Times Of Swaziland: ROUND 2: UNEASY LIES THE HEAD THAT WEARS THE CROWN

ROUND 2: UNEASY LIES THE HEAD THAT WEARS THE CROWN
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BY LWAZI DLAMINI on 17/09/2020 01:39:00


Sports Editor
In posing the pertinent question on what it takes for one to pass the leadership
test, fiery scribe, Bill Taylor, writing for the New York Times, could not have
put it with such alluring clarity.
“The true mark of a leader is the willingness to stick with a bold course of
action – an unconventional business strategy, a unique product-development
roadmap, a controversial marketing campaign – even as the rest of the world
wonders why you’re not marching in step with the status quo.
In other words, real leaders are happy to zig while others zag. They understand
that in an era of hyper-competition and non-stop disruption, the only way to
stand out from the crowd is to stand for something special,” How poignant!
After the distasteful events of last Saturday at Happy Valley Resort when the
Annual General Meeting (AGM) was postponed after the two allocated hours elapsed
without even half of the 12-agenda items had been exhausted.
Inordinate
Inordinate time was spent discussing issues out of the agenda – the two Board
members who allegedly tried to solicit the financial statements from the
auditors without authority and the money-draining ticketing system. It was well
organised chaos.
Now, round two is here. We return to the same venue for what hopefully will be
conclusion to an election that has been marred by smear campaigns that would
make any African National Congress (ANC) elective conference look like a Sunday
school picnic.
Who will be among the candidates Peter ‘Touch’ Magagula, Mark Carmichael and
Sicelo Mkhonta?
We all can agree that filling the shoes of the gentle giant that was Victor
‘Maradona’ Gamedze has proven to be an unenviable task and this was even
more evident when the names of his possible successors popped up, leaving
everyone scratching his head on who could be our modern biblical ‘Moses’,
who can take our football from the financial bondage it has crept into, right up
to the promised land of milk and honey (read professionalism and
sustainability).
We have, literally, been scraping the bottom of a barrel.
This is not a challenge facing only football, but the country as a whole. We
have a leadership crisis. You only have to look at our members of parliament and
the scourge of daylight bribery to win seats in the august house to see that
this lovely country of ours has unprecedented leadership poverty.
unavailable
The capable ones are unavailable. The available ones are not capable as nicely
articulated by one friend of mine recently.
One thing is certain though, it was obviously going to be a difficult task to
replace someone like the ‘Maradona’ of Eswatini football, because according
to Bill Taylor’s words, he was willing to ‘stick with a bold course of
action’ at times even outside the armpit of corporate governance. He had a
‘unique product-development roadmap and controversial marketing campaign’,
using football for his own company’s clients to promote their products.
It was a win-win situation.
Now we are here in this difficult situation which has been exacerbated by the
COVID-19 pandemic. We need a leader, who will make lemon cider from the lemons
COVID-19 has served us. Who will it be?
Sports Editor, Lwazi Dlamini gives an insight on the three candidates vying for
the head honcho position of the PLE.