Writing in his book ‘Presidential Power and the Modern President: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan’, renowned presidency scholar Richard Neustadt states that regardless of prior training, nothing prepares the individual for all the facets of the position of state president. He argues that all presidents enter office ignorant, innocent, arrogant, and that these liabilities can take two, three or even six years to overcome. Some presidents are able to overcome these deficiencies while others complete their terms without having learnt a thing. Neustadt adds that the learning of a president is driven by events. In other words, it is episodic which is why many get into office thinking they know about the challenge ahead only to realize that they overrated their understanding of the job.
While some presidents had a lot to learn in hurry because of their limited knowledge about the workings of government and world affairs, others did and do have the luxury to engage in slow learning especially those who intellect is always an asset. The gist of this proposition is that all presidents ought to learn on the job and their presidency ought to evolve overtime as they gradually become more self-assured and effective in managing crises with greater skill.
However, the ability to learn on the job and do a good job as a president often depends on a variety of factors such as the humility to acknowledge one’s ignorance of certain issues and the willingness to learn in order to overcome a particular ignorance. Former Botswana president Festus Mogae ascended to the highest office after serving as Vice President for six years, almost the equivalence of the amount of time for formal primary schooling.
In spite of the many years as Vice President which inherently sought to prepare him for the ultimate office, his formative years in the presidency were characterized by scandal after scandal to a point where the private media portrayed him as a reluctant president. Nevertheless, Mr Mogae went on to win the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership and he was hailed for providing an outstanding leadership that ensured Botswana continued stability and prosperity in the face of an HIV/AIDS pandemic which threatened the future of Botswana and its people. His is a story about a reluctant, inexperienced and unprepared president who learnt on the job to become a global icon and win a prize that recognizes and celebrates excellence in leadership.
While Mr Mogae spent six years in a job that effectively prepares incumbents for the presidency, his successor had spent ten years in the same job and likewise preparing for the presidency. In spite of two decades as vice President and another two decades in the presidency, Ian Khama failed to learn on the job as shown by his failure to change how he managed crises. He simply followed the well-worn path of resorting to executive authority to force things on people and throwing money at problems. Either Dr Khama did not acknowledge his ignorance and therefore a need to learn on the job or he had no intellectual capacity to learn what he ought to have learnt to do things differently. This perhaps explains why his presidency has been described as a disaster, a highway to hell in spite of ten years of preparation for the job and another ten years of opportunity to grow in office.
The reality is that for those with the intellectual and moral rectitude to learn on the job, embarrassing errors and schoolboy gaffes in the early years in office are used as lessons in how to be a better leader. It is generally opined that people who are unable to learn on the job most likely have a learning disability – a condition that makes it difficult for them to receive and process crucial information and avoid committing same mistakes over an extended period of time. A leader who proudly tells his subjects that we have been fleeced or ripped off by expatriates (re jelwe ke batswakwa) after years presiding over a government that facilitated the fraudulent conducts of criminals has no intellectual capacity to learn from mistakes and is essentially a liability to the nation.
The presidency is not an easy job which is why no individual is ever adequately prepared for it. The incorrigibly arrogant Mr Trump even acknowledged that it is a tough job when he admitted that he ‘thought it would be easier’. It requires the fortitude, intellectual prowess, moral capacity and willingness to learn in order to serve with distinction.
Former US President George W. Bush remarked that ‘there is just something about this job as president… You think one thing going in and then the pressures of the job or the realities of the world are different than you thought’. In the Botswana context, former President Dr Khama entered the scene with a highfalutin roadmap of 4Ds that actually became a dumb squib shortly after he was sworn in by the Chief Justice.
The painful reality is that Dr Khama who was actually borrowed from the barracks knew less about the workings of government and world affairs than all his predecessors but flatly refused to acknowledge it and get necessary assistance. In any case he has publicly stated that he rarely read ÔÇô and this is what a learning disability entails in part.
When former US President John F Kennedy blundered by invading Cuba at the Bay of Pigs he remarked that ‘it is a hell of a way to learn things’. This was an acknowledgement that he needed to learn things but unfortunately his learning on this aspect was a hell of a way. Other former presidents also stumbled through but because of their acknowledging their ignorance on certain issues and the need and willingness to learn, they did actually learn things and did things differently thereafter.
Even the ‘abysmally ignorant’ Mr Trump who earlier in his presidency said that he did not need to read much because he has a lot of common sense gradually learnt and continue to learn on the job such that he had reconfigured most of his election promise that were based on frightening ignorance and wild imagination. The editorial of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Mr Trump initial position on a number of issues actually made him ‘the stooge, the mark for every crazy blogger, political quack, racial theorist, foreign leader or nutcase. But he is learning quickly and is evolving’.
Having had only four years to prepare for the presidency unlike others who preceded him and had more time to prepare, President Masisi’s experience for the job is thin by modern standards. He thus has a lot to learn in a hurry, about running a government; about the condescending conducts of greedy elements in his party who are tripping over each other for his attention; about managing the hostile and inquisitive private media as well as the need to allow himself to be managed by others, including stiff-necked recalcitrant scribes.
Assuredly, his recent bold and unexpected decisions to recall some permanent or lifetime diplomats point to a man capable of learning hurriedly in order that he does not become a proud puppet of his predecessor who had adopted a smash and grab approach to the presidency. Indeed the making of a great president is shaped by domestic and global events that occur without a warning and significantly, the wherewithal to engage in lifelong learning in order to evolve and grow in office.
Learning how to do the job; learning how to test the machinery of power and protocol; learning to be familiar with the ways of doing things in Botswana; and learning to understand that the office of the president is not a party office will make President Masisi a far better leader than his predecessor who veered off road mainly because he thought he knew better. Barack Obama’s advice to Mr Trump was that ‘you can’t manage it [Office of the President] the way you manage a family business’ and I wish and pray that President Masisi takes this advice seriously.
