Read my review on 'A Perspective on Forming Leaders from Lausanne 2010 by Rev. Dr. Solomon Nkesiag from Uganda

I must admit, I wrestled with Rev. Dr. Nkesiag’s paper on forming leaders. To be fair, he started off by acknowledging that there are many different perspectives on approaching the subject “The qualities of a leader”, and that he was going to come at it from a different direction: and he did.

  The basic premise of his paper is that “If you win at the individual and private levels, chances are that you might be a productive leader in public as well.” In essence you are a leader, if you become ‘a leader of self.’ Nkesiag goes on to say that leaders have a tendency to pop up in the public, when in reality they have been significantly shaped by their early childhood experiences over a period of years. He cites Mandela, Museveni and Obama as examples and introduces the notion that by the time Jesus Christ reaches adulthood, he was clearly focused on the purpose of his life and that this resulted from his formative years as a child transitioning into adulthood. He was a leader because he was already ‘a leader of self’ during his childhood.

  I agree with Nkesiag that today’s successful leaders are typically those who are aware of lessons learned and challenges overcome during their childhood, notwithstanding that we will adopt a broad definition of the word “successful, rather than be distracted by how differently this can be defined by culture, industry sector, available resources, and specific circumstances. However, I believe Nkesiag takes the ‘leader of self’ notion too far.

  As flawed as they might be, there are indeed successful leaders who have not succeeded as private individuals. They have not necessarily been effective leaders of self, but have been highly successful in managing their leadership image or brand, and may even have achieved legitimate success. Many of us however, could draw on examples from history and from our own personal experience that reveal significant dissonance between the success a leader might be experiencing in a particular area in contrast to every other dimension of his life. There are church leaders we have held in high regard because they grew the size of their church exponentially, only to learn that simultaneously they were having a marital affair. We esteem driven CEOs who overcame tremendous odds that resulted in overwhelming profits, but who on the same journey left their family in tatters. We know of ministry leaders that are evidently gifted, but they mistreat people and leave bodies scattered everywhere. I could go on: Not to be judgmental or critical of leaders, but to recognize that there are ‘successful’ leaders who indeed are not, and never have been leaders of self. Fortunately, for every leader who has not been a leader of self, there are great examples of leaders who are effective leaders of self.

  I do like the way that Nkesiag defines “vision” as discovering my purpose in creation. And while I agree with this, a biblical view of “vision” doesn’t merely result from a better understanding of ‘self’, as much as responding to the revelation that God has a purpose for your life that he has redeemed you for.

Thank you to Rev. Dr. Nkesiag for helping me to wrestle with this important topic on forming leaders.

** This review by Glenn Williams was an assignment in connection with his DMin in Global Missional Leadership, through George Fox University (#dmingml #capetown2010)