10 Life Changing Lessons Nr. 5 – Leadership – A Story

“Everything rises and falls on leadership” says Dr. John Maxwell.

Definitions of leadership are numerous. A very simple one that I heard was by a tribal leader when working in Mozambique about 6 years ago: “Leadership is taking someone from where he is, to where he wants (need) to be”.

How important is leadership? About 20 years ago I used the following phrase to accentuate the need: “Never mind the black rhino, save the leaders”.

Yes, the rhino is important, but if we had focused and selfless leaders in every sphere of society, the rhino’s would not be under threat, families would not have been in crisis, the economy will be growing and, on the extreme side, even looming world war III would not be a matter of concern.

Let’s narrow leadership down to business owners, seeing that these 10 article focuses on business owners. The Xpand (www.xpand.eu/sa) Mentorship program that I offer, includes a comprehensive leadership scan. A leadership scan is a tool that:

• measure your leadership qualities

• identifies the areas in which you need growth

• and assist you with a plan to develop those areas.

Five leadership areas are measured. Instead of giving you a clinical summary of what these are, I will be using my own scan and some personal life examples. I believe transparency and stories are tangible and that you will be able to relate on a practical level.

To illustrate, I will be using the community of Kameeldrift, North East of Pretoria, where a lived and worked for 8 years as a narrative. (For the sake of privacy, I will omit names. Underlined word/phrases indicate leadership skills.

1. Management Competence The community of Kameeldrift was in Crisis. Crime was out of control. Armed robberies took the lives of people. I remember sleeping at night with my cellphone on speed dial ready to call my neighbor in case of an attack. In fact, we moved house in that time and the new occupant, Leon, was shot and killed one fateful night in the very same house.

I shared the vision of praying together for divine intervention and came up with the innovative idea of getting leaders and members of all the different churches together for a day of prayer. Times of crisis tend to set aside theological differences and quickly a date was set for the day of Prayer.

2. Social Competence Things leading up to this event, address the social competence that I acquired. I had a good relationship with each of the different church leaders. I spend a number of years visiting the local police station every Tuesday and getting a working knowledge of the station commander and his staff. This gave me a position of influence and authority (leadership). I made sure that everyone was well informed (communication) on exactly what we had in mind. The time I spent with the business leaders in the community on a weakly base, gave them the confidence that the budget needed to cover the cost for different related projects, would not be wasted. A team of religious, business and community leaders was build around a common goal.

3. Social Responsibility

The armed robberies and people that got hurt, caused a sense of belonging and connection among the residence and community leaders. Daniel, a retired pastor in the community, established a Crisis Center at the police station where victims could be counselled. We trained teams to debrief and visit those effected by the robberies. I remember the courage that was required when I went out to a crime scene at 1:00 in the morning, the fear, crying of a wife after her husband was shot and the trembling little kids that didn’t understand what was happening.

A strong network was established among the different leaders. Two pastors of the local Dutch Reformed church took the initiative to get the community together where security related issued could be discussed.

The date for the day of prayer was set. For the first time in the history of this troubled community, all the different pastors worked together in mobilizing their members to attend. We were overwhelmed when journalists heard of the meeting. A national radio station came with their outside broadcasting unit and even the government minister of security and police attended as a special guest.

4. Self Responsibility Every community (business, family, country) will experience some sort of crisis. All that’s needed is for someone to stand up and say “enough is enough” and be willing to do something about the situation. I had to discipline myself when challenges of disunity, yet another armed robbery and even at times, a lack of cooperation threatened the project to be derailed. The bigger picture of people in crisis gave me an awareness to focus on the task at hand.

A large crowd gathered at the local school to pray about the crisis in which the community found itself. Stories were told and people listened. God heard and within weeks the police’ special forces were deployed in our area. An operational center was established by the police and there was even a special horse unit dispatched to patrol the small holdings. Within a month the perpetrators were identified as a gang that got access to the area by making use of the railway line. Their so called “safe house” was tracked down and they were arrested.

5. Identity

No one person can take the credit for the project. Team work started with a number of people that took responsibility to stand up. In my personal capacity I had compassion for the pain that families experienced that suffered because of these armed robberies. It gave me perspective to look at the bigger picture of a community in crisis. I had to do some self-reflection which moved me from my own comfort zone to get involved with the crisis that other people experienced.

On the 11th day of the 11th month 2011, the community erected a large cross and celebrated together. This cross is still a silent witness of divine intervention, of a community that stood up in unity to avert a crisis that had an initial harmful effect on everyone.

Don’t wait for a crisis before you assume responsibility. You are a leader. Stand up and make a difference where you are.