Leadership, the cornerstone of social cohesion; great leaders uplift others, rather than destroy them

Flashing back to the then days when I was a little young boy, I always heard of people call themselves leaders some of them were praised by society. They owned about two or three fair permanent or semi permanent houses with their children going to fairly established schools and their diet was not the ordinary one. So much often, I would see them rub shoulders with their averagely or absolutely poor and defenceless neighbours who owned almost close to nothing. Many of those poor ones had lost some portion of their land to those so called leaders or they later lost everything. Their lives were in danger as some of them actually died mysteriously. 

Through my socialisation process from primary school to university and to the work environment, I have not only been perturbed by the word “leader” as those I have come across certainly do not seem to be distinct from the “village leaders” that I have known with their selfish and heinous  actions. One of my vivid experiences was the one I ever came across working with a certain organisation whose name I shall not mention. Despite severally attempting to work hard to fulfil my duties and even go overboard to perform such extra duties, my effort landed me on the wrong side of the boss’s feelings.

At some point in the course of my work, I could witness several policies that could have never been part of the organisation policies instituted against me. At some point my boss would just come up when I am in the middle of writing a report and tell me to perform duties of the administration assistant who in most situations was in office...My attempts to inquire why all that was done to me earned me a description such as disobedient to authority and disrespectful to my superiors. I became the object of hate and all kinds of descriptions and utterances. For quite a while, I endured the insults, the mockery, harassment and intimidation. It came a time I couldn’t bear. I had to choose between earning money in a rough environment and pursuing personal development and happiness outside that organisation. 

The most annoying bit of it is that, my former boss has never ceased to follow me to different spheres.  Despite his actions which have vividly showed up against his other peers, he remains to be glorified in the civil society movement. This article is however not meant to discredit my employer completely, but rather to examine the true ideals of leaders and leadership. 

If the most glorified leaders we have are those that constrict the spheres of those around them, then Africans should not ask why they have the problems they are seeing today. It now appears apparent that the most respected leaders of our times are those that own lots of money, own large chunks of land, own lots of multimillion properties and are able to side and never criticise those oppressing others.  If this kind of mentality persists, our continent and the world at large are headed for doom. With our people at the forefront sabotaging the efforts of the lowly, real development will continue to be an illusion. 

In my view therefore, leadership is the ability to enlist the support of others to attain common course and to uplift them from their current status to a more decent one. True leaders rise up to the occasion when there is a very big challenge that may not be handled by the ones below them. Therefore, a leader should be able to give room to those around them and those below to exercise their rights and to be able to practice their abilities. 

Shockingly, most of these glorified people have little or less understanding of the problems affecting us and pour people, but rely on the knowledge and the intellectual prowess of those they are trying to fight. This alone not only portrays the level of intellectual dishonesty, but also depicts the greedy practices of wanting to rise above with the effort of those they are demeaning. 

When I was a child, two things differentiated by father from my grandmother...I was never among the best performers in school until when I reached Primary six. All those days, I had been hyperactive. I always found myself in conflict with school authorities. No day skipped by without me being flogged by the teachers. My parents equally canned me each day I either left for school or returned. My father had almost given up with me. He always told my peers to call me, “ebang lo” in Ateso loosely translated in English as, “a fool”. I always never felt comfortable. Sometimes I would pretend to go to the bush to look for firewood, but I would use that opportunity to ask myself if those were my parents or if I would ever be a wise in the class. One evening, my dad had resolved to flog me. He had just begun canning me. Each time he was canning me, he never wanted me to cry aloud and worse of all, and he always wanted me to appreciate him for canning me. I would ask myself, “Why would I appreciate you for torturing me?” 

That evening, I cried aloud. The more I cried the more he intensified caning me. My grandmother, Idionyi came running and panting like a dog that was running after a monkey. Her building was about 200 meters from our compound. At the top of her voice she shouted, “Alex, stop beating your son. One day you will end up killing him” she ran and threw herself on my father. After some struggle, he yielded to her objection towards beating me. However, he continued to say he would kill me. “This fool is useless. He is eating a lot of my food for nothing” he would utter. There I was sobbing and wiping the tears that flowed profusely. My grandmother walked up to me, consoled me and said, “Do not mind your father, you are not stupid, you will be a great man one day” I looked at her, but continued to sob. She lifted me up and wiped the dirt on my clothes. 

From that day, I started to see a difference in my life, it was a transformational moment. I started to have hope. I started to have self esteem. The animosity in me towards other young people increasingly dwindled. Today I look back and I wish that my grandmother were alive to see the fruits of her words. Despite being an illiterate who dropped out of school in primary three, my grandmother was able to realise that beating alone would not have transformed me. My father was a primary teacher who adopted his father’s style of parenting. To them, every mistake was to be met with canes. 

My personal experience has always and will continue to be a figure in the transformational inspiration of those who do not believe in themselves. Twenty eight years down the road, I have gone beyond borders, the borders of race, religion, culture, political affiliations and social class and geographical borders to motivate and build young people to realise their full positive mental potentials and to be agents of change in their societies. 

Being elevated to the president of the FOWODE Young Leaders Alumni Association (FYLAA), selected to be a member of the Commonwealth Youth Gender Equality Network (CYGEN) and awarded a title of Associate Fellow by the Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) for a relentless commitment to the transformation of the lives of people across the commonwealth and now in the verge of being declared a mentor to the Queen’s Young Leaders Programme, if someone never at one point lifted me up. I would not have come thus far and would not be committed to transforming the lives of others. 

For motivational talks, mentoring and training in leadership/ enterprise and business development/ public speaking, strategic planning, among others, please do contact me on +256777260171 or by email fekakoro@gamil.com

"where there's always prejudice and preconceived bias, however much you try to be good, you will always be bad"