African Leadership: The Youth at a Crossroad

Abstract

Leadership, mentoring and career development pose problem to any organization or institution. This is because most leaders, career developers and mentors, lack among other things managerial and communication skills. When leaders lack these skills they give poor and mediocre leadership; they create confusion among those to be led, mentored and to be developed. While some people are naturally leaders and work well with others without making excessive demands on them, there others who need proper training in leadership whether in a religious or secular community. In most cases leadership is acquired through a skillful training and ones’ experience. For this acquisition to occur one must be in a position to understand personal development in addition to human behavior. Hence, there is a need to encourage research in the field of human behaviour and development. For successful leadership and mentorship to happen, two things are important among them the basic knowledge of group behavior, human relations and managerial skills and, secondly, training in applying these skills. Leadership comes with one’s personality, attitude and perception. While leadership and mentorship are acquired and at times appear as natural realities, they are also improved through one’s dynamic involvement with the people to be led and mentored. An excellent leader responds to peoples’ needs and feelings with the hope of uplifting their lives by all means. A leader communicates clearly, precisely and with a lot of zeal about his or her work. The paper aims at evaluating the reality of leadership, mentoring and career development of the people particularly the youth of Africa. It further makes some recommendations on what ought to be done in order to improve on the life of those to be led and monitored among them human behaviour and development.

Key Words: Leadership, Mentoring, Human behaviour and Career Development.