A Rainbow, A Great Tomorrow

The Rainbow

The Rainbow settled over our house today. I almost missed it. It has been a dragging season and there has not been much to shout about these passed days. It has been dark, gloomy and routine. And yesterday it even rained. I’ve soldiered on but why. It has been full of uncertainty and much wondering of what tomorrow will bring. I’ve been working hard for a reason to believe. As I walked to the kitchen and found there was no bread, I could have shed a tear of despair, but did not have the strength to cry. I looked up at the sky as if to sigh, then I saw it, that great arch in the sky. I was so sad I could have missed it. Then I saw it. The Rainbow, Gods promise of tomorrow, right there over our house in shimmering armour. Then I saw it, the glimmer of hope for tomorrow, and I worked hard to fan the fading flame. God has not forgotten us. The Sun came out from behind the clouds and the rainbow faded away. From a dank day it became another day. For a moment I forgot my hurts and sorrow and took courage to reach out in trust for a Great tomorrow. This too, is my prayer for you. Today.

What is Leadership Mentoring about?

Last week we launched the Leadership Mentoring Program at the Africa Leadership & Social Development Center. The long-awaited program captures the essence of leadership and the spirit of mentoring needed to create new leadership for the continent. The half day (four-hour) program is designed to empower professionals, gatekeepers and role models at all levels of society to take up and share in the responsibility of nurturing emerging leaders to address development challenges on the continent. The vision of this program is to train 5000 of leadership mentors over the next 5 years and establish a groundswell of effective new leadership on the continent.

The management myth

Did you know that it is not only managers who can solve problems?

If you are like me then you must be baffled by the everyday belief that only managers can solve problems. So entrenched is this myth that even the technically competent, highly qualified personnel will suspend thinking, step back and wait for the manager to come and solve a problem they could resolve themselves on the work front. This misplaced belief means that managers become bottle necks in work flows and logjams in the production process. But in reality, problem solving is everyone’s job! Think about it. The only reason you are hired is to resolve an existing problem.

But where did this myth originate in modern history?  At the time of the industrial revolution, great minds like Fayol, Sloan and James Watt thought to break down work into basic tasks so that they could run factories and firms with “unskilled” labour. These unskilled labourers were coming out of the agrarian age where everyone managed his own farm.

The founding fathers of modern industry argued that they could get quality products from their factories so long as they did not complicate the tasks they gave to these unskilled labourers and did not burden them with making any decisions. So, they organized production lines where employees did a single repetitive, routine task every day all the day for a career such as putting nails in a box. However, problems arose when the production process was interrupted by a fault such as when the nails ran out or when a person began putting nails under the box. To solve such problems, managers toured the lines to inspect and solve production problems. The manager was the only person with sufficient overview and understanding to resolve the problem.

What I find baffling today, more than 200 years later, is that highly trained, competent, skilled and experienced employees with substantial knowledge and understanding of business processes, still freeze at the finding of a problem and completely lack the will to think beyond the problem to resolve the issue. Many professionals will define the problem with pinpoint accuracy and then step back to watch the manager squirm as they ask the question, “what shall we do now?” This lack of resolve to move from problem to resolution leads to analysis paralysis. However, problem solving is not a technical qualification, but it is a creative, energy sapping process that everyone has the power to do. Unfortunately, managers feed this myth in order to keep their jobs, become indispensable, raise stress levels and keep bewildered employees in the dark as to what they do.

Have you heard about the leadership notion and how it works?

The Leadership Notion

Have you been in a group where you wondered whether you should take charge of its leadership or not? Have you found yourself thinking through your options whether you should take charge of a situation? Have you found yourself contemplating whether the call to lead is worth answering? If yes, then you have been accosted by the leadership notion. The leadership notion is not an emotion. It is a critical internal conversation leaders have before they engage in any leadership exercise. This mental calculation must add up in order for a potential leader to take up a leadership role with conviction. If the equation does not balance, and you take up the leadership position, your performance is likely to be dismal. There are four elements that empower (would be) leaders to take on the mantle of leadership. First, comes notion, unction, then follow-through and finally the ability to make things happen.

Notion comes to you when you understand that something specific needs to be done in a situation. However, this is more than just an appreciation that someone needs to do something. Notion is affirmed in your mind when you develop a few ideas about what could be done. But you will be waiting to hear whether anybody else in the group has a better idea than the one in your head. As you listen and watch what is going on around you, you will begin to see that everyone else is not seeing what you see, nor are they able to articulate what is possible in comparison to what you know to be the best possible outcome (this is not about pride or prejudice). At this point you have a choice. You can let things go on with whatever leadership will emerge in the group, or you can speak into the situation and change the teams’ course of action to influence the success of the enterprise. Failure to speak at this point will result in the team sliding into sub-optimal performance and you lose the chance to make history and lead the group to its highest purpose. Nonetheless, the leadership notion is not enough to prepare you to take up leadership. Before you say “I do”, you will need to have thought through the whole process of creating the results you want from the end to the beginning. Yes, that is correct; from the end to the beginning. You will have created a mental road map from the end results you want all the way back to the present circumstances.  The sketch does not have to have all the solutions to challenges along the way, but it must be sufficient to inspire what Bishop Oginde describes in one of his sermons as the “unction to function”.

The unction-to-function requires that the potential leader be sufficiently excited to take charge of the challenging situation. The excitement I am talking about is not hilarious laughter, but rather the energy and inspiration needed to move an electron from one orbit to the next. This quantum energy has to be enough to excite the engagement of the leader in the situation. Leadership is not fun and games, it is hard work. Sacrificial energy and personal commitment are needed to follow through and complete any leadership task. Leadership requires access to a reserve energy store from which a leader draws encouragement, inspiration, and fortitude to forge ahead with the job. If a leader is not excited by a job and does not have the energy reserves to do it, they will very likely decline the invitation to lead. Once the unction-to-function has been ignited, then an examination of the capacity to follow-through can take place.

Follow-through implies a commitment to navigate a path, take both action and risk to facilitate activities that need to be implemented in sequence to realize (make real) the desired outcome. The leader will take on the role of the “boss” and start directing activities and aligning peoples behavior to facilitate the groups advance towards the goal. In following-through, the leader begins to create new value and construct the desired future position; followers maximize it. Followers sometimes object to a leaders’ “pushy-ness” and are distressed or confused by the “directive energy” the leader exhibits, because they do not fully understand the creative process the leader needs to implement to create desired outcomes. Followers do not always see the big picture the leader is moving the group to and may, in ignorance, criticize the leader’s initiative. However, it would have been very difficult for Michael Angelo to explain what he was painting until the painting was complete.

Finally, a leader has to consider whether he or she is ready to shoulder the risk to make things happen. More often than not leaders are blamed for failure to make things happen, if it does not happen. Response-able leaders consider a) the notion as a call to lead, b) are realistic about what it takes to get the job done, c) make a values-based commitment to follow-through and carry others along with the plan, and d) are willing to take responsibility for the outcome.  

Daniel T arap Moi, Second President of the Republic of Kenya

Today the body of a great man was laid to rest. But do you expect me to eulogize a man who has lived to be 100? Where would you start? By nature’s own account he stands tall among men, if only for the privilege of years. Which quarter of the century would you talk about? the first quarter or the last? Would you talk about his youth, his family, his heart, his failures, his work, his friends or his country? No, this I cannot do. At best I can only read from his open book. Still, it would not be possible to get the whole picture, save snapshots of history, that mark the life of such a man. Unless of course, he told his own story. But here I must check myself and read leadership from his legacy. With a testimonial of more than one-half century, he has to be a case study in classes around the world, but even then, there are many secrets he has taken with him.

From the moment he put his foot on the pedal to get an education and a spiritual foundation, he did not let up until he handed over the country to a new president. If you want to be a leader, school, and the spirit is a good place to start. As head of state he never missed a day of worship. Like the character of David of old, he had his flaws and every leader has his enemies, real or imagined. But like David he was sharply focused on his mandate to rule. For leadership, he believed, comes from God.

He had a personal philosophy of peace, love and unity. Many leaders today could do with a simple vision to bring people together. As a person, he awoke long before dawn and was in office by sunrise. It is not enough to say he gave his life to a cause; it is better to say he lived a calling. But he was not just a leader of men, he worked hard for women and children and did everything a father would do to ensure the welfare of his family.

He traveled the country and communicated constantly. There is no corner of this country he did not traverse in search of people, projects and maendeleo (development). Like a Shepard he sought the lost and brought the marginalized into the fold. Many a leader today can learn a lesson or two about inclusivity and the power of diversity. In his passion he took charge of building gabions and planting trees long before global warming sounded its warning. Many of us today could do with a far-sighted vision. In expanding education, he laid a firm foundation of human capital on which the nation depends today. How many of us take time to invest in others?

Leadership and politics go hand in hand, but politics is no man’s party. In politics, he fought his battles with gusto. I find that great leaders fight hard to keep the peace rather than go to war, but win the battle of political score. A leader must be judged in the context of his time and not with the cleverness of hindsight. Back then, many nations struggled around us to keep afloat and governments collapsed in disarray. From unlikely beginnings as vice president he led the nation from the front over 24 years surviving the intricacies of political alignments, strangling economic times and even seasons of drought.

As leaders we can learn about the staying power of grit and grace as we read about the man for whose sheer energy many could not keep pace. So, what else do I take away from the spirit of this great son of Africa whose book I continue to read? …It is that leadership is for a reason and for a season, that to every man is given a grace he can bear, that to every man is given a gift to share, and that to every man is given a duty to care. It is that to every man is given a time and place to exercise his calling.  And when all is said and done, and the sun has set on his time, a man must forgive those who wronged him and ask for forgiveness from others to gain entrance to heaven. His body may be gone, but his spirit lives on. Farewell Mr President, fare thee well Daniel Toroitich arap Moi!

Get your first 100 days to work for you!

Anecdotal evidence suggests that your first 100 days at anything you undertake will be a significant indicator of your success in that area. While this theory does not favor the slow starters, there is some merit in the idea that if you want to make a difference or a change in anything, you should begin immediately or at least as soon as possible.

At the beginning of this year I wished you greatness and success, but I did also suggest that it will take significant effort on your part to make a difference in your circumstances. Well the first 30 days of the year have gone by. What have you done that will anchor the changes you want to make in your life this year? Have you put in place mechanisms to change your life? If you pledged to save money, have you put aside the first $100? If you resolved to study, have you enrolled in school? If you decided on a project, have you finalized the plan? These “rudder” decisions and actions that you take in the first 100 days are the initiatives that will change the course of your journey through the rest of the year.

Nonetheless, it is not too late to put those anchors in place. You still have under sixty days to show signs of any significant movement towards your desired circumstances within the year. My advice to you is take a moment to reflect, ask God for wisdom then take that action now, today, and set yourself on your course to success.

Also see

The Road to Destiny; The Psychology of Growing up

When a Teacher does not teach

Potential is more than profit

How to Get Past “No”!

Do you have a passion statement?

Go Against the Tide

Taking Action

Get your first 100 days to work for you

One employee can make a difference

The Seven laws of creation

Determined to fail

Strive to know the purpose of a thing