Fixed Mindset, Leadership, and Ineffective Institutions: Barriers to Nigeria's Development Agenda?

Abstract

 This article focuses on the forces that prevent nations from not developing politically, socially and economically or why some of them have failed to achieve their purpose. It draws profusely from two inspiring seminal books: Why Nations Fail [1] and Leading from the Emerging Future [2] to explore barriers to Nigeria‟s development agenda. The books concentrate on practical approaches that empower political leaders to shift their mindsets to enable them transform their extant extractive political and economic institutions that hinder national development. Unlike previous studies on leadership and development in Nigeria, which have observed that the system has been renderedunproductive by poor leadership, this article argues that the problem with Nigeria is that the political leaders have failed to shift their engrained mindsets from „ego-system awareness to eco-system reality‟ to enable them to build and maintain effective institutions and infrastructure that drive the economy and develop the nations. It also argues that discussion on the leaders‟ mindset and national development deserves a different approach to transform the nation‟s ossified institutions into innovative and creative ones. This will encourage the leaders to collectively shift their mental models to design and implement growth policies that will fit into the 21st century economy and empower them to lead from the emerging future.

 

Keywords: Barriers, Development, Eco-System Reality, Ego-System Awareness, Emerging Future, Fixed Mindset, Leadership, Nigeria, Shifting Mental Models.