It has been another fortnight and it comes as no surprise that we are right back where we started 12 months ago. I want to foretell that we will be back here once again in another two years for good measure.

 

Almost one year ago today, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman published a leadership guide and it was not in book format. It was a one-pager reference sheet called; “Ten Fatal Flaws that Derail Leaders”. Here they are;

 

 

That is why in March 2010 the country is still reeling from racism, tribalism, xenophobia, crime, corruption, lavatory politics, decaying infrastructure etc.

 

Consider the following as we head towards Good Friday;

 

Caster Semenya cannot participate in her profession because of an incompetent local athletics body even after the previous management team was sent to the glue factory and replaced with new blood.

 

South Africans are once again attacking foreigners because they (locals), yes I said it! cannot find it within themselves to engage foreigners and learn from them (foreigners) how to establish and run successful small-scale businesses. I am still struggling to establish the link between service delivery protests and xenophobia.

 

A horde of vicious murderous thugs operating an unregulated and erratic and archaic transport system is holding the government ransom as the latter tries to introduce safe, reliable and sustainable unrestricted commuter system.

 

The most prominent political parties cannot seem to agree on anything unless it involves salaries, allowances and other perks associated with being in parliament or provincial government. Rewards are plenty even when it is clear that performance targets have been missed by miles.

 

The resurgence of racial tension sponsored by prominent personalities at both ends of the racial divide seventeen years ago this country was declared a ‘rainbow nation’. Whoever coined that phrase should be tied up and thrown down a very deep dark hole. It is not working.

 

Businesses are profiteering on basic commodities by ripping off stressed consumers and using the legal system to cover up their dirty tactics. Note that all the named and shamed companies are also listed on the JSE but somehow despite their actions being made public, they are let to continue trading.

 

Our politics have become so primitive and out of control that not even the president and his one-solution-fits-all strategy of agreeing with everyone on everything has made matters better. His weakness is exposed especially when he is unable to galvanise the nation in the same way he did his supporters as he spent most of his days singing and dancing about machine-guns outside courthouses in Johannesburg and Pietermaritzbug respectively.

 

To cap it all, the government is sending Julius Malema who incidentally is number one on the PACYL hit-list to Zimbabwe for a ‘fact finding’ mission relating to nationalisation. Yes, Zimbabwe, the economic powerhouse and beacon of political maturity and sound governance in this region.

 

We have eleven official languages, our national anthem is rendered in four different languages and the national flag is open to infinite interpretations since the chap (Mr. Fred Bronwell) handed the mandate to design it was probably high on crack when he came up with the concept. What does he mean when he says that it represents “no universal symbolism…”. So, we might as well deduce that the flag is basically an abstract piece of artwork. We do not live in a rainbow nation. What we have is the tower of Babel.

 

If I were to rearrange the ten flaws listed above, number four would be first. Any individual who cannot relate to clear judgment should never call themselves a leader and ought to remove themselves from positions of influence and go fix our potholes.

 

Have a great Easter week-end.