In our last conversation, we discussed that when the godly and righteous choose to stay away from or refuse to accept, access, or support the path to public leadership, which is through politics, they won’t be able to directly contribute their God-given gifts and abilities to advance God’s kingdom. They also won’t be able to improve the quality of life for others, influence policies, and enact laws with the knowledge of God that will promote a godly society, civilization, development, and economic revival. As a result, such a society will come under the control of Satan and her agents, subjecting the citizens of that society or nation to hardship, and causing the people to suffer. (Proverbs 29:2)
We also see righteousness as a non-negotiable quality of transformational or visionary leaders, similar to what we will be discussing today. Transformational or visionary leaders view their impact beyond their time in office or lifetime, and their decisions are focused on future generations.
Today, we will look at EMPAHTY as a non-negotiable quality of a leader. What is empathy?
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person or group of people and to be aware of their emotional experiences. It is generally described as the ability to take on another person’s perspective, understand their feelings, and respond to their experiences. It involves doing to others what you would want them to do to you (Matt 7:12), seeking the good of others (1 Corinthians 10:24), and looking for the interests of others (Philippians 2:4).
Empathy is a quality in a leader that is developed over time, not inherited. It inspires and motivates civilization and development, with the future in mind, to protect society from intruders and terrorism. 1 Peter 3:8 says, Let this mind be in you!
Friends, empathy is beyond kindness, sympathy, and compassion, it is using your position to make others better than you meet them, improving on what is good and making it better.
- Empathy moves you to discover who people are and why they become that person
- What people know that is making them make such decisions and how they learned it
- What people hold dear like culture and conviction and why they hold it so dear
- Explore the emotions and reasons behind people’s perspectives on various issues and topics.
As we say, empathy is a leadership quality that helps you put yourself in another person’s shoes, it is switching positions to make decisions. For example, imagine sitting on the other side of the table, what would you like others to do or get, go ahead and do it or give it out.
This is where most African leaders are less qualified to lead because they never see themselves as others, they have this supremacy mindset, that nobody is like them. Africans. Everybody sees a position to oppress others and do whatever they like. Check this out. —- sometimes you go to a public place and park, the security guard uses it as a source of revenue for himself, the same way our public officers and politician use their offices to convert national resources to their own and in return use it to buy people conscience to be their loyalist.
Friends, as a leader or aspiring leaders, going into leadership without developing the spirit of empathy, you are exposed to the temptation in leadership especially in Africa, to take advantage of people you meet to protect, serve, and improve their lives. It is a lack of empathy that enables the powerful to exploit the powerless, a troubling trend in African countries. How to develop empathy?
- Begin to see everyone as you see yourself – remember, this is not natural. We usually see ourselves from the light of intentions while we see others or measure them according to their actions.
- Leave your place and visit their place. The best way to stop stepping on other people’s toes is to put your legs in their shoes.
- Always try to consider other people’s viewpoints. Acknowledge that they have a point. This will stretch your thinking on how to improve their status and bring balance to your decision-making and delivery of responsibilities.
- Please keep in mind that our attitude is as important as their perspective, if not more important than the point raised, especially if we are directly involved or the matter involves our position. Friends, it is when we don’t want to change that we see differences, but when we want to change, we see the similarities.
- Ask the involved person how they think we can resolve and leverage it to secure peace.
Thank you till we come your way again. Don’t forget to like, share and comment.
