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Leadership Personality and Social Dis-Integration in Somalia

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Leadership Personality and Social Dis-Integration in Somalia Asian Research Journal of Arts & Social Sciences 8(3): 1-9, 2019; Article no.ARJASS.47139 ISSN: 2456-4761 Leadership Personality and Social Dis-integration in Somalia Abdisamad Hassan1*, Zawiyah Mohd Zain2 and Mohd Na’iem Ajis2 1School of Government, University Utara Malaysia, Malaysia. 2School of Government, College of Law, Government and International Studies, University Utara Malaysia, Malaysia. Authors’ contributions This work was carried out in collaboration between all authors. All authors designed the study, performed the analysis, wrote the protocol, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Article Information DOI:10.9734/ARJASS/2019/v8i330101 Editor(s): (1) Dr. Raffaela Giovagnoli, Pontifical Lateran University, Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano 4, Rome, Italy. Reviewers: (1) Md. Amir Hossain, IBAIS University, Bangladesh. (2) Zaiton Binti Osman, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia. Complete Peer review History: http://www.sdiarticle3.com/review-history/47139 Received 28 October 2018 Accepted 30 January 2019 Original Research Article Published 28 February 2019 ABSTRACT The study seeks to explore the impact of leadership personalities of previous Somali political leaders on social integration. As Somalia now transit into post conflict reconstruction, there is the need to explore how previous flaws in leadership personalities resulted into social disintegration of the Somali society. To achieve this objective, qualitative interviews were held with 13 respondents across Somali elite in Mogadishu. Using the Big Five personality framework, the results revealed that previous Somali leadership personalities were deeply flawed due to colonial legacy and influence of clannism. In addition, fear of losing and retaining power at all cost instituted clannism as a means on obtaining and retaining political power, thereby compromising unity and social integration. The result also depicted that a significant number of Somali leaders were generally low in conscientiousness as a necessary leadership quality within the Big Five framework. The study maintains that the ongoing post-conflict reconstruction is unlikely to succeed unless leadership personality adapts properly to the prevailing situation of social integration. Moreover, the study recommends that leadership in Somalia should prioritize the restoration of social trust so that Somalia’s reconstruction process can succeed. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding author: Email: [email protected]; Hassan et al.; ARJASS, 8(3): 1-9, 2019; Article no.ARJASS.47139 Keywords: Previous leadership personality; clan manipulation; social dis-integration; post-conflict reconstruction; Somalia. 1. INTRODUCTION and nation Building [11]. Several other studies have considered Somalia as post- conflict The partitioning of Africa into colonies placed the country from various dimensions [12,13,14,15]. northern part of Somalia under British rule while Therefore, understanding leadership the southern part became an Italian colony. personalities and practices that led the Coincidentally in 1960, Somalia became an disintegration and destruction of Somalia can independent country with different colonial help present and future leaders in Somalia to legacies. Such diversity implied that, the Somali avoid making similar mistakes and this aids the post-colonial leaders must as a necessity unite ongoing post-conflict reconstruction process in and integrate the two parts under a unified Somalia. system of governance. However, the impact of the divide and rule tactics implored by the 2. THE CONCEPT OF LEADERSHIP colonial powers, left behind a society that is PERSONALITY somewhat divided. Consequently, the social groupings and leadership personalities that Studies of leadership has extensively generated emerged after independence were deeply based many discussions aimed at developing an on clan identity, a phenomenon that was later analysis of criterion on what makes great exploited as means of political manipulation by leaders. Most findings conclude that the subsequent post-colonial leaders [1, p. 64]. personality of a leader has a key role in Furthermore, rather than strive towards unity and determining performance. In his leadership integration, the impact of colonial legacy and experience study, Professor Richard Daft defines clannism tended to shape the leadership leadership personality as “the set of unseen personality of Somali leaders. Thus, a significant characteristics and processes that underlie a part of post-colonial leadership in Somalia was relatively stable pattern of behavior in response characterized by failure to unite towards creating to ideas, objects, or people in the environment” a social system that integrates the diverse parts [16, p.119]. However, understanding leadership of the Somali society. Such failure is evidently personality requires more than defining the term. rooted in flawed personalities that were products Most of previous researchers in the field of of colonial legacies and clannism. Therefore, a leadership have applied perspectives from the context of war mongering created by colonial five-factor model to measure personality traits of legacy and clannism can be seen as responsible leader’s in relation to performance. The Big Five for the collapse of the Somali social fabric. As framework refers to a hierarchical model of posited by a large body of literature, the failure personality traits depicting five broad factors, and collapse of the Somali state rest on two key representing personality at a comprehensive factors: A history of bad leadership and a culture level of abstraction. The framework is conceived characterized by clannism [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. across two bipolar factors of Extraversion and Interestingly, on one hand, recent studies have Introversion with each summarizing several more indicated the transition of Somalia into a post specific sides of personality. These includes conflict stage, which implies the need for Somalia traits like sociability, which, in turn, subsume a to go through the post conflict reconstruction large number of even more specific traits stages. On the other hand, studies on leader’s manifesting in features like , talkative, outgoing personality have documented the importance of etc. The Big-Five framework suggests that most leader’s figure in the ability to havepositive effect individual differences in human personality can on social integration and nation building during be classified into five broad, empirically derived post-conflict reconstruction [10]. Thus, if social domains. Thus, the Big Five model can be used integration is to be successfully attained in to analyze personality and to assemble actions Somalia, there is the need for a study on the related to specific traits like leadership contributing factors that led the disintegration of responsibility among others. To be more explicit, the society in Somalia. Importantly, the study the Big Five traits are: Openness, focused on previous leadership personalities, Conscientiousness, Extraversion (or divisive policies and why the civil war persisted. Introversion), Agreeableness, and Emotional The article is relevant due to the fact that Stability (or Neuroticism), often represented by Somalia is recovering from the effects of the war the acronym OCEAN. As noted by [17, p.121]. and is experiencing a period of relative stability 2 Hassan et al.; ARJASS, 8(3): 1-9, 2019; Article no.ARJASS.47139 “Conscientiousness describes socially 3. METHODOLOGY prescribed impulse control that facilitates task-and goal-directed behavior, such as This study adopted qualitative method to explore thinking before acting, delaying gratification, the role of leadership personalities in the following norms and rules, and planning, disintegration of the society in Somalia. The role organizing, and prioritizing tasks. [Emotional of the researcher was that of an interviewer and Stability describes even-temperedness and] analyser; in other words, the researcher collected contrasts...with negative emotionality, such the data through in-depth face to face interviews as feeling anxious, nervous, sad, and and took his time to analyses the phenomenon. tense...Openness to Experience (versus Therefore, the study utilized face-to-face closed-mindedness) describes the breadth, interview to ensure that questions in the interview depth, originality, and complexity of an guides were meaningful and easily understood individual’s mental and experiential life”. by the respondents. The interviews were conducted between December 2017 and With regards to unity and social integration, the February 2018. And most respondents were Big five framework can explain personality of located in the capital city of Somalia Mogadishu leaders on one hand, based on traits of the respondent in the study comprise former and extraversion such as sociability, activity, current Cabinet Ministers from different political assertiveness, and positive emotionality tend to groups, Academics, former and current be relevant to leadership personality’s ability to Government Advisors, Clan Elders, Prominent lead by example and influence followers towards Business Leaders and MP’s. For the purpose of positive results. Further, leaders that are this study, knowledgeable respondents were Conscientious tend to be more socially oriented interviewed to explore the information needed in styles that facilitates task-and
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