Building leadership out of conflict

This is an old article from the World Bank Institute's Development Outreach magazine. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/4586/deor_11_2_32.pdf?sequence=1

SPECIAL REPORT

Building Leadership out of Conflict

BY MATT ANDREWS

NOTHING SHOWCASES LEADERSHIP—or its absence—like acrisis. This is perhaps why leaders are so well known in coun-tries that have emerged from conflict with some success.Many identify Nelson Mandela as the reason South Africaavoided bloodshed after apartheid and Paul Kagame as havingmade the difference in Rwanda after the genocidal killingsof1994. Defining moments of Middle-East peace are repre-sented in vivid pictures of Israeli and Palestinian leadersembracing or shaking hands. But do these individual “lead-ers” provide the source of leadership? Do these handshakemoments define it? What opportunities exist to promote lead-ership in fragile and post-conflict situations?

From leaders to leadership

SOCIAL, LEGAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC institutionsare important buffers of crisis. Strong institutions help getthings done in ways that are sanctioned by society. Theyenable a dynamic equilibrium vital to growth and develop-ment and ensure this equilibrium is maintained or restored inthe face of crisis. But countries face major problems whereinstitutions are absent, deficient, hotly contested, or them-selves a source of inequality and oppression. Crises can brewfor long periods of time under such conditions. When thecrises mature, stability slips away and conflict erupts.

Conflict is itself an ongoing deepening of crisis. It ampli-fies the effects of calamitous problems such as chronic unem-

Adults in the village of Gashaki, Rwanda, are leveling the ground for the construction of a local school building. This community has achieved impressiveresults under the Vision 2020 Umurenge Program launched by the Government of Rwanda.

32 Development Outreach WORLD BANK INSTITUTE

ployment, disease, lawlessness and corruption. Leaders oftenemerge from such situations, resolving conflict and apparent-ly re-establishing stability. But stability may be short-livedwhen leaders are really just victors in a high-stakes “winnertakes all” scenario that fuels continued conflict. The experi-ences of many of Africa’s “Big Men” tell this story. Thankfully,this stands in contrast to other accounts, in countries such asMozambique and Rwanda, where leaders have emerged asbrokers of peace, guarantors of stability and even catalysts forpost-conflict growth.

These leaders fill the institutional voids that created vul-nerability in the first place. They find opportunities for lead-ership in the deepened crisis of conflict, much as the manage-ment and political science literature suggests they should, andemerge as champions of change for their people. But not only(or even) because they are victors, authoritarians or charis-matic stand-outs. More than any of these characteristics,which usually come to mind when hearing the word “leader,”stories of successful leadership in these contexts and otherscenter on the how individuals helped build coalitions aroundcommon desires to overcome conflict and crisis.

Often these coalitions were built by many parties, fromwithin and outside the country, stretching beyond the media-acclaimed leaders we may ultimately see shaking hands in thelasting images. The importance of broad and engaged net-works of players is universal, where different parties bringdifferent elements of a final leadership solution to a largerconstituency and together they achieve their purpose.Prominent players like Mandela or Kagame helped to estab-lish the common vision and set the tone for the climate of trustand dialogue that proved so vital to building coalitions. Butothers built the bridges and persuaded recalcitrant parties tocross them. They helped find the resources, conduct the nec-essary meetings, and otherwise connect nodes in the complexsocial and political webs that characterize countries emergingfrom conflict. Together, individuals connected in networksthus provide leadership: they intentionally mobilize people,ideas, meaning and resources toward achieving a purpose—inthe best instance choosing the path towards peace and stabil-ity after a conflict.

The challenge beyond conflictresolution

IN MANY RESPECTS, the real work begins once the conflict isresolved. However, governments may then face devastatingweaknesses in their social, economic and political institu-tions, including destabilizing problems like unemploymentand an inability to deliver basic services. With scant capacity,these governments must take steps to produce peace divi-dends in the short term, while at the same time building sus-tainable institutional structures that can provide a bufferagainst crises in the future.

The problems post-conflict governments face are often seenas technical, in contrast to the adaptive challenge of dealing withthe conflict itself. International development organizations

play a big role in defining steps at this juncture, and providecrucial support for social and financial stability, often with bothmoney and military presence. The donor community’s agendasoften place a high priority on building the long-term institu-tional fabric that is seen as deficient and contributing to theconflict. Most conflict-affected countries thus allocate lots ofcapacity to writing procurement and civil service laws needed tosecure funding from external partners.

While these steps are no doubt valuable in the long-term,and earn the countries’ legitimacy in the eyes of their interna-tional supporters, this may do little to ensure continueddomestic support and legitimacy in the short term. It is quitecommon for a President in these circumstances to receiveinternational accolades as a great leader, only to face increas-ing opposition at home, and ultimately lose office. Why?

One explanation is simply that the re-building process islargely internally-focused. The goal is to make the countrybetter for its citizens, but the resources and support for theprocess must come from the outside. This splits the attention,time and capacities of leaders, often leading them to devoteinsufficient attention to the home-front. A second explana-tion is that, while post conflict reconstruction is treated as atechnical challenge requiring specific technical capacities andinputs, it is actually an adaptive leadership challenge, requir-ing the kinds of networked leadership solutions used to dealwith the earlier conflict resolution challenge. When thesesolutions fail to emerge, and local issues and players feelunder-served in the new governments, old crises may begin toaccumulate and the potential for conflict resurfaces.

President Paul Kagame (L) stands with wife Jeanette as they presideover a ceremony commemorating the 15th anniversary of the Rwandangenocide at a mass-burial site in Nyanza, near Kigali.

OCTOBER 2009 33

Promoting leadership in post conflictdevelopment

SOME COUNTRIES have dealt with these problems better thanothers, and offer lessons about continued leadership thatensures adequate fertile space for engagement and results,allowing short-term dividends to emerge while simultane-ously building an institutional framework for better develop-ment outcomes in the future. Rwanda is an example of this, asare Sierra Leone, Burundi and the Central African Republic.Specific interventions in these countries focused on develop-ing leadership to solve urgent problems ranging from poorservice delivery to an inadequate justice system to environ-mental degradation and even disputes around land reforms.

The Global Leadership Initiative (GLI), a multi-donorworking group led by the World Bank Institute, has been fol-lowing these and other leadership support activities inAfghanistan, Kenya, Kosovo, Rwanda, Timor Leste andUganda. Observations to date suggest that leadership can bebroadly developed in fragile and post conflict states—and oth-ers—as fostering development more generally. Lessons areemerging from the GLI about exactly how leadership works,what it looks like, and why it matters.

The first lesson is that leadership is facilitated by a sense ofshared purpose, especially in response to a crisis. The tendencyin many post-conflict situations is to focus on moving beyondthe crisis, taking a sigh of relief that the fighting is over, when infact the underlying factors of the crises may still fester below thesurface. However, leadership can be developed around thesecrises, making them opportunities for social reconstruction.

This is especially the case where crises have been de-con-structed into smaller chunks, and tackled in ways that produceclearly demonstrable and achievable goals and solutions. Forexample, officials in Burundi proved their ability to gradually

deal with a legacy of crises in service delivery by ensuring thesafe delivery of school text books with the help of a rapidresults project. Rwandan authorities dealt with the judicialand representation crises that helped destabilize the countryprior to 1994 by creating local courts and Imhigos (indigenousperformance contracts), clearly demonstrating a new approachto governance, and achieving development results.

The second lesson centers on the importance of buildingcoalitions to deal with manageable crises. Coalitions emergewhen players concerned about achieving a similar purposeknow that they cannot do it alone, and seek support from oth-ers. Often these relationships are brokered in broad socialnetworks by bridging parties not even in the formal coalition,including, for example, the clergy, or even donors. The vari-ous parties to the coalition have different roles, which thecoalition arrangements clarify, and these relate across formalboundaries in a horizontal manner, creating organizationalstructures that are quite different to the usual hierarchiesfound in developing-country governments.

A third lesson is that parties involved in these interventionstend to identify multiple rather than individual leaders, empha-sizing the idea that it is the process of “leadership” that mattersmore than the “leaders” themselves. It follows that leaders areidentified more often for what they do to achieve the commonpurpose, than who they are. Three main roles center on (i) cre-ating acceptance for the purpose at hand, (ii) building authori-ty to achieve this purpose, and (iii) enhancing the coalition’sability to achieve the purpose, by mobilizing funds, people andeven information. The connections among multiple playersthus manifests itself in leadership. This creates the space toachieve a purpose, even in post-conflict countries where thecapacity to achieve results is scant on the ground.

A final and concluding lesson coming out of the GlobalLeadership Initiative is: Outside interventions can help tofacilitate, motivate andstimulate leadership inconflict affected states—especially in the period fol-lowing the initial euphoriaover conflict resolution. Inthis endeavor, a manage-able crisis may proveinvaluable, along with acommitment to workingbroadly across networksand in unconventionalstructures, and a desire to

really get things done.

Matt Andrews is Professorand Academic Advisor for theGlobal Leadership Initiativeat the Kennedy School,Harvard University.

34 Development Outreach WORLD BANK INSTITUTE

Posted with Blogsy