Leadership is a Tough Calling

Many are Called, but few are chosen to lead.

However, leadership is a tough calling.

Those who are called should respond with total commitment and lifelong dedication to serve.

Leadership is never easy, and most of the time involves pain, tears and sweat.

From the times of Moses, King David, and St Peter, right through to the founding fathers of the African struggle for total liberation, leadership has never been easy.

For instance, imagine getting up and continuing after a big blunder, quite often caused by others, but still having to persevere and continue to provide leadership.

That cannot be easy. It is only now, in the current era, that we seem to be making leadership easy and destined for everyone.

True leadership involves anointment and continuous development.

It is the result of life-long learning and learning from mistakes through continuous reflection and meditation.

With the death of the last icon of the national liberation struggle era, founding president Sam Nujoma gave us an opportunity to revisit leadership.

This time not as a mere academic exercise, but as an attempt to discover new insights from icons’ lived experiences.

What leadership themes and insights emerge from Nujoma’s lived experiences which are contrary to universally cited leadership theories?

HOPE

A leader’s primary assignment is to give others hope.

Hope means giving others light and encouragement – especially when caught in hopeless situations.

Moses had to give the Israelites hope during their long 40-year-long journey through the desert, Mandela had to do the same throughout the fight against apartheid, and Martin Luther King Jr gave people hope with the civil rights movement in America.

That is the same leadership role Nujoma had to fulfil in the Namibian liberation struggle, as well as in the foundational years of the Namibian state.

How can one give others hope when one is often equally hopeless?

In New Era of 14 February 2025, we find insights into how Nujoma sometimes complained about the lack of love and support from followers:

“I remember one time after cleaning his office – something we often did together. He told me life was very complicated. He said people didn’t appreciate what he had done for them.

“He had given up his youth, his personal life, to fight for Namibia’s freedom, and yet people still complained about what he hadn’t done for them.” [Limba Mupetami, ‘Nujoma through photographer’s lens’].

Good and authentic leaders repeatedly have to motivate themselves and persevere despite frequent criticism and a seeming lack of support.

To be considered excellent, one has to fall and rise several times towards greatness.

This is exemplified in the phrase ‘loop en val’ in Afrikaans.

MEDITATION

Herein lies the second insight into the leadership approach of the African founding fathers: meditation, reflection and discernment are ingredients for effective leadership.

Over the past two weeks, we have heard repeated accounts of how Nujoma was a closed book.

Good leaders first try to heal their inner self and quieten their spirits through meditation, pondering and reflection.

Like a cow that swallows their food partially during the day but slowly ruminates in the night by regurgitating it back up to chew it more thoroughly, good leaders equally reflect and meditate on issues before making decisions.

This is a value that makes some leaders referred to as ‘unique’ and ‘one in a thousand’, like Nujoma.

GRIT

Other characteristics emerging from the lived experiences of iconoclastic figureheads are those of grit, determination, resilience and patience.

To have resilience is to have discipline, especially self-discipline.

Resilience means never to lose hope, but to continue believing that better days are ahead.

The ability to persevere despite setbacks and changing external realities and conditions is a key character trait of good and effective leaders.

In a nutshell, the important lessons we can learn with Nujoma’s death are those of recommitment and dedication to the basic tenets of leadership, which is the commitment to serve others rather than oneself.

In addition, the African challenges of today require leaders who are self-disciplined and discerning, and who constantly ponder and meditate on things before deciding, not the chatterbox types prevalent in the current era.

Self-discipline, discernment, pondering and meditation are ancient values of leadership that seem to be lost to the artificial intelligence generation.

• – Matthias Ngwangwama is the managing director of Namibia Wildlife Resorts Limited, but writes in his personal capacity.

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