Development Communication for Leaders

One crucial responsibility of government leaders is to make their constituents understand how they make decisions over issues critical to the existence of the community, whether it is over the management of wastes or the rehabilitation of cultural structures. It is an unfortunate observation that leaders, as representatives of the people, fail to undertake the first step in the decision-making process: know what the people think and what they need. This requires consensus-building among the various sectors within the community which provides the data upon which the leaders may base their decisions on. When this first step is ignored, the following assumptions are likely to arise:

• The leaders underestimate the ability of their constituents to talk about and make known their ideas and recommendations on what to do with the issue at hand.  
•  The leaders do not have the skills to organize the community, discuss important matters with their constituents, and form consensus.
•  The leaders have hidden agenda

Inevitably, results from this communication failure include strong reaction from the people, and understandably so. They took the risk in electing the leaders, hoping that they (leaders) will come up to the standards of being true public servants. The worst thing the leaders can do is to challenge their constituents as a reaction to public sentiment.

Leadership entails a reasonable amount of knowledge, a lot of skills, and a lot more positive attitude than what the traditional politician or the naive newcomer will ever imagine. Catching up with a fast-changing social and economic environment here and abroad truly becomes a leader's greatest challenge. Survive or perish, but for a better place for all.

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