I’m motivated to write this piece about leadership by the current discourse in respect to the new administration under the leadership of President Hage Geingob. His leadership style seems to encapsulate new dimensions of foresightedness, openness, charisma, candidness and selflessness. Although my article will not directly join the fray, it will attempt to concoct a complimentary version of leadership to that being attempted by the new administration.
I want to start by borrowing a quote from Nelson Henderson, who summarised the values and virtues of good leadership in this metaphorical statement: The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
This statement is subject to a host of interpretations that I will try to contextualise. In the first place, it implies selflessness and sacrificing one’s own status for the greater wellbeing of others. It also implies that leadership is action, not position, and one’s background should not dictate identity.
Today, some of our good leaders do what they say they will do. They set goals and essentially that helps them to earn credibility in the eyes of the public. When it comes to deciding whether a leader is believable, people first listen to his words and then watch his actions before passing judgment. A judgment of credibility is handed down when the two are consonant.
This is precisely how the public, particularly the media and scholars, have evaluated the meritocracy of our new president over the first 100 days, something new, yet interesting to our Namibian politics. Secondly, how you lead your life is how people judge whether they want to put their lives in your hands. Being forward-looking is what differentiates good leadership from mediocrity. While credibility is the foundation of leadership, the capacity to paint an uplifting and ennobling picture of the future is that special something that truly sets leaders apart.
Waiting for permission to begin is not a characteristic of leaders. Acting with a sense of urgency is. President Hage Geingob opened up his lifestyle to public scrutiny when he declared his wealth in order to show that he does not need to increase his own perks to enjoy his life. That, in my view, is an element of openness and foresightedness that has won him credibility among the Namibian populace.
Leadership is about the fact that every decision and every action we take does not just influence our world, they influence the world that our children and grandchildren will inherit. That is the legacy that you leave behind. Legacies are not the result of wishful thinking. They are the result of determined actions.
What legacy will the new president leave behind after he has served the nation for ten years? It is still early to predict, knowing that politics is sometimes referred to as poli-tricks.
Changes in the political environment may cause the president to change course. For example, if SADC gets engulfed in wars, such as the ones in the Arab world, the president may be forced to shift his focus from poverty eradication, to issues of national security.
Therefore, I will confine the parameter of my analysis to the legacy that we can inherit from his personal lifestyle, his organic intellectualism and passion that enable him to paint an uplifting and ennobling picture of the future.
Legacy is normally derived from the daily life that we lead. We leave our legacy daily. The people you see, the decisions you make, the actions you take – they tell your story. It’s the sum of everything you do that matters, not one large bequest at the end of your tenure.
You just never know whose life you might touch. You just never know what change you might initiate and what impact you might have. You just never know when that critical moment might come. What you do know is that you can make a difference.
Leaders are judged by how they spend their time, how they react to critical incidents, the stories they tell, the questions they ask, the language and symbols they choose and the measures they use. How do we judge our leaders in parliament in terms of these things?
It is sometimes reported in the media that parliament is not able to form a quorum when it comes to taking critical decisions. This is because the time that they are expected to spend in parliament is spent on private activities.
Without their actions being audited, the legacy they leave may not be positive.Our leaders need to become conscious of the messages they are sending with their actions. Nothing fuels the fires of cynicism more than the lack of consciousness. The leaders will need to be constantly vigilant about aligning what they preach with their actions. Leaders must first clarify what they stand for and believe in, and then take actions that are consistent with these beliefs.
* Petrus Kadhikwa Leonard is a Human Resource Officer and MBA-HR student at the International University of Management. The views expressed here are his own.