The Leaders Kenya Needs

And so it’s left to the world’s greatest leader to show us an alternative to mheshimiwa-ship... Imagine the setting… He has just been welcomed to the capital city by massive crowds singing his praises. His followers are delirious…

Finally, the world has recognized their candidate’s brilliance!

Finally, they are on the threshold of forming the next government!

The lobbying is intense; over dinner that evening, there is a heated discussion among the inner circle about who will be the candidate’s running mate. The candidate refuses to take sides however. He reminds them that unlike with the surrounding political establishment, true greatness is not about dominating others and amassing titles, wealth & power. And then he does the unthinkable… He wraps a towel around his waist and washes all their feet!

With this one act, Jesus of Nazareth turned the prevailing concepts of leadership upside down. And set the foundation for all great leaders since.

Why are 2400 of our fellow citizens clamoring to be MP’s? The pressure to be a mheshimiwa is great, especially when it’s accompanied by such a nice pay package

• The mheshimiwa leads by control; the mtumishi by inspiration
• The mheshimiwa uses his followers; the mtumishi gives himself up for them
• The mheshimiwa depends on her position; the mtumishi on her goodwill
• The mheshimiwa does whatever necessary to stay in power; the mtumishi doesn’t care who gets the credit as long as the job gets done
• The mheshimiwa inspires awe & fear; the mtumishi a sense of empowerment & unity
• The mheshimiwa jockeys for position; the mtumishi gives up her preferences, rights and freedoms for others
• People follow the mheshimiwa because they have to; people follow the mtumishi because they want to

Why lie, it’s easier to be a mheshimiwa! We are part of a selfish age, where it’s unthinkable that anyone aspiring to leadership would not be driven by selfish interest. And yet in the midst of all this, God is searching for men and women who will respond to the call of utumishi: Who will offer this utumishi in our homes, in our estate committees, in our churches, in our schools, in our businesses, in the media, in politics…

Our country doesn’t need more ‘waheshimiwa’. What Kenya desperately needs, is watumishi.

NB:

‘Mheshimiwa’ = a title of respect most often given to members of parliament that means ‘honorable’

‘Mtumishi’ - servant

Mheshimiwa-ship

What is leadership? On this continent when we meet a leader, chances are that we’ll see someone bossy (most likely male), who uses his authority to bully others and get his own way; who is ruthless, cunning and self-centered; who is out to benefit himself, his family, his cronies and his tribe (in that order). He is someone important, a mheshimiwa, who grants favors to those around him in return for their loyalty. He drives a big car and acquires much wealth & property because of his position. People around him basically exist to serve him.

The interesting thing is that it’s not only our political leaders who are this way. At all levels of our society, from the top to the bottom, people with positions of responsibility or authority use them to intimidate others and to enrich themselves. Like the proverbial chicken & the egg, it's hard to know which came first: Did selfish leaders create a selfish society or did a selfish society create selfish leaders?

Scarcity Mentality

This last Sunday at Mavuno, Pst. Simon preached a great message about the scarcity mentality as part of his series ‘Cleaning Out Kenya’s Closets’. It reminded me of a sad story recently narrated to me by a Congolese friend…

Three people, a European, an American, and an African were told by God to ask Him for anything they wanted. The only condition was that whatever each got, God would also give twice the amount to his fellow countrymen. The European thought for a minute and asked God for colonies all over the world. God gave it to him but gave other Europeans twice as many colonies as his own. The American on seeing this asked for business leadership and the same process happened. The African observed all this quietly. When his turn came, he asked God to cut off one of his arms… that way his armless neighbors would never get ahead of him!

Of course being African, I don’t laugh at ‘African jokes’ - but something about this one rang true. Ever since as little school-kids we hid our answers from our neighbors lest they ‘copy’ us, we’ve grown up with this mentality that the only way I can get ahead is if I keep others behind. So we tear down those who get ahead, and we think we’re ‘winning’ only if everyone else is losing. In the last political era, we learnt to speak about ‘dividing the national cake’, as if national resources are limited and whoever gets there first needs to hoard what they get, lest others finish it for them…

We live in an incredibly blessed continent where there are more than enough resources for all of us. We need to learn to work together, using what God has blessed us with to help others get ahead, multiplying the cake, and not just dividing it. We need to move from a scarcity mentality to an abundance mentality.

Loosing Focus

What makes people (or organizations) lose focus on their purpose and calling? I had a fascinating discussion about this with the Mavuno dream team and they had some great thoughts...

• Success – easily sidetracks people or organization
  
• Too many good things - doing less better always results in more
  
• Attitude- not expecting hardship and opposition
  
• Too task oriented – forgetting that true success is always about people
• Fatigue- not taking time off to replenish reserves
• Focus on maintaining what worked before, rather than on purpose
• Not keeping the main thing the main thing
  
• Not clarifying wins - need to regularly ask 'what is success for me?'
  
• Not celebrating wins - you get what you celebrate
  
• Lack of consistency
• Fear

No Room For Mediocrity

Have been speaking in the US for the last six weeks. Here's a link to a talk I gave at Hudson Community Church in Ohio about purpose and calling...

http://hcc.neteamavi.net/iPod/audiocast/worship%20101407.mp3

Question: Is it possible to achieve your dreams and yet still live a mediocre life?

President For A Day

If you were president, what area would you most want to change? This was a popular 'Question of the Day' at a Mavuno service a while ago. The person I spoke with eloquently expressed how he would tackle head-on the issue of poverty, and inequality in Kenya. After listening to him, I was inspired to vote for him if he should ever chose to run for president!

My own pet issue is ethnocentrism or tribalism, as we like to call it in this part of the world. While Kenyans have not hit the lows experienced in some of our neighboring countries, I'm concerned that over the last decade or so, even my own generation has began to form opinions and approach politics based not on issues but on what tribe we're from. Being in the US and seeing the paralyzing effects of the centuries old racial divide, I pray we will somehow resist the forces that threaten to divide us and work towards building a united nation. And in my own non-elected capacity, e.g. in how I bring up my kids, I want to play my part in being a unifier and not a divider.

Incidentally, I think being president must be the hardest job anyone could ever do. Everyone thinks they can do your job better than you can! People rate you not on your performance but on whether you agreed with their agenda, and you have to be a brilliant manager of conflicting interests, massager of egos, master of sound-bites and suave politician to boot! And so my real answer to the question is that I would not want to be anyone's president, not even for a day!

That said, I know there are some gifted fearless influencers out there whose God-given passion is to bring back some sanity to our political arena.