Botswana has capable, competent leaders in Sport

Thuso Palai | Thursday July 16, 2015 18:07

While some sporting codes continue to be muddled in all that is bad, there are those sporting codes that are doing very well and are instead in the news for all the right reasons as opposed to the wrong reasons. While some codes are forever fire fighting, others are in paradise and just laid back while the public and positive results speak for them. This is a sign of good leadership.

Good leaders are those who are never in the news for the wrong reasons. Good leaders are those who are not always fire fighting. Good leaders only show their face when they celebrate all that is positive and not making rebuttals or exchanging words with stakeholders, whoever they could be.

Good leaders are those that we tend to forget about ad they are always in the background ensuring that things are done and done right.

Good leaders lead by example and do what they would want others to do. Surely a leader that is constantly in war with everyone around them, will eventually be found out and caught out. And it is their sporting codes that will suffer, as they will spend more time fire fighting and focussing on the wrong things rather than on what they should be doing: which is developing sport and ensuring that their codes deliver results.

In Botswana, we always bemoan poor leadership within the sporting codes, but we do have those shining examples that we can all be proud off. Not that they are the best and don’t have any flaws, but they are in most cases incognito and go about their business quietly without much attention. And their sporting codes deliver.

Although not at the helm of any particular code, one Tuelo Serufho is one such leader who has shown his leadership acumen and delivers. The BNOC CEO has shown over some time that he can be trusted to deliver on what he is tasked with, without much undue negative publicity along the way.

Other codes that are doing quite well are Karate, Netball, Volleyball and Boxing amongst a few others. And if one thinks hard, they have leaders who are seldom fire fighting in the media. These are sport codes that are currently doing well and bringing in medals for the country. If only all codes had such.

Although not perfect to the T, their leaders in Moses Bantsi, Daniel Molaodi and Tebogo Lebotse-Sebego have exhibited good leadership traits played a crucial role in their success, mainly because of their leadership acumen and way of doing things.

Sport in nature is highly charged and in most cases political; and that is where good leadership is mostly needed.  Despite all the gloom and doom engulfing some sport codes, there are those codes that are led well and actually performing very well. That’s the type of leadership that we yearn for and wish was standard across all codes. For all those that are doing well, we need to loudly commend them and we can only wish others do likewise.

I would not want to name and shame this time around, but some sport leaders need to check themselves and up their game.  If only they could emulate the ones mentioned above, we could be far and better off across most sport codes. And yes; despite some bad apples in the bag, we do have some capable, competent leaders who are doing wonders for sport in Botswana. We need more of them.