LEADERSHIP SERIES: SECOND DISCOVERY

The rains that came in IFE early this morning reminded me of one thing: GOD STILL CARES FOR US...

Now, let's get back to our series. My second discovery about leadership is not as simple as the first but it's equally (if not more) profound and far-reaching. Have you ever had any cause to visit a friend of yours who suddenly became an important office-holder? You probably will then understand better what it means to say that a leader should not live in a shell.

One of the greatest problems we have in AFRICA is the WITHDRAWAL SYNDROME among our leaders. Imagine a close friend of yours becoming a Local Government Chairman; and suddenly because of his NEW POSITION does not want to associate with you anymore. I think when we talk about Africa's leadership problem, we must always remind ourselves and those who lead us, that LEADERSHIP IS NOT ABOUT BEING IN FRONT BUT BEING INVOLVED.

At times, it's easy to understand why our leaders tend to burn the bridges behind them and holler across the gully at their followers. It's all about INsecurity. A celar conscience, they say, fears no accussation. No be so??

You'll know a TRUE leader when you see someone who wants to do things WITH his people and not just FOR them; who wants to reason WITH and not FOR them; and who thinks THEIR FEARS ARE REASONABLE. I'll never vote for someone who considers my anxieties invalid. I mean, if the people think some things are important why should a leader think otherwise (except, of course, he has superior information)? A bad leader is simply someone who is too fond of saying "NO PROBLEM" when actually there is!

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.

- John Kenneth Galbraith (Born 1908)

U.S. Economist

in The Age of Uncertainty, ch.12 (1977),

on his experience of the Nuremburg trials of Nazi war criminals