By Burnett Munthali

Proverbs 13:4 – “The soul of the lazy man desires, and has nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.” The lazy man desires what hard working people want: house, food, vacations, money for college and retirement. But the lazy man’s desires remain unsatisfied, while the diligent gain wealth.

What does Jesus say about the lazy? He loves the person, but He strongly dislikes the lazy attitudes that keep them from reaching their maximum potential. In Matthew 25:30, Jesus continues by calling this non-productive servant “the unprofitable servant.” The word “unprofitable” is from the Greek word achreios, which literally means useless.

The main challenge

When people reach a stage of stoning a presidential motorcade, it is the biggest sign that they are not scared of that particular anymore: it means they are very disappointed, furious, and nobody can stop them now. They have completely lost any respect of that leader.

In some of my every day conversations, I once predicted that the manner in which President Reverend Lazarus Chakwera is running the affairs of this country, one day the people of Malawi will throw a dirty shoe at him, and this has come to pass. Instead of a dirty shoe, some people threw stones at the President. Very bad indeed ! This is as a result of leadership failure.

Main Causes of anger and disappointment

Firstly, factors leading to President Chakwera’s leadership failure include poor communication skills and too much pressure on the President and his teams. These are factors that the President can control. Simply delivering on five things, Chakwera’s Hi-5 might protect the image of the President from complete failure, but are not fail-safe methods.

Unfortunately, the President has poor communication skills. Everyone knows that he speaks excellent Americano English but he is a poor communicator, he doesn’t explain why this nation is not prospering together, why corruption is on the rise in this country more than ever before, why one million jobs cannot be created, which he promised, neither can be explain why civil servants’ salaries cannot be revised to a competitive level. Salaries for government employees must be reviewed and updated or package adjustment based on various factors such as current cost of living, industry standards, motivation, competitiveness and employee performance. It was typically expected to have been done after winning the controversial 2020 fresh presidential election or during the following year, and must have been initiated by the Tonse Alliance Government. Unfortunately, that chance is lost and I do not see it coming again as the 2025 election is just around the corner.

Secondly, there’s failure of leadership because Chakwera has problems instructing his cabinet Ministers and coordinating their efforts. This is causing project delays, decreased employee morale, miscommunication and poor quality of governance.

Thirdly, the President is failing because he is not able to take responsibility for his government’s failures, shortcomings, or wrong strategies. Instead, Chakwera and his Tonse Alliance are busy making excuses or pointing fingers at the previous government. Quite often they play the blame game instead of working on finding a solution.

Fourthly, Chakwera’s failure in leadership is caused by many factors like poor communication skills, Lack of confidence, Inability to communicate well, Lack of understanding of his own goals, Not taking responsibility, and poor communication with his cabinet.

Fifthly, President Reverend Lazarus Chakwera’s Leadership failure is being caused by many factors including his lack of experience, poor communication skills, and selected justice and rule of law with with his Vice President. The President needs to put his best foot forward at all times so he does not risk losing the respect of those around him or undermining his authority as a leader. No wonder how motorcade has started getting rude obstruction, jeering and stones.

Finally, after making a couple of fake campaign promises and speeches, Malawians have started losing trust and respect that they can be taken to the promised land of Canaan or prosperity easily. Chakwera doesn’t pay much attention to details and overlooks potential issues with their decisions. It looks like the journey of taking Malawi to Canaan was just a fictional story. This is another reason why our leader is failing big time.