By Queen Ramotsehoa
We are just a few days before millions of people across the country leave their homes to cast their ballots in the sixth local government elections.
According to the IEC, up to 26.2 million people have registered to vote for this year's municipal elections.
While at the heart of these elections lies service delivery – equally important are the ward and PR councillors that will emerge successful this time around.
This is the cohort that is expected to lead our communities over the next five years.
But you see, the reputation and the ability of these individuals to deliver the most basic of service delivery to their specific wards will not be driven by the political party they belong to, nor will their popularity give them an added advantage.
Instead, they will be judged according to their leadership skills.
Moreover, these councillors come at a time where many in the country have lamented the lack of leadership or leadership deficit, which is said to be engulfing the country at a government level as well as in most state-owned entities.
In the work that we have conducted over the years, it has become clear how vital excellent leadership is.
One of the most valuable principles is that leaders need people.
Some of the mistakes they make have last-long implications. They simply do not have the luxury of mopping up or working hard to glue things back to normal again.
Leaders must be conscious of everything they do or do not do.
They ought to be mindful of everything they say or don't and should deliberately and intentionally ensure that their actions and leadership will deliver the desired output for the benefit of the people they lead.
In my book, Leadership Anchored in Consciousness is a Big Deal, I speak to what conscious leadership means and how to lead with a good conscience.
For instance, conscious leadership means you are conscious of the commitments that you have made to people – a good place to start for our incoming ward councillors.
These leaders or councillors will often need to hold themselves accountable to deliver on the commitments and promises they have made to communities, whether be it fixing a pothole, electricity pole or a burst water pipe, as well as listening to the many gripes of those who will always relate how they haven't had electricity for over a month.
This is where the integrity of a leader comes in.
One morning, my team and I were talking about the absence of integrity in leadership and that the first step towards the chaos we see today is the absence of integrity.
Let me outline a scenario to elucidate my point.
For instance, as an unethical leader, I would carry myself in a way that lacks integrity by engaging in acts of corruption.
Because no one is looking or can detect my wrongdoings instantaneously, I will repeat these acts of wrongdoing over and over again.
In this case, the absence of integrity leads to ill-discipline because when I have done it enough times, I become ill-disciplined. When this happens, I allow myself to veer off track, and the continuous ill-discipline leads to the chaos we have seen at local government – almost rendering us to a chaotic state.
One would ask if the leaders who allowed State Capture to manifest and crippled some organs of state lacked integrity?
You see, the absence of integrity leads to ill-discipline and in turn, ill-discipline leads to poor delivery, betrayal, destroying and harming people.
If we were to take a step back and reflect on the campaigning conducted by various political party leaders over the last few weeks, we would pick up the plenty of criticism that some political party leaders dished out on other political leaders.
Some cases involved the ANC or EFF going to the Western Cape and pointing out the inefficiencies that leaders from the DA have had over the past five years and their failure to deliver services to people in the City of Cape Town.
Likewise, the DA, ActionSA, have also, in turn, criticised the lack of service delivery in ANC-led municipalities.
So you see, it is so easy for political party leaders to point fingers at each other while they are not holding themselves accountable to say we have perhaps failed our constituencies.
Owing to the systematic acts of malfeasance, some have, over time. If our leaders today have a conscience at all, and if so, does it speak to them or have they lost it altogether?
My friend once told me that her grandmother would often tell her that "your conscience will you."
However, it is assuming that you can still listen to your conscience. But when you build a thick skin to the point where you don't respond to your conscience anymore, you go against your conscience to the point where you feel comfortable, then nothing is going to save you.
You will keep deteriorating and will keep going further and further from values, principles and standards that guide the responsibility of a leader to the person they lead.
When you have a conscience that is alive, and you live consciously, it means that you will hear your conscience tell you this is right and this is wrong.
Your conscience guides what is acceptable.
So our incoming councillors should always remember that we often say in Setwana Molayakgosi wa itaya (whatever instruction or law you set for others, is instruction and law that binds you and then the people you lead).
Therefore, our marching orders to our future leaders is for them to walk the talk and lead with integrity.
*Ramotsehoa is an author and a leadership coach.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.