THE SHEPHERD AS LEADER It is not news anymore that Nigeria is in multiple crises. From the crises of sovereignty and territorial integrity, to the collapse of culture. There comes also, very clearly the crisis of leadership. If you doubt it check out the Obasanjo and Jonathan cross evaluations. Nigeria needs leaders but they seem to be no where in sight. At a time like this it may be profitable to discuss one of the leadership styles Nigeria may desperately need today. The leader as a shepherd. In the urban experience of the 21st century the image of the shepherd is a distant esoteric one. In the Bible times in Israel or from nomadic Fulanis who rear most of the beef consumed in West Africa, the shepherd is ubiquitous, and the glue that holds, not only the food chain, but of the social order in many communities. The attributes of the shepherd are in many ways summarized in the characterization of the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John. The shepherd is the gate to the Sheepfold. The sheep recognizes his voice and trust in him for their safety, their protection from wolves and their rustlers. The Fulani shepherd lead the path of the long trek across a vast sub-continent and the meek sheep follows, assured in the path he threads. The shepherd not only fulfills the role of having knowledge of where to go, the shepherd cares and takes the interest of the sheep so to heart that the sheep is freed from bothering for their wants, which are anticipated and taken care of by the shepherd. The benefit of the shepherd leadership style is that the led are so trusting in the motives and capacity of the leader that they are submissive and surrender to the directing of the leader in a manner that dramatically reduces the cost of mobilizing for the synergies to achieve the yesterday’s impossible. Charismatic leaders who draw unquestioning followers because of trust in the motives and capacity perceived as uncommon, tend to be classic shepherd leaders. Very charismatic religious leaders tend to display this leadership disposition and attribute. Sheep, Christian scriptures reminds, have tendency to scatter without a shepherd (Matt 26.31). An interpretation of the philosophy of government in which a Leviathan was sought so that the brutish state of nature, in Thomas Hobbes terms, would be overcome, was in essence finding a leader, a shepherd, who will gather in the scattered reign of man under purpose of the common good. Leadership was really about the simple and paradoxical logic which continues to elude many today; that the individual good, self-interest, is enhanced in the advance of the common good of all. For hundreds of years the Nobility in Europe thrived while misery was the basic currency of humanity. Then came the beginning of the universal sense of human freedom, given great play with the Magna Carta, and the peace of Westphalia put context to it. This was followed by the industrial revolution, in the James Watts redesign of steam engine which powered production of goods, made more available to the masses by the coming of the moving assembly line and mass production thereof. Man has since needed agents to make synergy take its goal directed effort much further. The making of these agents we call leaders and their take has been influenced by attributes and the cost of action. Some attributes of these leaders have differential costs for goal attainment. Some, like Hitler, have used power and propaganda to pull people together in pursuit of goals many of the followers did not share but were compelled to go along with. Some, like the author of some of the leading text on leadership from the political science discipline, James McGregor Burns reject the Hitler phenomenon in the consideration of what constitutes leadership. In the main, Hitler’s ‘leading’ was extremely costly path. In direct contrast, the shepherd deploys some of the dedication of the followers in pursuit of goals. Religious leaders and leaders of great social movements such as Mahatma Ghandi, Pope Francis, Nigerian leader of the Pentecostal church; The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, and the Indian founder of the Art of Living Foundation, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar are typical examples. Few verses in published literature better summarize the leader as shepherd than Psalm 23. The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want He makes me to lie down in green pasture He leads me besides the still waters He restores my soul He leads me in the path of righteousness for his name’s sake Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies Thou anoints my head with oil, my cup runs over Surely, good and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever The imagery of the shepherd as leader, along the lines of the promise of psalm 23 is that the leader is a provider or shows the road to great provision. The leadership style is often more suited to movements in times and climes of limited education amongst the majority of the followership and a concentration of wisdom in the leader. The case of Mahatma Gandhi in India, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey and Martin Luther King Jnr in the civil rights movement in the United States, Mother Theresa in India and to some extent, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, show the efficacy of this style where there is a significant knowledge gap but strong emotional bond between the leader and the led. The grave danger is that it can be subject to abuse as was the case of the religious leader Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana and the Branch Davidians in Texas where the followers accepted orders to commit mass suicide as the authorities closed in on them. The shepherd, as images from the Bible show, clearly is the caring, protective watchperson over perceive, vulnerable flock the key test is the level of the sacrifice required of the shepherd to ensure that the flock is safe and taken care of. This contrasts very much with the servant leader who seems to empower the follower to optimize on their talent in that the flock seem devoid of talent to add value beyond being of value intrinsically. This model of leadership is practically valuable where the followership is illiterate and made very vulnerable by poverty and limited exposure to the possibilities of the human spirit. Like the peasant farmer in Tawney’s Metaphor so deep in water that a ripple could drown him as the peasant does not have enough inside yet to be inspired to push towards a new order that is even in his own interest. The Nigerian voter who gets less than two United States dollars to cast a vote for a scoundrel who will keep him in bondage instead of the opponent who could create opportunities that liberate from abject poverty, is of this genre. In some ways leaders like Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew and Nelson Mandela are cut out of this tradition. Isokarri Ololo has offered a perspective on this leadership regime. In the book: ‘The Shepherd Leader – The Unexplored Leadership Style’, he says of the shepherd leader that he has two tools, the rod and the staff. “The rod represents sanction and the staff represents influence”. Those two tools mustered together should produce comfort which appears to me to be the overarching reason for leadership. As educated and uneducated Nigerians watch a narcissistic political class pillage the commonwealth, and continue to look on helplessly, it is clear that a low-self-efficacy problem is high and the shepherd leader need very high. Nigeria in many ways needs a Shepherd leader like Mahathir Mohammed or Lee kwan Yew but a self-serving class seems to hold society hostage. By Pat Utomi
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 15:45:37 +0000