FAMILY LEADERSHIP
family life over public life
I wish parents could know that parenting is a leadership function. Of cause a lot of our people, African men think that they are the head of the family and everybody knows but what makes you the head of the family? You eat, somebody cooks for you, you have your clothing washed, give commands and you think that is leadership no, no that is not leadership. What thoughts, what plans do you have for the family, how are you inspiring them to be better people, how are you creating an environment in which each one of them would have their potential developed? That is what parents should do if you say that you are the husband and the head. People must see a difference in your family if you claim to be the head of the family because good leadership is meant to inspire people to be the best that they can.
So that is what leadership is all about and for me home leadership is what I find the most rewarding of all leadership because yes we have people and additional things in other circumstances but here the impart is cherished as you see your children, grandchildren extended family inspired.
The reason why I believe many people neglect family leadership is that they themselves are not leaders. I believe that the tendency to transfer what to be done at the family level to the state is one of the bases in modern society. In the olden days the family members took care of most of the education, morals and upbringing but now we think that the church, the state and the school would do, they don’t because there are other aspects of family life which cannot be duplicated in any of these institutions the relationships, the warmth etc.
Whenever there is a conflict between my public life and family life the choice is clear my family comes up. Actually, I don’t know what my bosses at GIMPA thought of me but two months or so into my rector ship my eldest son took ill and immediately I said am going to Australia. I went to Australia spent two weeks with him though I would have stayed more but my wife said no I should come back so she goes there. In other words I almost made it a weakness when my leadership outside conflicted with my leadership in my family. For example I didn’t know that my wife was going to be sick for so long and so seriously. I thought that I wouldn’t accept to many of the offers that were given to me when I was leaving GIMPA and the reason was simply that somehow it conflicted with my perception of what the needs of my family would be after so long in terms of public life but then I thank God, that choice became the best because it allowed me to spend more time with my wife.
So this is what I would like to say about leading one’s self and leading one’s family. I wish people would spend more time to learn leadership and that is one of the reasons why leadership is more important because when you learn it, it is not as many people think in leadership only in terms of going to be a boss in an organization, going to be “a big man” not that, it is meant to equip you to influence people to lead your life much more productively so that you can impact other people positively in respect to where you are and also to lead your family and for me that alone makes leadership most important because you need good leadership to be a parent.