NAIROBI, Kenya, June, 20 – My interest in leaders began at Kivaywa Secondary while I was in Form two—through the Animal Farm by George Orwell.
Kivaywa Secondary school had a tradition of exposing students to fictional works, right from Form one under the class reader’s sessions.
This is how we got introduced to Animal Farm. We were introduced to an old Pig, called Old Major, which summoned other animals to a secret meeting at midnight. At the meeting, Old Major expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of life they led under Mr Jones, the human owner of the farm.
He painted a vision of life it thought was appropriate for animals to live. And that life was only possible if they ruled themselves.
Unfortunately, the old Major died a few days after the meeting but the vision he had spelled out was carried on by two pigs,Napoleon and Snowball, long after it had gone.
This was the first time I was seeing in a book, someone holding spellbound, other animals and giving a long-range vision about a life different from the one they lived.
I encountered the same phenomenon in the set books we formally studied for our Kenya Certificate of Education and the Kenya Advanced Certificate of Examinations. I saw for instance Waiyaki in Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the main character in The River Between. People looked up to him for providing modern education to their children.
I saw illustrations of leadership in the other works we read. I saw in the books a few characters, shaping the conduct of other characters. I came to the conclusion that society has two different sets of people: those who lead and those who are led.
Our study of God’s Bits of Wood by Sembène Ousmane, a Senegalese writer, as part of our “A” Level Literature text is further confirmed by assumptions.
The novel, by a Senegalese writer, describes an epic strike, in which workers on the railroad line from Dakar in Senegal to Bamako on the Niger River walked off the job, demanding higher wages, pensions, family allowances, and the recognition of their union.
We don’t meet the leader of the strike in the opening pages of the book. He is clearly not physically with the strikers. However, the strikers spend much of the time in the book wishing for the return of or presence of their leader Bakayoko. They want him present at crucial moments in the strike—when things look hard for them. The hard work of the struggle continues without him, however.
However, it was Bakayoko who had initially galvanised the workers to go on strike. It is in fact, his words which are remembered and invoked by the striking workers, which motivates them throughout the dark period of the strike.
My interest in leadership has not waned. It has increased, instead. I have seen the influence of leaders not just in Literature books, but also in history, in science and technology, in schools, in the church and in public and private institutions. Leaders provide clarity of purpose, and motivate and guide their institutions to realize their mission.
This is a fact of life. An organisation cannot move without the guiding hand of one man or woman holding its hands.
Political philosophers have affirmed the role of leaders in society and the various institutions in it. The growth of growth, resilience, development and even degeneration of institutions, movements and civilisations.
The reason why we have education and training institutions to nurture leaders is that leaders are the prime movers of institutions and societies.
What I have found interesting is that some of these institutions go to great novels as aids in teaching leadership.
Harvard School of Business, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for example, have developed courses based on great works of Fiction—the Novel, Play, Poetry—to expose certain insights about leadership to their students. This takes me back to my literature lessons in school whenever I read some of the books written by professions and instructors on leadership from these institutions.
Knowledge of human nature, good judgement and self-knowledge—are very important in leadership. They are elusive but very important ingredients to the health, stability and tenacity of a leader and organisations. They determine the atmosphere or the culture of organisations.
Ultimately, what matters to an organisation, what moves people and organisations are the words and conduct of leaders or those they look to for direction.
Beyond simply being conspicuous symbols of any institutions, leaders are centres of responsibility, decision and action, American philosopher Sidney Hook observes in his book The Hero in History.
We have had other thinkers who view leaders—in their vision, or lack of it, in their action and inaction—as crucial in shaping the direction, resolve and behaviour of institutions as they address the issues, problems, risks and crises connected to their respective mandates.
Truth be told: leadership is the defining element, the x-factor in the success or failure of institutions. The reason society should invest in how they prepare young people for leadership. In fact, the ability to cope with and manage the future depends in large measure, on how society prepares its children and young people for leadership.
It is my considered view, that it is schools of management and leadership that have the exclusive preserve of training leaders for the next generation in society.
The cradle for preparing the successive pool of leaders is primary and secondary education institutions. Higher Education and training institutions, as well as military training institutions refine what basic education institutions began some twelve years earlier.
Top-notch leadership depends on strong intellectual furniture and discipline—the knowledge, wide-ranging knowledge and appreciation of social, moral and physical and their ability to draw inferences and comprehend implications. Acquisition of this knowledge is through reading, writing and reasoning—skills that the twelve years of basic education impart in the learners.
It is the reason why Secondary Schools which offered Cambridge Examinations had well-stocked libraries with books on general knowledge to enable students to read great fiction and nonfiction works. As a preparation for the life’s opportunities that awaited them.
Great leaders have attributed their success to the school public libraries they borrowed or read books from for their success in life and leadership.
Training of leaders for any society is a labour of love, a lifetime process. It begins almost from the cradle to the grave. And there are many teachers: humans and situations out there to hold children by their hands in this process of education. What is important is the training of the mind or intellect and Character.
It is the reason why a society with a long-range vision should be interested in education not just to prepare entrepreneurs and employees, important though it is. It should also be equally interesting how the next crop of political, administrative and religious leaders are prepared. It is political, administrative and religious leaders who shape public policy and mould opinion.
The quality of the things they say and do is planted in their formative years—not in universities, business schools or theological colleges.
In the formative years, all society needs to expose all children and youth are examples of leadership in action: in works of literature of all ages and civilizations, historical epochs which show the effect of men and women who took part in the historic event or issue.
The place to prepare authentic leaders is by exposing young people to great fictional and nonfictional works.
The writer, Kennedy Buhere, is a Communications Officer at the Ministry of Education.
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