Use soft power to develop

We have been treated to impeachments, threats of impeachments and other stand-offs between county Governors and their assemblies or between counties and the national government on some contentious issues. The issues cited as the reason for these squabbles should not even have gone that way had the leaders and stakeholders involved embraced the use of soft power, African traditions of resolving conflicts alongside African ideals on leadership, where leadership was supposed to be accommodative and consensus based, and effective handling of politics and associated developments. As a governor, ensure you develop all areas in the county, accommodate all your residents, including those that didn’t vote for you, those that competed against you and hence need to be guided by a book called “Team of Rivals: The Political genius of Abraham Lincoln”. Sometimes the best advice and abilities to strategically execute programmes could be resident in your rivals, go for it.

Soft power developed by Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard University in the 1980’s, is the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, intimidate and being stiff necked. Hard power tactics have been practiced for long and they appear as though they are quick fixes to conflicts, which cannot work in the current structures of governance and management.  Leaders can use soft power to shape and re-orient opinions of their targets through appeal and attraction. In the information age, “credibility is the scarcest resource”, hence with credibility and genuineness, leaders can disarm most of their opponents.

Through soft power, leaders can make their opponents to agree with them in the process, which increases their chances of getting what they have wanted all along without breaking a sweet. Under soft powers, leaders’ resort to greater use of diplomacy, strategic communication, assistance to people, civic actions, economic reconstruction and development, all of which pull and attracts people and opponents to their train of thought. In soft power, they will influence the behaviour of others and hence get the outcomes that they seek to achieve. In addition to soft power, leaders should be able to handle political stability of their counties. Kwame Nkrumah said that “seek ye first the political kingdom, and all things shall be added unto you”. Aristotle noted that three things matter: first Politics, secondly capital/wealth and thirdly education. Politics plays a central role in the development of human affairs. Soft power and well managed politics are at the centre of economic and political inclusivity, which leads to accelerated socio-economic development for the counties and the nation at large. Dr Giti is an urban management, public – private partnerships (PPP) and environment specialist. mutegigiti@gmail.com , @danielgiti