artificially providing them with security and comfort at the expense of the basic and other human needs of the poor, quality effort and true excellence are hardly universal. What is required now is a moral courage and will by all to restructure and transform the edifice of our society. We must learn together as a nation so that we can perform and acquit ourselves well in international competitions, instead of artificially competing among ourselves.

We need to make sure that children of poor people do not continue to be denied opportunities on the basis of the poverty of their parents or families. We need to make sure that average people do not get exalted into lofty positions merely because their families or parents can afford parachutes. Talent is a creation of God and no amount of deceit or treachery is going to turn Gibson Sakong into Didier Drogba.

As a nation, we need to acknowledge the supremacy of talent and rebuild our society using it as base. We need to respect and honour talent. Yes, talent needs to be supported by large doses of self-application, coaching and mentorship. But appreciation of talent as the centre must be our primary concern. We have a massive challenge to strive to put our best foot forward by being led or represented by the most competent and suitable among our people.

We must not fool ourselves by believing that we can take just about anybody with a big heart, endless connections and chunks of luck and turn them into a megastar through protectionism and stealth. For sure we can use such individuals to form a soccer team and beat Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland. But from an endowment point of view, those are countries we should be leading and providing support to instead of priding ourselves on beating them. We can beat those countries every day but we will notice that we are going nowhere when we come up against countries in our league.

I have said leadership is the glue that brings individuals together and keeps them focused and productive even in times of difficulties. This country still has to acknowledge appropriately the leadership abilities of a man called Clive Barker, especially as demonstrated around the 1996 African Nations Cup. A detailed study of his leadership career, even at club level, will show people that he has two outstanding attributes, among many: he has a genuine type of care for people and infuses his team with positive energy to move mountains on behalf of stakeholders; he is a mature and self-effacing man who lets even the most undeserving people bask in the glory of his achievements. He is among our nation`s ablest leaders.

From a strategic point of view, South Africa or SAFA should be providing him with resources to open and run a soccer academy. He would not only be able to help young boys learn to play soccer, he would also help them to build their characters and become more upright in these challenging times for young people. But in our winner takes all society, his immense gifts are painfully allowed to go to waste. It is my wish to see him wind up his coaching career at Kaizer Chiefs or Orlando Pirates, as a fitting tribute to his abilities and contributions to the game. It would also give some respite to the long suffering supporters of those great institutions. It would give them some respite from the shenanigans of the expensive clowns regularly employed there as coaches.

Michelle Obama tells people that the difference between herself and any other woman in the world is merely that her activities, including the unavoidable mistakes that she commits as a human being, happen in front of cameras. Everybody should know that Mrs Obama is being modest, especially because she attended good schools and worked hard to make success of her life, unlike many women around the world. Many of the teams coming to our shores in 2010 to compete in the FIFA World Cup will be brimming with people who, like Mrs Obama, have benefitted from learning at good institutions and residing in societies that are fairer and healthier.

However, in our country the situation is entirely different. Years ago when I started to understand the world of work, I realised and expressed the opinion that the difference between the performances of many of our workers, supervisors, managers, executives, the lot and the shambles of Bafana Bafana is merely that those of Bafana Bafana happen on television or in public. Very few of our people get to attend good schools to help them with core learning and good grooming. Further, there is very little culture of individual effort and pursuance of artistic excellence in our society.

All forms of leadership start with self-leadership. So if all we do is to focus on providing our players with technical training and do nothing about the host of complex individual behavioural competencies they require to impose their game upon their competitors, we should not expect success. In general, if we do not reach out and create opportunities for the majority of our people to positively develop and free themselves from the palpable shackles of fear and insecurity, as reflected in abnormal levels of self-importance and self-pity, we will fail to build this country.

Gibson Sakong
Executive Chairman – Montshepetja