Let's learn from Pope Francis the importance of servant leadership

There is a lot to learn from Pope Francis, who has just fulfilled his promise to visit Africa this month. The fact that he chose Kenya as his first country to visit speaks volumes about her rightful place in the community of nations. But perhaps the most enduring lesson from the pontiff should be that one can be at the pinnacle of power and still remain humble and focused on the ideals of high office. Yes, Pope Francis has his own controversial side, especially his liberal views on gay people in a rather conservative church, but he still personifies the leadership ideals that sorely lack here. Take for instance his modest and humble mien and lifestyle. Here is a man who is at once a head of state and runs a social institution embraced by well over a sixth of the world’s population.

According to Wikipedia, there were about 1.254 billion Catholics by the end of 2013. That means the pope has easily the largest followership in the world. It also makes the widely-held belief that the US President is the most powerful man on earth to sound like another Rambo fiction. For while the US controls the world’s economy and sits at the head of the global military table, we cannot ignore the vice-like grip that religion continues to exact on the world.

Christians, as seen in the example of Jesus riding on a donkey to Jerusalem, should eschew profligacy. No one has adhered to the call for humility better than the Pope. While our leaders use their high office to harass motorists by breaking traffic rules – and brandishing weapons at funerals – the Pope prefers instead to illuminate the humanity of all by seeking to help end suffering of the poor. He is the stark opposite of haughty leaders who do not even obey laws and court orders and those others who complain about the size of the red carpet rolled out at their public functions.

And now to the question of acquisition and spending of money, which makes a typical Kenyan drool like a famished puppy at the sight of a chunk of meat. Simple math tells you that if Catholics were faithful in giving tithe – ten per cent of all the money they make – to the church, the Pontiff would be controlling a 60th of the world’s incomes. Here in Kenya, you give someone a small organisation meant to help people whose lives are eternally at risk – which is what top State officers are hired to do – but the focus is always on how to divert the budget to their pockets and ghost accounts.

And what do we do with the money? We just buy fuel guzzlers and huge houses that make it clear to hoi polloi that we are no longer on the same rung on the economic ladder. And as the few who are privileged to hold high office get richer and richer, those who should have benefited from the diverted cash get poorer and poorer. So, we bury our heads in the sand of ignorance, assuming we have secured the future for our teenage children, who drive cars that mock hard work, yet all we are doing is heightening future tension with every million we divert. Until that day when survival instincts snap into action, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth will become the order of the day for those to whom we bequeathed proceeds of graft. Don’t get me wrong. It’s cool to get rich, but not on the sweat of hapless peasants, even though the latter never learn and always vote with their stomachs.

As we welcome the Pope and wear a veil of piety, we must sit back and ask ourselves whether as servant leaders we must continue to chase the wind of fabulous wealth or spend our days on earth and in office making sure that that child from a slum in Kangemi can actualise the dream and hope that the Pontiff triggered on his maiden visit.