Whenever we mention ownership we reluctantly scrutinize who actually owns, be it a car, house, organisation, political party or even the country. We tend to limit ourselves to personal possession. Ownership covers a great ideal of setups. It goes beyond an individual; it stretches to family, community, society, district, province, country and the entire globe. It is also not limited to monetary terms but goes also to values, norms among other intangibles we attach to personality identification or culture.
A bad leader ties ownership to personal possession. Mind you the two are totally different, where ownership holds future responsibilities and personal possession is limited to a person’s life time. Every day of our life, we intend to establish ownership by creating wealth, space, value among many aspect we identify as good, for our children for the least and the future generation to come. Realising such a juncture need attributes of a good leader to understand how ownership against personal possession will be like during the life time Mother Nature will offer one.
A foolish leader spends all that he/she invested, a total failure of holding simple nature rules of ownership driven to save for the future but more controlled by failures sentiments – “We will cross the river when we get there.” Living with the notion that “we have one life so let’s live like there is no tomorrow.” Such a family, society or nation is doomed.
When it comes to ownership one acknowledges that possession is being not limited to an individual, but the entire family. In that situation whatever investment it will not perish as the founder leaves for the death bed but will continue to flourish. This prompts the founder the spirit to instil whatever is needed to continue with the legacy prior departure from earth or leading position to off springs or subordinates. This will be the spirit of core-ownership, presenting other members the feeling that they also own. Failure is also their failure prompting them to make feasible and well thought/assessed decision.
When it comes to personal possession, you find that this is familiar situation. Let me take you to a family setup. You will notice that parents are reluctant to involve their children in the decision making process but wants the children to support their decisions. In response, the children act the fool, we like it though we don’t. When the children are in charge, it will be not what the parents heard in mind but what the children have. This has contributed highly the disappearing of family owned businesses. The same issue happens at an Entity notable those that die as the BOSS departs from it. It is ascribes to a situation where decisions will never be made when the BOSS is not around. When the BOSS is not around everything is at a standstill. Such entities do not have succession position as everyone fears to unveil their eager to lead or advice. The future personal possession holds is more or less limited to extinction or rebranding when the leader decides to leave or nature eliminates.
It is my fear today we witness errand of personal possession killing great and memorable efforts that have become and some will be historical-white-elephants in the books of history no one wishes even to blink at. Leaders who have adopted personal possession have become dictators in their homes, community, countries and even the entire world. The fear of change has gripped them; change not only of leadership but systems and procedures.
All I can say is that they are doom-scheduled for extinction and might suffer historical remembrance ignorance.
All through history there have been dark ages and ages of enlightenment and prosperity. Too bad we have to go through those times where personal possession becomes more important than community. It seems so many companies and governments are in this foolish position now. Your scenario could fit so many leaders, both good leaders and bad.
I decided upon a basic rule of thumb for deciding who I would go to work for. There are two types of leaders: selfless leaders and selfish leaders. I decided long ago to never work for a selfish leader.
The selfish variety – even if they initially do “good” for the people they serve, eventually turn their “empire” into a self serving extension of themselves.
The selfless variety are always asking themselves and others (not always in an obvious way) how well their efforts are serving people. They shy away from activities – even if they stand to benefit personally from them – if they believe that those actions will harm the people they serve.
Thanks for sharing, Tinashe!
This is kind of like the difference between responsible Capitalism and Corporatocracy. Responsible capitalism focuses on the future of the community, while in a Corporatocracy the focus is on what’s good for companies. This isn’t to imply that corporations are inherently bad, some do care about responsibility to the community and others focus on profits.
Corporatocracy have been the mother of all challenges human kind faces…it is true but is a necessary evil. the cry of global warming is a result of Corporatocracy, now that business is being affected by the Global Warming trends they act on it but never cared to prevent it. i will say pro-active leadership….ones that say we will cross the river when we get there and the pre-active leadership…ones that look at best way we will cross the river, how we will get to the river.