Whenever someone senses he is a leader, his point of departure must begin and he must start to think, see and act differently from others.
True leadership is not born out of charisma, certificate, position, status, popularity, prosperity and pedigree. True leadership is born the day someone discovers his gift or talent through dream or vision.
When you notice the gift of music in you and you begin to see yourself singing, when you notice the gift of business in you and you begin to see yourself managing business, when you begin to manage people, it means your leadership in those different areas has begun.
Now, this is where our problem is Africa. We select leaders wrongly. We select leaders base on their charisma, not base on their content. So, we abuse leadership.
If it is their gifts that most of our political leaders had been serving, we wouldn’t have been in this problem by now. A leader who has discovered his gift will be ready to serve it free even without any monetary consideration, motivation of encouragement. He will be passionate about doing what he knows how to do best that he is called to do.
Again, this is where are getting it wrong in Africa. Leadership is born when someone discovers what he loves doing or what he hates experiencing or what he cannot do without. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela were leaders in different nations who discovered their hatred for oppression and they rose up to fight it with all of their passions till they overcome.
Mother Theresa hated seeing the poor condition young children were subjected to in Calcutta, India and she had compassion for them and her leadership was born.
In Africa, we call people to come and be our leaders, not because they discover their gifts or talents that they want to serve to bless the people. That is why we have been thinking that leaders and followers are the same since they came from among the followers. Yes, they came from among the followers, but the day they dream and see themselves differently from other people around them is the day their leadership began and there is no more basis for equating or comparing them again with their environment. At the point of their discoveries, they are larger in vision than the people and the environment.
The day Joseph saw himself dreaming that his sheaf was rising up and those of his brothers were bowing down for his own was the day Joseph leadership began. But, his brothers misinterpreted his dream to be pride, but it was his gift they were angry and envious about.
Listen, opposition will be both to fight your dream the day you started to dream. But, never mind, opposition has not come to stop you, but it has come to announce your dream. Know that opposition is not your problem, but your prove that you are on your way to the up position. Opposition is a prove that you and the vision God has given you to pursue and become a leader is relevant and must be jealously guided.
Now, can you see that it is because our perspective of leadership is wrong in Africa that is making us to see and expect leaders to behave as followers. No, But, from what I have said so far, you must have seen that leaders are different from followers and they must share different roles in the society.
Leaders are problem-solvers, not problem creators. They always seek to find answers to questions, not compounding them. They don’t complain or give excuses. Leaders are pathfinders and trailblazers, they don’t struggle in their areas of gifting because that was what they were born to do. The fish was born to swim, the bird was born to fly, each of us was born with a gift to do something better, with ease, with motivation and can be done free of charge. This is our are of leadership that, when we discover, we will be ready to serve it to people even if we have to pay money to serve it.
King Sunny Ade was ready to serve music, Jay Okocha was ready to serve football, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was ready to serve politics, Aliko Dangote was ready to business. You were born to serve something better and without struggle to make the people around you happy. If you know what you are to serve to people that will impact their lives positively, you will be a leader in that area.
That someone was a General in the army does not confer on him leadership; but, as we can see, they are the ones who have always wanted to lead us and that is why we find ourselves in this hot soup that we are in that we are finding hard to come out of.
So, in clear terms, we are wrong to keep saying that, because leaders came from among the followers, they must behave like the followers. No, they saw something different from the followers when they had their dream and they were ready to serve what thing they saw to better the lives of the people and that was why we called them leaders.
And, unlike what we do in Africa where we look for people with age, leadership has nothing to do with age. Jesus was younger than all His disciples except for one out of twelve, but He led them in a way that they and the entire world have never recovered from His leadership style which He taught His disciples at different occasions in order for them to take over the mantle of leadership from Him.
In one of His leadership lectures, He told His disciples that Kingdom leadership is different from the way the people and government of the world sees and handles it. In the world, leaders behave like bosses and managers by lording it over others and exert authorities over them thereby oppressing them. But, in the Kingdom, leaders don’t lord it over others and exert his authority over them, but he serves them.
Now, permit me to make this useful digression. I have said it severally that democracy is alien to Africa because most Africa nations were operating monarchy as their system of government. Under monarchical system, the king is the leader. The king has a domain and that is why the word kingdom is a a compound word that originated from two English words ‘king’ and ‘domain’ to become ‘king domain’ and, then, ‘kingdom’.
A kingdom is a government and the king is the leader equivalent to the president under monarchical system of government. Africa’s spirit was born into monarchy and I feel that, if Africa returns to monarchy, with some moderation here and there, things might become different and better than what obtains under a democratic culture.
These are just my opinion that is not binding on anyone.
Now let me continue with the subject of leadership under discussion before I digress and the next question I like to ask is: what does a leader have to serve the people? I have answered that it is his discovered gift or talent that he must be ready to serve the people not his certificate, eloquence and some other things that we always consider in Africa as what leadership need to lead.
So, to repeat what I have been saying, the reason why we have leadership problem in Africa is because we call people base on wrong considerations to come and lead us, not because these people we chose, select, appoint and elect as leaders have discovered themselves (self-identity), their purpose (why they are on earth) and what they have (potentials) to assume the position of leadership they use to pursue at all costs ready to live and die for.
Therefore, if we want to solve our leadership problems and, by extension all our problems, we have to change our orientation, perspective and expectation of leadership and followership in order for each of them to know the different roles they are expected to play in the society. But, as long as we think, because leaders came out from among us, they cannot behave, act and perform more than us, we are going to be getting it wrong at all times thereby sustaining ourselves in the midst of a serious problem that ignorance can keep a people who are not willing and ready to know more than they have known.
In addition, if we insist that democracy is the hint thing because it is acceptable to other nations of the earth, especially the Western nations, we have a lot of work on our hands to do. Under democracy, the executive, legislature and judiciary are arms of government where the people we voted for are expected to operate at different capacities as spelt out by the constitution. In countries where there is supremacy of the constitution and where the rule of law are respected, each arm of government will know it’s role and those who fall within the bracket of each of the arm of government always operate by the law.
But, in Africa, there is no supremacy of the law. In a country like Nigeria, the constitution is faulty and those operating in the three arms of governement are behaving the way they like. The reason why they chose to behave the way they like is because they only have what Dr.Myles Munroe called ‘leadership spirit’. Everyone of us have ‘leadership spirit’ be sir every is gifted or talented; but, it is not everyone that has the spirit of leadership.
Let me explain what I mean. I said earlier that discovery of gift or talent is what differentiates a leader from the follower. To move a bit deeper, let me add by saying that ‘talent is not enough’. This is the title of a book by either John Maxwell or Brian Tracy, I can’t remember who among them is the author now.
Going further, everybody of us has talent and is expected to lead in the area of his talent after he has discovered it. But, whether he serves his talent well or not is what will determine his success as a leader.
To develop the spirit of leadership, someone who she discovered his tálent which is the ‘leadership spirit’ must acquire leadership skills to be able to serve his leadership talent or gift. While his gift or talent talks about ‘leadership spirit’ which is natural to everyone of us, the ‘spirit of leadership’ is not a natural gift, it must be acquired.
So, this is another reason for leadership failure in Africa. Some of those who come up as leaders really discover their talents, but they don’t know how to serve their talents because they lack the spirit of leadership to acquire the ‘spirit of leadership’ that will help them serve their talents effectively to bless the people.
Thank you.
