AN analyst writing on human resource management once described leadership as one’s ability to get others to willingly follow. He then outlined what he saw as the top ten leadership qualities.

Of course, it is highly unlikely that he was the first person to come up with such an analysis, but what he said all the same provided useful guidance.

In the analyst’s view, among the attributes were having a vision, articulating it, and implementing it; having integrity, and thus the trust of one’s followers; and having dedication, meaning spending the time or energy necessary to accomplish tasks at hand.

The others were having magnanimity, meaning being humble enough to give credit where credit was due and to take personal responsibility for failures; and being open, that is being able to listen to new ideas.

Yet others were creativity, or the ability to think differently, to get outside the box that constrains solutions; and humility, or the recognition that leaders are no better or worse than other members of the team.

Also mentioned were fairness, or dealing with other people consistently and justly; assertiveness, or the ability to clearly state what one expected; and a sense of humour, with which to relieve tension and boredom, defuse hostility, and energise followers.

By some coincidence, a conference jointly organised by the Commonwealth Association of Public Administrators and Managers, the government and the Tanzania Public Service College was by then in progress in Arusha city.

Delegates included HR experts and a range of executives from Commonwealth member-countries as diverse as Tanzania, Barbados, Botswana, Canada, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and the UK.

The theme of the conference tied in splendidly with the views of HR management and administration as well as various other experts or professionals who concurred that people were the most valuable asset to an organisation.

This was the gist of the message then Australian Public Service Commissioner Lynelle Jann Briggs had for the conference.

Briggs told the conference, whose theme was ‘Governance Excellence: Managing Human Potential’, that attracting, retaining and developing the right people with the right skills was critical for success.

She said that, in the private sector, bottom line performance was the ultimate measure of whether that delicate equation was effectively balanced.

“In public administration… it is the quality and potential of our most valuable asset, our workforce, which will ensure that governments are served well, with integrity and honesty, and communities are supported with robust and reliable services and advice,” she noted.

The conference ran as a series of mini-lectures on four major challenges that governments and corporate entities were said to commonly face as they sought to build their workforces.

These were said to revolve around strategic planning, attraction and recruitment, developing employees, and managing performance – the last one regarded as the most daunting.

The chief guest opened the conference by describing well-managed and motivated human resources as essential for promoting good governance as well as formulating and implementing sound economic policies.

Tanzania’s Public Service has undergone intensive changes over the years, mainly meant to make it more effective and efficient.

It has not been easy devising and instituting the changes, not to mention ensuring effective and sustainable oversight at the implementation stage.

Accordingly, the nation has every right to expect noticeable improvement in the quality of the services public servants worth the name ought to offer.

Understandably, that ought to be a major part of the rationale for holding of tailor-made conferences like the Arusha one – and we have witnessed numerous ones.

We justifiably need to see enough concrete evidence that this is indeed what we are witnessing – and ensure that no defaulting goes unpunished.