LOCAL LEADERS from the City of Kigali have been asked to embrace a bottom up approach of leadership as a way of ensuring effective delivery of services. The call was made by the Local Government Minister, James Musoni, on Saturday, while addressing local leaders from the City of Kigali at the town hall. A bottom-up approach in leadership is one of the best management approaches in modern leadership. It increases participation and involvement of the people in decision making and implementation of policies that affect them. It also increases efficiency and helps in identifying the real issues affecting people. People feel a sense of ownership when decisions taken by the leaders at the top follow this approach. This approach also increases accountability and inclusiveness for citizens in deciding and identifying their needs and priorities. It is through this style of management that the culture which was inculcated for decades by pre-genocide regimes in this country will be totally uprooted because, it not only stunted development, but also played a role in the Genocide, where the disconnect between the leaders on top and the masses at the grassroots made it easy for the leaders to turn one section of the population against another, eventually leading to a Genocide. Another advantage of this style of leadership is that when people at the grassroots are involved in a programme from inception, it will most likely succeed because of the sense of ownership. All district authorities should adopt this approach to ensure better services in the communities.
