BPWU leaders not power hungry
Correspondent | Wednesday September 14, 2016 15:53
Yet in the vortex of that anger, not one person addressed the 10 reasons we gave for our departure from BLLAHWU. I made a little research to ascertain whether or not I suit these labels.
According to a research made by some scholars in Northwestern’s Kellog School, power hunger is an established behaviour in the animal kingdom. It was found that among Chimpanzees, those at the top of the hierarchy are often hostile towards lower-ranking members who might be powerful enough to challenge their authority, and they divide subordinates to prevent them from forming alliances. New research shows that some human leaders do the same.
Charleen Case and Jon Maner, surveyed university students to identify individuals who like to wield authority over others. The survey showed that when those individuals felt insecure about their positions, they tried to prevent highly skilled “subordinates” from bonding and forming cooperative relationships. When asked to choose seating arrangements, for example, these leaders separated the most capable of the subordinates from all the other people. In doing so, they blocked the kinds of peer-to-peer interactions that foster group success—even though they had been instructed that cooperation among subordinates would enhance the group’s performance.
These findings pertain specifically to leaders who are “dominance-motivated” and in “unstable” leadership positions—for example, situations in which subordinates have enough power to depose them. This is the reason such subordinates are labelled as troublesome and dangerous by leaders who are motivated by the love for power; a situation currently experienced by Botswana progressive Workers Union Leadership.
In the Case and Maner study, the leaders’ actions were invisible to all but the researchers and the leaders themselves; letting superiors, peers, and subordinates see what’s going on can help keep leaders in check, the researchers say. This is why information is hidden from people by power hungry leaders as is the case at BLLAHWU; where questioning the leadership is equated with hating them and power hunger. Exposing secretive activities by the leadership is treated with the same scorn.
Below, I state 10 warning signs that can help you identify power hungry leaders according to Francis Akin-John.
His is a Christian perspective and he holds that Christian leaders are called upon to be servant leaders who are willing to be last in order to lead (Matt 20:26). He also posits that Christian leaders are called to SERVE, not to be position and power-conscious. They are also called to be servants, not to dominate, oppress, subjugate and abuse those under them, who look up to them for service and inspiration.
Akin-John further points out that lots of church leaders wrestle with a desire to be powerful and influential. I call upon our accusers to take a look at their own lives, and be aware of these signs; for they may be the ones who are “power hungry” leaders:
1. You get jealous when others have information you don’t have. Power hungry leaders want every advantage, including being “in the know” more than others are. You feel insecure with gifted associate. A king Saul and David situation;
2. You hire only “yes” men who support your position. That’s one way to protect your power – hire only people who depend on you and look up to you. You hire dwarfs, not giants that can increase your life and ministry;
3. You network only with people who can help you gain position and prestige. You know what you’re doing, too, when you make deliberate choices to hang out with the power brokers;
4. You look for wrong and weakness in people who disagree with you. You feel more powerful, more in charge and in control, when you can tear down – in a Christian way, of course – those who oppose you;
6. You remind people of your pedigree and accomplishments, even in sermons. If you find yourself seldom missing an opportunity to talk about what you’ve done, you might be trying to secure your power;
7. You are consumed with your wealth, worth and ways you’re always thinking about the assumed greener grass in the ministry that is larger than yours. Power hungry people seldom get settled where they are since there is almost always a ministry with greater size and stronger influence they want;
8. You use your title more than your name. In some circles, titles like “Rev. DR. BISHOP, Apostle” carry weight. Power hungry people know what those titles are and they oppress others with such titles;
9. Your public life is more important to you than your private life. That is, you “shine” in the public while spending little time with God in private. You are a public success but private failure; and
10. You place your ministry above your family. Daily, you spend more time trying to climb ladders than hanging out with your family. That’s seeking power at much too high a cost. When you lose the peace of your home, you’ll have pieces in ministry.
Power hungry leaders play church, ministry and denominational politics that lead to injustices and departure of God’s glory from such places. Power hungry leaders do stupid and foolish things that bring their ministry down. They drive away their future leaders by their insecurities and experience downward spiral of their once vibrant ministries.
The above observations depict true colours of our detractors in the print and social media. No sign whatsoever stated above that depicts leaders of BPWU. So stop labelling us and get into the discourse that precipitated our departure from your trade union.
Yours in the struggle,
*COMRADE ISHMAEL WILLIAM is an interim 1st Vice President of Botswana Progressive Workers Union