“If we must have leaders, let us seek ethical leaders; those who seek the greatest good of their followers. The followers must on the other hand undertake to suffer the consequences of seeking, together with their leaders, the ultimate good, the greatest good.
…How sad, then, that we are surrounded by such weak leaders; people ready to compromise the long-term good, the ultimate good, for transient and destructive ‘happiness’; and with them so many people in a stampede towards their own destruction.”
George Njenga, The Edge, Business Daily (October 2007)
My friend George Njenga, Dean of Strathmore Business School, wrote these prophetic words just a couple of months ago. He was contributing an excellent article to the first issue of The Edge, the Business Daily’s management journal. I doubt that he imagined those words would come to haunt his country quite so quickly.
Only an ethical leader takes you anywhere worth going, wrote George, and how right he was. “Ethical” in this sense means “transcendent” – one who looks for the higher purpose, who surpasses the ordinary. What is that higher purpose? It is, quite simply, the greater good of the people. A true leader seeks the ultimate happiness for his people, period. That is what he lives for, breathes for, strives for. Anything else fails the test of leadership.
Consider, then, what the leaders of Kenya have just handed their people: a flawed and suspicious election; eruptions of violence, looting and slaughter; the unleashing of sadistic ethnic militias; destruction of hard-earned property and assets; and hundreds of thousands of displaced persons lacking food and shelter, refugees in their own country.
If leaders are meant to seek our good, what good, exactly, have they given us? Their cunning machinations, insincerity and hypocrisy have left the country in flames. It is time we, the followers, learned this lesson once and for all: we have kept the leadership bar too low. We have allowed charlatans and elitists to assume leadership in this land for decades. Those people seek their own ends, not those of their people. The calamitous costs of that lapse are now becoming apparent.
What is even worse is that our leaders suffer none of the consequences of their actions. They are surrounded by armed guards, ride around in protected vehicles and live behind high walls. They do not get hacked to pieces when mobs run amok; they do not feel the loss of basic commodities; they do not see their businesses and properties go up in smoke overnight. Their children do not have to sleep in open fields, nor are they left mentally scarred for life.
George Njenga warned that followers must be ready to suffer the consequences of seeking great leaders. This is something we have yet to learn: even in the just-concluded disastrous election, we rejected a number of new candidates who represented a new order. Yet a new order is exactly what we need, and we must use the awful opportunity that has been handed to us. If all this blood we have spilled is to mean anything, let it represent that period in our history when we collectively came to our senses and learned to understand the true meaning of leadership.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t know about the rest of you but I am feeling very helpless. I have the front row seats to an event where my country has taken on the personality of a suicidal maniac. I don’t want to pray anymore, I want to do something anything to stop this steady decline into madness. Sunny and Co, Any ideas?
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Observer:
The ‘suicidal maniac’ analogy is apt: that is indeed how it feels. The thing called ‘Kenya” appears hell-bent on destroying itself, against all reason. Why is it so desperate, and why did we miss its symptoms?
All I can tell you to do is what I’ve been trying to do since Dec 29th, when I realised we were about to fly off a cliff: breathe reason into anyone you can think of. Don’t let it happen simply because no one did or said anything. Keep talking the language of reason, whether or not anyone’s listening. It doesn’t have to be this way. There will be a better future. Things will seem different once we’re calm.
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Great Article we have here.
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For a long time I felt like the “wall flower” citizen until I joined a peace initative. Funnily enough, I talked to someone in Kibera(journalist) who told me the peace messaging that is being sent out is ineffective there,because the residents feel like its an elitist call to silence their “anguish”. That it fails to give any solution to the problem they are facing.
That sent me reeling from the “comfort zone” I had established. I’ve come to a realization since then, this country is NOT in the reconciliation period. What we need are peacable solutions that offer TRUTH and JUSTICE or else it all goes to the dogs from here on. To the observer, pray for everyone(even those ones).Its the way to feed your soul with the comfort that will keep you grounded. Furthermore, talk to people. Don’t fall into the trap of only telling them your solution and running but seek their opinion and let them have it, it is their right. No more shedding of blood, unless its going to a blood bank :-> I will also talk to members of our peace initiative to release an email address to allow anyone who wants to contribute any solution to do so. Take heart!
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Oh Gosh… liiidaah, liidaah, liidaah… I always hear the same stale bleating. But we need no liidaahs and we are no sheep. What is needed are servants, servants of the people; what is needed, is a spirit of service, not a spirit of liidaahshep. It is the mentality that is wrong, right from the outset. Language betrays this.
Alexander
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I’m re-reading this a few weeks after I first read it. Now, I can only think of Ostriches. Kenyans have proven to be very good at noting danger and the reasons for its presence. But at some point they allow themselves to be led away from the right way of dealing with the danger. When they realise that they have been lied to, exploited and all the rest that happens to them, they stick their heads in sand and hope it will all go away. It never does. At some point it will explode and 1000+ lives are lost. then we go on and on about why its all happening. and then stick our heads in sand again.
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