By Hamse A. Khaire

abdeeq2005@hotmail.com

Literature, according to some, is an honourable appreciation of tragedy. Leaders inspire their followers not only away from tragedy but also into utopia. Hamse helps us to appreciate Qaasim’s poem in light of the duality of unity or, maybe, the multiplicity of unity. More importantly, he unshackles us from the mental incarceration of a dominant interpretation, poking us to seek meanings beyond the original use. 

 INTRODUCTION

The fact that Somalis have rich oral tradition is largely agreed upon by Somalis and researchers, past and present, who visited their home in East Africa. Some writers, for example, referred Somalis as the ‘nation of poets’. The contents and substance of this oral literature was unrecorded due to absence of a script, which limited access to very few. Thus, no significant effort was spent on reflecting on what lessons that could be learned.

Apart from the introduction of the Somali orthography back in the seventies by the military regime, no other initiative, at national level, has been made to write Somali poetry in a way that is appealing to contemporary Somali youth. Furthermore, the link between modern education and the Somali way of life, as embodied in its oral wisdom, was never given its deserved attention. As a result, some question the relevance and value of the lessons learnt in the past.

Here, I will be introducing Somali poem ‘Macaan & Qadhaadh’ or “Bitter and Sweet,” whose relevance in other domains of life was not appreciated at the time. It was composed by Axmed I. Diriye Qaasim, a legendary Somali poet who served under the British Colonial Administration as an officer in Odwayne District¹. (Click here for the complete poem and translation). I will be connecting it to a widely researched organizational behavior phenomena – leadership – to inspire other fellow Somalis to look back to their past and work out a common denominator with their formal education and our unique context. It also attempts to highlight poet’s appreciation and grasp of leadership in a holistic approach, balancing demands of followers and situations.

A GLIMPSE OF LEADERSHIP THEORIES

Leadership was defined in many ways, but few disagree that leadership is about influencing, motivating and enabling others to contribute to the common purpose and success of an enterprise they belong².

Since time immemorial, people have been trying to reduce leadership to few traits. The Chinese philosopher, Lao-tzu, in the 6th BCE, described as effective leaders self-less, honest, fair, and hardworking. The Greek philosopher, Plato, on the other hand, attributed leadership to sound logical thinking and wisdom. All these attempts to construct a profile of a great leader miserably failed and many scholars gave up their search for distinctive competencies that assist in the identification of leaders. Organizational behavior scholars learned from their decade long endeavors that leadership as concept is too complex to be reduced to a checklist.

A second wave of research started late 1940s. The focus shifted from the trait to the behavior of the leader. As result of this, two broad clusters were identified: task-orientation and people-orientation. People-oriented behaviors consider personal matters such as doing favors to followers, listening to their suggestions and concern for their needs over the needs of the work. The task-oriented leaders are the opposite. The one million dollar question is: which of the two behaviors is recommendable? Or what is the best mix of the two styles of leadership? In their answers, researchers and academicians took sides. The demise of the behavioral era became obvious when they prescribed high levels of both styles. This prescription failed to account for another key factor which determines the style, namely – the situation. In other words, the best style of the two is a function of the situation. Again, researchers faced the challenge to think twice and seek another paradigm.

The third wave started from where the second stopped. A new movement came up with the idea of contingency. Among them was Fred Fiedler³ and associates who suggested that the effectiveness of a leader depends on whether the person’s natural leadership style is matched to the situation. Do we change the leadership style or the situation in order to match the two? Fiedler believed leaders have default styles, which is linked to personality and stabilizes over time. He contends that the situation should be engineered. More recent scholars confirmed his argument and even proposed that leadership styles tend to be more “hardwired” than most contingency leadership theories assumed.

Other theories of leadership have been proposed by researchers. Some have questioned whether leadership matters at all. They argued that leadership is in the eyes of the follower. In other words, this latter theory emphasizes the role of people’s perception in the effectiveness of leadership. People do have preconceived beliefs about leadership performance. Unlike others, this theory reduced leadership to a relative concept that exists only in people’s perception. It highlights that leadership, like beauty, is in the eyes of those following. According to this perspective, leaders who fail to fit these leadership prototypes will have difficulty in leading.

MACAAN IYO QADHAADH: QAASIMI FLAVOR

Leadership literature reveals the bipolarity of the researchers on the concept – labelling as black or white: trait or behavior, task-oriented or people-oriented, leader or situation etc. It is considered as ‘water or oil’ and torn apart into a sea of ‘either- ors’. It is this view where Qaasim’s ‘Macaan & Qadhaadh,’ in contrast, challenges the views of both classical and contemporary organizational behaviorists to consider the possibility of such duality in an effective leader:

“…Dacartuba marbay malab dhashaa ood muudsataa dhabaq’e

Waxan ahay macaan iyo qadhaadh meel ku wada yaalle

Midigtayda iyo bidixdu waa laba mataanoode..”

..Consider the aloe – how bitter is its taste! Yet sometimes there wells up a sap so sweet That it seems like honey in your mouth.

Side by side the sweet and bitter run

Just as they do, my friends, in me,

As I switch from sweet to bitter

And back to sweet again.)

As translated by B. W. Andrzejewski with Sheila Andrzejewski.

What makes this poem unique is not only that it magnifies and brings forth an extreme elemental truth about the ability of human beings to harbor multiple contradictory characters, but what Russ Moxley of the Center of Leadership and Creativity said to be fundamental to the development of well-rounded leaders, “…the competence to combine what appear to be opposites: toughness and compassion, self-confidence and humility, strong individuals and good team players.” On this front, Qaasim is able to think the holistic nature of the subject – a quality that leaders cannot afford to miss.

Like his contemporaries (and I say so because some of these early studies are not more scientific than his poem)⁴, he rightly places himself among the leadership contingency theorists. Qaasim, takes ‘situational factors’ into account and signals its change by using the phrases “at times”, “Sometimes”, “as morning alters to evening” and etc. Depending on time and space, the speaker swings from “ a holy saint” to a “master satan”, from “one color” to “another” as morning turns to evening and back once more to morning. This thinking is clearly in line with Fiedler’s contingency model where he postulated that leader’s effectiveness is based on what he referred as ‘situational contingency’ which as a result of two factors – leadership style (satanic or saint style) and situationalfavorableness (morning, one color and etc).

…Marbaan ahay muftiga saahidnimo mawlacaw gala’e

Marna Mukhawi waashoo xumaha miista baan ahaye

Marbaan ahay nin xaaraan maqdaxa aan marin jidiinkise

Marna tuug mu’diya baan ahoon maal Rasuul bixinne

Marbaan ahay maqaam awliyaad maqaddinkoodiiye

Marna mudanka shaydaanka iyo maal jinbaan ahaye

(….I have my place among the holy saints,

I am one of the foremost of their leaders,

But at times I hold high rank in Satan’s retinue,

And then my lords and masters are the jinns.)

Similarly, Qaasim alludes that personality traits has low explanatory and predictive power and, hence, cannot be of any use in selecting effective leaders:

Miisaanna ima saari karo nin i maleeyaaye

(…It’s no good trying to weigh me up – I can’t be balanced on a pair of scales)

Finally, Qaasim diverges from Fiedler and other contingency theorists when it comes to answering the question – which is easy to change: situation or person’s leadership style? Fiedler suggested that it is easy to engineer the situation because leadership style becomes stable over time. Contrary to Fiedler, Qaasim depicts himself so adaptable. He is able to recognize different circumstance and adjust his style accordingly.

Differentiating one circumstance from another, however, takes a fundamental ability, called ‘Emotional intelligence”^5. If this is the case, then isn’t Qaasim implying the necessity of some permanent, must-have, leadership trait? How then is his thought different from those early trait seekers like Plato?

Neither the answer to that questions nor establishing a comprehensive link between Qaasim’s “Bitter and Sweet” and the vast leadership literature is my aim in this short article. Rather, I set out to link two seemingly unrelated pieces of intellectual work just to expend a generous offer from Qaasim when dealing with him or his work:

…ninkasta halkii kuula mudan ee ay muhato laabtaadu Ee aanad madadaaladeed ugala maarmaynin

Iska soo mar waa kuu bannaan marinkad doontaaye

( …And now, my friends, each man of you – If either of the paths I follow

Takes your fancy and delights your heart, Or even if you cannot bear to lose

The entertainment I provide,

Then come to me along the path –

You’re free to make a choice! )

Indeed, I chose to delight my heart and entertain thyself. You also can make your choice and may associate to ‘Bitter and Sweet’ with rocket science. Enjoy.