Leadership, A Limiting Factor

Leadership, A Limiting Factor. 

29 There be three things which go well, yea, four are comely in going:

30 A lion which is strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any;

31 A greyhound; an he goat also; and a king, against whom there is no rising up.

Proverbs 30

2 Show me a righteous ruler and I will show you a happy people. Show me a wicked ruler and I will show you a miserable people. Proverbs 29

In science, the theory of the limiting factor is well experimented both in physiological and environmental processes.

It is defined in physiology as the slowest, therefore rate-limiting, step in a process or reaction involving several steps.

Imagine a convoy of vehicles leaving a point to another destination, to arrive as a convoy, the vehicles must all go at same speed. Under such a condition, the slowest moving car and not the one with the capacity to go fastest, controls the overall speed and the time of arrival.

Sometimes, leadership is like that. It does not matter the quality of those who lined up behind a leader, the overall outcome depends largely on the overall quality of leadership provided. 

Ecclesiastes 8:4 Where the word of a king is, there is power;

And who may say to him, “What are you doing? NKJV 

Certain powers come with leadership. This authority is used based on the vision, the character and the competence of leadership. The authority that comes with leadership is meant for edification and not for destruction. 

 

"For even if I should boast somewhat more about our authority, which the Lord gave us for edification and not for your destruction, I shall not be ashamed." 2Corinthians 10:8 NKJV

But the powers don't translate to edification automatically, it all depends on the vision, the person and the competence of the person in power. It can actually become a tool for the destruction of the same people it was meant to build up. It can also become a self-destruct device in the hand of the leader. 

An African billionaire was once quoted to have said he had had no choice than to be friends with whatever political party that's in power because just one policy statement of government can bring you to poverty. 

That's the power of leadership. It can be a limiting factor depending on who handles the position. That's why nations aren't as rich or as resourceful as their natural and human resources but to the level of the quality of leadership they have been under. A people is where they have been led. Leadership defines the destination, the direction and the speed of a people group in their quest for freedom, welfare and greatness. When leadership is the slowest of all the factors of change, it becomes a limiting factor to the people's quest for self actualisation. 

The wisdom of leadership to transform from being a limiting factor to being a motivation is in recognising its own imperfections and limitations and to organise in such a way as to be able to limit those personal limitations from limiting his or her leadership service provision. 

Every people group has its own potpourri of human resources capable of extracting what the group needs to maximise its potential. Leadership function is to engage these human resources, who are skilled but not as empowered, to measure the distance between where the group is and where it has the capacity to be, and to work out the hindrances to covering that space, devising means of covering the distance and overcoming the hindrances on the way without sentiments. When that has been done, such solutions are executed with the power and the authority of leadership to move the system to the desired haven. When a leader thinks he or she is omniscient, he or she is headed for disaster! 

Inadequate consultation is the bane of leadership. Inadequate consultations in consulting people with personal visions, incompetent, parochial and shortsighted people, consulting people who are ignorant of the big picture and the power of corporate selfishness, who would rather get rich personally than make sacrifices for corporate prosperity. Such consultations will always end in people’s poverty and limitations and so undermine the true essence of leadership. It is a recipe for making a leader a limiting factor. 

Proverbs 25:4 Remove the dross from the silver, and a silversmith can produce a vessel;

5 Remove wicked officials from the king’s presence, and his throne will be established through righteousness. GNT

A leader must know the limit of his or her own capacities. No human being is infallible, none is perfect. He or she must then engage those people with enough integrity and skills, the very best among his or her people, to help create a corporate vision and to pursue the corporate vision to fulfilment in order not to become a limiting factor to the whole group. 

Not doing this will make a community of Nobel prize winners in different fields live in an environment of poverty of ideas, paucity of innovativeness and lack of both mental and physical development due to the overriding leadership quality!