_LEADERSHIP CORNERS NO 10: CHALLENGES THAT LEAD TO LEADERSHIP FAILURE__Understanding the Pitfalls of Leadership_

Leadership is an art and act of harnessing and utilizing the resources of an organization, state or nation in achieving their desired goals and objectives. It is a serious business that requires great intellect, tacts, charisma, ingenuity, diligence and dedication. Contrariwise, it is not for the indolent, novice, mediocre, and the unserious personalities. Many leaders in the time past had failed and many are still failing and many others will still fail in leadership and governance as a result of the following:

Challenges Facing Leaders

1. _Criticisms, Blackmails, Oral or Written Petitions_

There is a common saying that “He who watches a wrestling match knows many ways to defeat the opponents but does not know the difficulty there in.” This agrees with many criticisms, blackmails and petitions that emanate from followers, which are bundles of distractions in leadership. Therefore, followers should know that leaders are not magicians that perform miracles, so let them have a chance to lead well, steadily and devoid of distractions.

2. __Sycophancy__

Leaders who pay attention and put much interest in unnecessary praises from people may be misled by the few engaging in sycophancy borne out of their personal interests. The leaders unnecessarily praised may wake up at the end of the administration to realize underperformance, poor performance, and gross failure and do not know these throughout their administration because of sycophancy.

3. _Inadequate Resources Competing with Many Needs of the People_

It is a known fact that available resources may be meager in the midst of competing divergent needs of the subjects. In this case, ingenuity, resourcefulness, and motivation are required of good leaders to make resources increase, else, they will not be able to meet the greater needs of the subjects, hence the failure.for example,a commissioner in charge of a Ministry of Agriculture can intelligently, professionally and religiously evaluate and access vast hectares of land in all the Local government areas of a state for different types of plantations namely,Cassava, Cashew,Citrus,improved hyper gene palm seedlings , coconut etc,at the end, when they are fully grown,lots of revenue will be constantly coming into the coffers of government,by this,the needs of the people will be met.

4. _Gossiping and Tale-Bearing_

This is one of the most dangerous negative habits by some persons in the Organization or State capable of retarding progress and bringing about failure of leadership because capable, competent, and result-oriented individuals who should have assisted the leader to succeed are being gossiped and slandered against for no good reasons but hatred, envy, and selfishness of the gossiper.

5. _Powerful Influence of Godfatherism_

Godfatherism is good but becomes bad when the godfather exerts negative influence on his/her mentee to the godfather’s advantage. Stories abound where the leader in the present position cannot do anything they think best because the godfather will not allow them.

6. _Executive Stress Leading to Illness_

Stress is a major cause of illness and impairment of sensitive organs of the body of leaders. Stress results when leaders do not consciously create time to rest. Lack of rest in leadership is as a result of failure to delegate responsibilities to subordinates.

7. _Interferences in Administration Caused by Close Associates_

The kinsmen of the leader, friends, and members of their cabinet may unnecessarily hinder the leader from doing what is right through tribalism, nepotism, favoritism, and religious sentimentalism leading to failures.

8. _Interferences of Other Arms of Government_

In a democratic system of government, there are three major arms of Government; Executive arm, legislative arm, and the judiciary. Records and experiences revealed that when good leaders want to enthrone good governance policies and programmes, other arms of government interfere and hinder such leaders for their selfish reasons.

9. _Corruption_

Corruption can be perpetrated through selection of wrong candidates for leadership, embezzlement of public funds, misappropriation of government monies, diversion of government resources for personal use, etc. As the available resources of government are misused, members of the public suffer for it, consequently, peace,progress and prosperity elude the people.

10. _Lack of Personal Improvement_

Performance of leaders is premised on innate qualities, capacity, and ingenuity. Any leader that lacks these can improve themselves through learning. If leaders fail to subject themselves to personal development, definitely failure sets in.

11. _Uncoordinated Projects Execution Without Monitoring, Supervision, and Proper Evaluation_

Projects are to be carried out to meet the needs of the society and are to be evenly spread across the sectors of the economy. Projects execution without close monitoring and evaluation leads to poor projects that are not durable and can not meet the desires and aspirations of the people. 

12. _Fear of the Future or the Unknown_

Leaders who constantly think of what they will become in leadership in the next dispensation will begin to engage themselves in things that are not necessary at the moment. When leaders perform extraordinarily well, it will determine where such a leader will step into next, not the maneuvering, manipulations, and all forms of political gimmicks or preparations too early to engage in.

_Conclusion: Overcoming Leadership Challenges_

In conclusion, if leaders are not recalcitrant, adamant, and repugnant to corrections as contained in this article on leadership, but make amends and adjust as he/she peruses through, the leader will become superlatively successful and all forms of failures are averted and subjugated.

Comrade (Dr.) Nuhu Solomon Anyegwu is the immediate past provost, College of Health sciences and Technology Idah. Kogi state. He is also the ECOWAS youth Ambassador, UN Global Peace Ambassador and Ambassador of Common Wealth Society of Nigeria/UK, He writes from Idah in kogi state, Nigeria, West Africa.