International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue II, February 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

Leadership and National Development

Christopher Alexander Udofia (Ph.D)
Department of Philosophy, Akwa Ibom State University, Nigeria

Abstract:- This paper with the title, Leadership and National Development is saddled with the task of undertaking an expository analysis of the concepts of Leadership and Development. In executing this task, the work will unveil and discuss the various theoretical paradigms that have been articulated by scholars on those concepts. The fundamental thesis of this discourse is that there is a correlation between the quality of leadership and the quality of development. The work justifies the thesis by employing the East Asian development model to demonstrate that qualitative leadership produces qualitative development. The failure of leadership and the consequent ill-deveopment in Nigeria is extensively discussed as a proof of the relationship between bad leadership and ill-development. The work finally recommends some modalities which if effected can redeem Nigeria out of the leadership quagmire and reposition the country on the path of authentic development.

I. THEORITICAL DISAMBIQUATIONS ON THE CONCEPT OF LEADERSHIP

In contemporary times, leadership as a concept and an art has acquired a flair of ubiquitousness and has been intensively celebrated and discussed in both global and local arenas. Unfortunately, the unyielding paradox that trails this frenzy about leadership is that it does not correspondingly lead to the disambiguation of the largely amorphous nature of leadership. Pervasively, the intensifying hysteria on leadership appears to correspond with an escalating conflation of the ambiguities and obscurities that surround leadership. Leadership in this context can be amply described as one of the most hysterically celebrated and yet the most anomalously comprehended phenomenon. Etymologically, the term lead” according Emmanuel Eyo and Christopher Udofia in their Leadership Philosophies: Insights and Decision Theories, A Conspectus on Leadership Study Series is a derivative of the old English “Laeden” which relate to the act and art of guiding, conducting, taking decisions etc. (156). Most of the theories of leadership surveyed in this research are excerpted with necessary modifications from the monumental work on leadership done by Emmanuel Eyo and Christopher Udofia cited above.