This week has been forever etched in history and shall go down as one where all these mental wellness truths hit home- unfortunately. Maya Angelou called it when she said “When someone shows you who they are, believe them- the first time”. Maya Angelou also said “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”

This week in Kenya shall go down in history for a couple of reasons. Top of the governance reminders being;
1. The kind of leadership style you exert can impact the outcome of your desired project. A leader has to be awake to the times and seasons they are leading in and apply themselves to the right kind of leadership style to adopt. For Kenya, this was not the week to be an Autocratic Leader- laying down the law and adopting a parent stance to the citizens. This was the week to acknowledge that the donated power to lead the citizens demands an honest Servant leader.
2. There was lots of wisdom quoted by Lord Acton who said that ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. Leaders should watch out with their positional power. Leaders should not use it to abuse, coerce or mistreat the governed. Influence is a more effective tool for vision casting and following.
3. Stakeholder management has moved to stakeholder engagement, read that again. Management is an inauthentic way of dealing with stakeholder conversations as it does not inspire trust or credibility. Stakeholder engagement with a focus on dialogue rather than hard-stand debates is critical. How, when and what to communicate is both an art and a science when in a crisis. This week was a poor show on that front.
4. Emotional intelligence- we say it figuratively but ‘read the room’ is extremely important. The dynamics, information, and people’s views are evolving so fast and it is up to leaders to wake up. This specifically calls for leaders to be self aware (especially of their shortcomings) self regulate (you cannot take back what you said in a moment of anger) be socially aware of the times and your effects on those you lead, understand yours and others motivation and most critical in light of this week is empathy. Empathy was described by Korn Ferry as “the ability to sense others’ feelings and how they see things. You take an active interest in their concerns. You pick up cues to what’s being felt and thought. With empathy, you sense unspoken emotions. You listen attentively to understand the other person’s point of view, the terms in which they think about what’s going on.”

This week was a huge failure on the above governance themes. Governance is about democratic decision-making opportunities- fairness, reasonableness and good faith. Our leaders in Kenya failed us. May they find opportunities to redeem themselves, else history shall forever remain unkind to their legacies- and rightly so.