If the foundation is destroyed…

Can you be trusted?

Dear Future-Ready Leader,

I trust this meets you in pursuit of leadership.

In the last several decades, as a nation we have seen our trust in leaders go up and down like an ocean. 

From bad roads to hoarding of palliatives, to Lekki Toll Gate Civillian assault, policy somersaults, fuel price hike, electoral malpractices and “all eyes on the judiciary”… all of these points to one thing - The decline of trust in leaders.

Last week, I ended my 10 months course at the School of Politics, Policy & Governance (SPPG).

For clarity's sake, the School of Politics, Policy, and Governance (SPPG) is a revolutionary school aimed at solving the perennial problem of weak governance in the African continent by training future public leaders to be disruptive change-makers. The SPPG is a part of the #FixPolitics initiative founded by Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili providing 33 weeks of thorough politics and policy training to cover all aspects of the leadership problem, with disruptive thinking as the requisite expertise needed to govern well.

To wrap up the program, we had a mandatory capstone project and I was a member of the Citizens Participation in Governance Capstone Group where we worked on a research to investigate the remote and immediate causes of citizens' non-participation in politics and governance issues in Nigeria. 

Citing data from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), we looked into the causes of low voter turnout in Nigeria's 2023 general election through a rigorous scientific method of data collection and research analysis. Despite widespread enthusiasm, with over 10 million newly registered voters out of the total 93 million registered voters in the election, a meagre 27% voter turnout was recorded.  This makes it the lowest voter turnout in Nigeria's election history in 44 years.

I am not going to bore you with too many figures, but one important highlight I want to share with you on my learnings from this work is that more than 50% of respondents in this research agreed that a lack of trust in government is the major barrier to participating in governance.

Because I am committed to Leadership & Governance, this is a very important highlight to me and that is why I want to bring the spotlight on you.

Trust is not a thing in leadership. Trust is actually the foundation of leadership. If the foundation is destroyed, then there is no leadership. 

Trust is the glue that holds everything together within an organisation. You can not lead people who do not trust you!

So, how do you build trust?  In my experience, trust is an effect of consistently displaying good character and competence.

Consistency is a keyword here. Good Character is the main ingredient. Competence is an important element.

For example, It is good character to apologise when you make an error in your work due to your growing competence. People can easily forgive you knowing that you are still growing in competence. 

But you should never be without a good character. 

Character makes trust possible, and trust makes leadership possible. It is important therefore for us today and everyday, to treat trust as our most precious asset.

I have concluded that the reason many of us do not trust most politicians is because most politicians cannot be trusted. This is a learning curve.

You may not be a politician but you are a leader. Can you be trusted?

Yours in leadership,
- Great Owete