The Sunday Mail
By Major Lovemore Rambiyawo (Rtd)
November 2017 will forever be etched indelibly in the minds of Zimbabweans as the month in which Zimbabwe’s political trajectory, which had been hurtling inexorably towards political, economic and social collapse, was intercepted in mid-air by the irresistible force of public will and redirected firmly on the path to political, economic, and social sanity and rapprochement with the international community.
The precipitous events that led to the resignation of Zimbabwe’s erstwhile President, Comrade Robert Mugabe, who had held fitful sway over the country’s affairs for 37 years, were a veritable model of collective, collaborative, inclusive and peer action. Never in the history of civil-military relations has the military been able to leverage the potential of multilateral stakeholders so swiftly, effectively and totally to achieve direction, alignment and commitment in the goal of attaining a new democratic dispensation in the space of 10 days.
The Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) have amply brought to the fore the unparalleled impact of synchronisation of collaborative efforts in the collective and excellence in seamless, transformative leadership. It has also demonstrated excellence in bridging the gap between theory and practice. The excellence in synchronisation of collaborative efforts that characterised the ground breaking operation by the military Zimbabwe emulates, with military precision, the v-formation adopted by geese when they migrate to warmer climates to escape the bitterly cold Canadian winters. As soon as a flock of geese take flight from Canadian waters they quickly form a V-shape flying pattern, with one rotating goose in the centre lead and all the other geese trailing behind in two close lines. By flying together in a V-formation, the whole flock can fly about 70 percent farther with the same amount of energy than if each goose flew alone. Geese have discovered that they can reach their destination more quickly and with less energy expended when they fly together in formation.
Acutely aware that when people work together harmoniously on teams, sharing common values and a common destination, they all arrive at the destination quicker and easier, because they are lifted up by the energy and enthusiasm of one another, the ZDF used this principle with singular success. It became abundantly clear that Zimbabwe’s liberation war veterans, the ruling ZANU-PF party, the ruling party Central Committee, all opposition political parties, civil society organisations, churches, the generality of Zimbabweans, regional and international bodies, shared a common sense of community, common goals and democratic aspirations towards Zimbabwe and worked collaboratively, collectively and inclusively towards the achievement of this goal, which was achieved in record time.
Second, when, for any reason, a goose drops out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone, and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front. Initially, the African Union, Zambia and South Africa were apprehensive about the constitutionality of the action, and mooted an intervention to defuse the process. The groundswell of collective and collaborative action, however, proved to be irresistible and all players realigned and quickly embraced the process. Third, rotation of leadership was the hallmark of the road to transition to a democratic dispensation in Zimbabwe, just as it happens in the geese V-formation. When the lead goose gets tired, it drops out of the front position and moves to the rear of the formation, where the resistance is lightest, and another goose moves to the leadership position. In the Zimbabwean scenario, all stakeholders had distinctive task-specific competences which enabled them to lead the process at specific times.
The ZDF led in the creation of an enabling environment for the transition to take place; the war veterans, originally renowned for their allegiance to the erstwhile President, led in legitimating and generating mass protests against the former President; Civil society organisations in reaching out effectively to their constituencies, ZANU-PF provincial structures revoking their allegiance to the former President, the powerful ZANU-PF Central Committee in recalling the President as First Secretary and President of ZANU- PF and opposition political parties in reaching out to their constituencies. The coup de grace was executed as thousands of Zimbabweans regardless of race, colour or creed, in a stupendous display of disenchantment with the status quo, clogged the streets in remarkably peaceful protests. Facing the prospect of an ignominious exit through impeachment by an increasingly frustrated Parliament, the former President capitulated to the demands of the public, ushering in a new era of hope and rapprochement with the international community in record time.
Just as migrating geese honk at each other to encourage those in front to keep up the momentum, communication was of pivotal importance in the Zimbabwe transition scenario. If communication matters instrumentally for birds, what about for human beings, in these days on the information age characterised by the rapid growth of social media; shift towards using social media on mobile devices; emergence of new accessibility options; increasing reliance on social media to communicate and achieve everyday tasks, and; international shifts towards seeing social media as a democratic tool with strong potential for social inclusion. All the events leading to the resignation of the former president took place under the sensational glare of international media, giving the whole world a clear line of sight between the collaborative nature and the collectiveness, and inclusiveness of the processes and the birth of a new democratic dispensation in Zimbabwe. The famous march to the State House was streamed live on various channels, and evoked a groundswell of solidarity through social media from Zimbabweans in the Diaspora and well-wishers across the globe. The empathy was phenomenal.
But it is in transformational leadership that the ZDF have scaled the heights of excellence. While the military is known for its rigid style of hierarchical command leadership, the ZDF demonstrated presence of mind and versatility by recognising that in today’s settings where the contexts calling for leadership have become increasingly peer-like and collaborative, the traditional ontology of leadership involving followers, leaders and shared goals has become redundant. Whereas with the traditional tripod ontology it is the presence of leaders and followers interacting around their shared goals that marks the occurrence of leadership, with the ontology espoused by the ZDF, it is the presence of direction, alignment and commitment (DAC) that marks the occurrence of leadership. The ZDF clearly realised that there is an overwhelming sense of direction, alignment, and commitment towards common goals inherent in all individuals, institutions, political parties, CSOs, society and the nation at large but this DAC leadership needs to be coaxed into consciousness.
Once the DAC nascent in all political stakeholders had been coaxed into consciousness, the transition to a new democratic dispensation became a foregone conclusion. To cap it off, allied to excellence in synchronisation of collaboration efforts and excellence in transformative leadership which will go down in history as best practices in political turnaround strategies, bridging the gap between theory and practice was also the hallmark of this transformative transition which was again executed with seamless precision. Considering the extraordinarily short time that this transformation was effected, this again is a best practice par excellence.
While the military has been vilified in certain sections of the media for their inclusion in the Cabinet as militarisation of the Cabinet, when the democratic impact November events are considered, inclusion of the military in the Cabinet is probably the best thing to happen to Zimbabwe.
The confluence of strategy and tactics executed at the highest level of human endeavour, excellence and experience in military and peacekeeping interventions, civil-military relations, statecraft, synchronisation of collaborative efforts in the collective, excellence in stoking transformative leadership, demonstrated diplomacy acumen and ability to transform theory into practice, and academic scholarship, allows the military to work seamlessly, inclusively and comprehensively across all governance areas. After decades of false starts, missed opportunities and stalled democratic processes, the military has proved beyond any shadow of doubt that, where drastic turnaround is needed to ensure inclusive democratic outcomes, it is the sharpest knife in the kitchen.
Lovemore Rambiyawo is a retired Major in the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and former Editor of the Zimbabwe National Army Magazine and Associate Editor of the Zimbabwe Staff College Magazine, The Cutting Edge. He is Programme Manager for the National Association of Societies for the Care of the Handicapped (NASCOH), umbrella body for disability organisations in Zimbabwe. He can be contacted on [email protected].
