The Failure Of Leadership Is Too Costly.
This quote has been attributed to bill Gates, “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they cannot loose”. Humility is a great virtue that enables leaders to learn from failures and make corrective measures but pride is a great source of failure in leadership. Our egoistic pursuit of success can easily fail us and blind us to the wisdom of humility and adopting the humble posture of learning from our occasional failures. Stephen Hicks attributes postmodernism to the failure of epistemology and socialism[1]. Hicks concludes His book clearly defining postmodernism as the modern left and the academic far Left’s epistemological strategy for responding to the crisis caused by failures of socialism in theory and practice.[2]
Stephen Hicks is a professor of philosophy in Rockford University, the executive director for the center for ethics and entrepreneurship, and a new scholar at the Atlas society. He outlines the failure of socialism and the frustration of the proponents of socialism in the failure of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Albania and Nicaragua which, was a big blow to socialism’s ability to claim a moral sanction.[3] The failures were both economic and moral. This failure of socialism was made even more pronounced by the fact that capitalist countries were doing well economically and, for the most part, going in the right direction morally.[4]
As a response to the failure of socialism, the proponents responded by trying to find new ways of attacking capitalism which, eventually evolved into postmodernism whose key proponents are identified by Hicks as all socialist leaning philosophers. Capitalism proponents won the debate but the socialist philosophers, keen on discrediting capitalism, successfully found another way of advancing postmodernism to countering modernism. They succeeded because of the incompleteness of explaining modernism which is also a failure on the part of capitalism philosophers or leaders. The failure of socialist philosophers to acknowledge the failure of socialism and failing to take responsibility to take corrective measures is a great failure of their leadership responsibility, just as the capitalists’ incomplete explanation of capitalism that gave room for the success of postmodernism. The consequences of their action is creation of confusion at the cost of massive failure of the socialist and communist states across the World with heavy human costs. On the other hand, the failure of modernism philosophers to have a complete explanation of the philosophy of capitalism/modernism has given room for postmodernism to succeed, creating confusion and distracting attention from the success of capitalism.
Leadership is very important in ensuring the success of groups, organizations, countries and society and calls for leaders whose focus should be serving the interests of their followers and not their own interests. Leaders should therefore take responsibility for failure and seek corrective solutions for the good of the followers instead of pursuing selfish narrow interests at the cost of their followers. It is clear that postmodernists, according to Stephen Hicks, were selfish self-seekers who pursued narrow interests of countering capitalism for their own scholarly relevance. As a Christian leader, I find my compass in the my faith in God, whose word gives the answers to life questions that philosophy does not provide. As a Christian leader, I have to depend on the guidance of God and His word that gives me direction and the values that guide my decisions and actions. Nehemiah stands out as a great leader that made sacrifices for the greater good of His people in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and restored the burnt down walls. David is also a great example in taking responsibility for his mistakes and repenting before God in humility. These two leaders derived their leadership abilities in their total dependence on God for divine guidance and from the wisdom gained through the counsel of His Word. I delight in knowing the absoluteness of God’s word and the certain of His existence and dependability, in contrast to the confusion that postmodernism philosophy presents.
[1] Stephen Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism From Rousseau To Facault. (China: Ockham’s Razor Publishing. 2011). Page i.
[2][2] Ibid. page 158
[3] Ibid. page 158
[4] Ibid. page 159
About the Author
Wallace Kamau
Wallace is a believer in Christ, Married to Mary Kamau (Founder and Executive Director of Missions of Hope International) and father to 3 Wonderful children, Imani Kamau (Graduate student at London School of Economics, UK), Victory Kamau (Undergraduate student at Portland state University, Oregon, USA) and David Kamau ( Grade student at Rosslyn Academy). Founder and Director, Missions of Hope International (www.mohiafrica.org), CPA, BAchelor of Commerce (Accounting) from University of Nairobi, Masters of Arts (Leadership) from Pan African Christian University.3 responses to “The Failure Of Leadership Is Too Costly.”
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Hi Wallace. Good stuff here. I agree with your takeaway from Hicks. One of the threads of of Hicks ideas leads him to conclude that since socialism has failed, its proponents had to find something to blame. Since they couldn’t bring down capitalism they had to make poverty, as Hicks writes, move from being absolute to being relative. Meaning, that since capitalism doesn’t make people poor (absolute), they had to make people (the proletariat) see that they were poor in relation to others. This is evil of socialism—divide people even into minority groups, i.e., women, race, social status, economic status, etc.
So much to write here. I’ll stop there. See you tomorrow brother.
Thank you for this important reminder about the role of leadership in this conversation. It has been interesting to watch the presidential process in the United States with a rise of democratic socialism being called for by a younger generation for the most part. Your points are extremely important in the full research and narrative of the outcomes of both systems. Both go terribly wrong with corrupt leaders looking out for themselves instead of the good of the people.
Thank you, Wallace, for the reminder that the answer is not in the philosophies of man, but in God alone! I thank God for your leadership.