Mwenzako Akinyolewa Chako Tia Maji
Rereading Genesis chapter 1
Leadership, Maintenance, and Genesis: Lessons from an Engineer’s Lens
Every system be it a machine, a nation, or a soul requires maintenance. When we ignore that truth, things fall apart.
Recent events in our region remind us that no society is immune and if Tanzanians have been under any illusions about being protected from what happens in the rest of the continent of Africa, I hope they have disabused themselves following the unfortunate happenings in that country in the recent past.
Ditto any of proponents of a higher pedestal upon which women leadership rests. Women deserve an equal seat on the leadership table, yet they are human beings just like men.
And no one should misuse gender as a weapon against this God ordained equality. History is full of failed male leaders who prove competence is not a gendered trait. Emperor Bokassa, Idd Amin dada, Mobutu Seseko, Hastings Kamuzu Banda to name just a few are men who set their resource rich countries on the road to impoverishment and near perdition.
Let’s make the playing field level for both genders. The book of Genesis reminds us that both men and women were created in God’s image, and what He made was very good. Yet, like any human system, our leadership structures require maintenance—moral, intellectual, and spiritual—to stay true to that goodness. Genesis chapter 1: 27-31 “in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. … God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”
That divine balance, male and female, equal and good, was our original design. But like all systems, that design requires maintenance. Those are the valuable lessons I learnt as a maintenance engineer formed in the spiritual practices of Ignatius of Loyola. In this spirituality (referred to as Ignatian Spirituality) I have found maintenance parallels for the human soul and for leadership.
Routine maintenance has to be scheduled and adhered to according to the manufacturer’s guidelines. When the system fails it must be repaired and when newer more efficient systems come along you are better advised to embrace them.
In my little accounting I have learnt that this is why some assets depreciate, as you recognise that your asset is depreciating in your books of accounts you should be setting aside funds in your bank account for its maintenance, repair and eventual upgrade.
How do we do this in human systems? Do they come with maintenance manuals? At the foundation level we have the Holy Scriptures. We need to read and integrate whatever we read in our lives (kusoma na Kutenda mema – reading and doing what is good) Those books are not for decorating our handbags, shelves and desks! Then we have spiritual traditions like Ignatian Spirituality that build further and help us deepen our reading of Holy Scripture.
Beyond that I guess we have literature, anthropology, political science, management, leadership and other studies. These studies are meant to teach us what works and what doesn’t work in human societies.
Then of course, there is natural attrition. We must recognize that preparing to exit the stage for younger, better equipped leaders is a must. We must deliberately plan our succession and let go of the reigns when we no longer have value to add to the system.
The recent happenings in many of our economies are indictments on how we have failed visionaries like Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere and Thomas Sankara and posterity. We have opportunity to redeem ourselves though! We can accept our failures, learn, unlearn, relearn and Bounce Back into better versions of ourselves.
We owe it to those who came before us and to those who will inherit the future to maintain and renew the systems entrusted to us. That is how nations, leaders, and people Bounce Back. The future will thank us.