By Ian Ortega
I have worked with amazing people, but few of those people stood out. One of those was a gentleman known as Chris Ntege (RIP). He embodied the future of the managerial DNA that’s missing in most Ugandan managers. And this is not to argue that there exists no potential for exceptional managers in Uganda, but that few managers ever scratch the surface of their potential.
Largely, most people underestimate their abilities, that’s to say, the outcome of intensity and courage. Most Ugandan managers do not believe that they can transform their departments, usher in new ways of work, or even challenge the status-quo. I believe this is because most people are promoted into management without ever hearing the true call of management. The commonest scenario is of a competent employee that’s promoted into management. Many new managers struggle to transition into management.
Those that manage to transition soon get lost in the void of playing work politics blindly and trying to keep and learn the unwritten rules at the workplace. Most managers are not aware of their own input in changing this politics and redefining the rules of the game.
Thus, if you asked me what’s missing in the Ugandan Managers. It’s that blend of courage and imagination. Ugandan managers have the intelligence, but they are deficient in courage and imagination. Those with courage exercise it in white-collar crime (but that’s a story for another day).
The day Ugandan Managers wake up and realize that all along, what they really needed was just to awaken their courage and imagination, there would be transformation in the workplace. We would have great workplaces, and as a result, we would have great companies. Courage and Imagination sets the ground for this quest for greatness, the quest to imprint oneself in the history of the firm. That’s absent in Ugandan managers. Most Ugandan managers are comfortable pleasing their bosses, rubberstamping everything their boss says, without ever questioning, without ever re-imagining that things could be different, things could be better. If a Ugandan Manager finds a yellow door, they will never question it. Not in a million years will they imagine the possibility of a blue or green door. Ugandan Managers fear to ruffle feathers. As a result, you don’t see exceptional greatness coming out of the Ugandan Managerial space.
Management is where great talent goes to die in Uganda. Yet, management is the platform for transformation. Every Ugandan manager ought to see themselves as curators of the future, as those defining the next frontiers of a company, as sources of new possibilities. Because that’s why one is a manager. It’s not to maintain statusquo, it is to use their courage, imagination and intelligence to think of what the workplace could be, what the company could be.
If one is a Procurement Manager, it’s to rethink the whole procurement process, it’s to use a high agency to usher in new ways of work. It’s not to conduct procurement the same old way, it’s to rethink new ways of creating value for the company, for the suppliers, for the shareholders, for the employees. Ugandan Managers ought to respond to their generational responsibility of transformation. As a manager, your number one role is to drive transformation. It is not to keep things calm, it’s to anticipate future storms and start designing the boats and structures that will withstand and thrive in those storms. The call of management surpasses a salary. It’s not to get revenge on those that had written you off, it’s not to manage emotions, it’s to drive teams towards this common vision, to one day, stand by, and look at all the transformation you did usher in. For far too long, Ugandan managers have been comfortable. But the time is now to turn the leaf on management.
The old ways of management are dead, they brought us here, but they cannot take us to the next level. There leap is now. And that quantum leap is a commitment that the new breed of managers ought to make. It’s now time to breathe a new fire into the management psyche. It will take courage; it will take imagination.