By Janet K Museveni
The First Lady and Minister for Education and Sports Janet Kataha Museveni delivered a key-note address on “Servant Leadership” to the newly-elected NRM Members of Parliament at the National Leadership Institute (NALI) Kyankwanzi in 2021. We reproduce an abridged-version:
I am happy to join you at this retreat and to address you on the topic, The Servant
Leader as a catalyst for socio-economic transformation. The NRM Government as you are aware embarked on the path of socio-economic transformation for our country many years ago.
Socio-economic transformation is one of the key Principles of the National Resistance Movement in addition to Unity, Patriotism and Pan-Africanism. Therefore, the choice of the theme of this retreat, “Ideological orientation for Socio-economic transformation” could not have been better.
Your coming to leadership at this time is an opportunity for you to add your brick on our country’s journey of socio-economic transformation. Why do I say this? I know that for everything God wants to accomplish, He first appoints a leader, and not just any leader but a servant leader. The call to leadership is therefore, a call to service.
When one finds a place of leadership, they have found a place of service. I know that you have had several technical presentations about Socio-economic transformation, so I will concentrate on the concept of Servant Leadership.
Servant Leadership is a leadership philosophy in which the goal of the Leader is to
serve. For many the word Leadership connotes power, authority, honour, prestige or personal gain. Servant Leadership on the other hands puts service at the centre.
The key attributes of a servant leader are humility, obedience, inner security,
teachable, honest, love and care for those they lead, self- control, faithfulness, selflessness, among others.
When leaders espouse these values in their communities, they become significant
change agents as those around them respond to emulate them. The servant leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the community to which they belong. When Leaders embrace Servant Leadership, they choose to serve others rather than use them.
As members of Parliament, we are expected to be servants of the people who elected us – that means we are to serve them, not lord it over them, lead them, give them a sense of direction, and evoke a sense of trust and teamwork in them. Then, and only then, shall we be dependable and accountable servants of the people we represent. The dignity of the people we serve, indeed of every human being, must be supreme.
Being a Servant Leader means that you are a servant first – you focus on the needs of others before you consider your own. You acknowledge other people’s
perspectives, give them the support they need to make decisions, and build a sense of community in the team that you are leading among the people who elected you to represent them. This leads to higher engagement, more trust, and stronger relationships with your stakeholders.
Our nation, Uganda, is very richly endowed in natural resources, our population is
young and vibrant. In fact, our countries in Africa are the envy of the developed
world, for that reason. Therefore, our challenge here is not really lack of resources but rather a limited availability of quality leadership at all levels. What our country needs right now are leaders who will focus on improving the quality of life of our people.
Our country went through turbulent times of bloodshed and endless wars, but God in His mercy gave us peace since the NRM Government came to power in 1986.
Since then, the NRM Government has been on a mission of rebuilding Uganda and
improving the quality of life of our people and we have made great strides.
Experience as Member of Parliament
- Connect to God – Because we are human, we need to connect with and draw strength from a higher power. Research has shown that there is a clear correlation between spiritual values and practices on one hand and leadership effectiveness; and that values which have long been considered spiritual ideals – such as integrity, honesty, humility, have a positive influence on leadership success.
What do I mean when I talk about connecting with God?
This simply means to live a life of prayer. We connect with God through prayer as
children talk to their father. Some of you may have read my book, “My Life’s Journey.”
The way I talk about anything I have done or succeeded in doing begins with prayer, in fact, reading my book for the first time, if you do not have God in your life, you may think that I am obsessed with prayer and maybe I am. But when you understand that Jesus said, “Without me you can do nothing,” and with Him we can do all things, then you can appreciate the fact that in order to do anything or all things, we indeed need to pray.
It is only through prayer and faith in the power of the Almighty God that can make
your leadership focus on service to others and stay the course. Politics is an area that brings a lot of temptation to “do what others are doing.” To suddenly see yourself as the “Honorable,” and feel tempted to supply the needs of so many, even if it takes giving a bribe to achieve it, etc.
However, it is prayer that can supply all needs according to God’s riches in glory.
Prayer also keeps you humble knowing that it is God and not you who is empowering you to achieve the great and small that you may be doing. As such, therefore, you need a dependable prayer life which is the foundation of all that you are and all you hope to do.
Therefore, the source of spiritual leadership is an inner life that enables one to
transcend self-interest and be able to connect with and serve the common good. This connection to do something greater than ourselves provides us with purpose and meaning, with altruistic values, rules to live by, and a source of strength during challenges.
To foster spiritual well-being, Parliament has provided places where members can
worship and fellowship, support groups, and spaces for collective times of worship for all religious faiths, and spiritual leaders for confidential inner spiritual guidance and support are also in place. In the sacred duty entrusted to us I have mentioned above, we must subscribe to a higher power and look out for one another, and be our brothers’ keepers, so to speak. But I must be quick to add that this Parliamentary facility is for fellowship. It is important but it is secondly on your primary prayer life at home.
As you probably know, I served as Member of Parliament for Ruhaama County in
Ntungamo for 10 years. I had never dreamt of joining politics at any one time and
my decision to do so caused an uproar within the Party and the nation I must say. It is my personal connection with God that led to that decision to begin with.
I knew God had called me to serve the people of Ruhaama at that time and nothing was going to deter me on this journey. I can testify today that I was able to walk that journey successfully because of my connection to God and my heart to serve the people. This was my only motivation- service, it was not power, it was not personal gain or even to prove a point.
The assurance that God had sent me to Ruhaama and that I was there to serve, gave me the confidence to remain myself as a politician. I have noticed a culture among politicians today, many of us think being a politician means being loud, rude, argumentative, and sometimes abusive.
And so, you find gentle, quiet people turn into something that they themselves can hardly recognise the moment they get into Parliament. We lead better when we are ourselves. God has given each one of us a unique personality, gifts, abilities, and strengths for service. The Servant Leader must know who they are and the gifts and talents that they bring to the table. When we ignore these and copy others, we deny humanity these valuable gifts that God has given us and in turn we struggle to lead.
Integrity:
- 2. Secondly, cultivate Integrity in your life- The word Integrity is derived from
the Latin word Integer, which means a whole number. Integrity, therefore, is the state of being whole and undivided. It is the quality of being honest and having
strong moral principles. It is an inner value that is expressed in our habits, attitudes, and actions.
David Eisenhower said, “The supreme quality for Leadership is unquestionably integrity, without it, no real success is possible”. We cultivate integrity in our lives by choosing to be true to ourselves, by shunning evil and having the courage to do the right thing even when it is costly to us. We do everything possible to march our words with action. It is a road less travelled, so we need to be accountable to others.
When I got to Ruhaama, I found a culture of politicians giving money to voters. Each time I called people they demanded to be paid; as a leader, I did not think this was right and I had to obey my conscience. So, I explained to my people that what I was teaching them was more valuable, and if there was anyone who should be paid, it should be me. This was tough for them to take but because I stood my ground, I was able to change that.
I remember one day at a meeting, the women composed a song saying…we have
decided to vote for you even if you do not give us money. It took leadership to break that cycle among the people.
Integrity as I said earlier is a state of being whole and undivided. It means that what we appear on the outside is what we are on the inside. There is no discrepancy between our private life and public life.
As you get into public life, it is especially important that you bring order in your private world. The Servant Leader lives out the principles he teaches. An authentic life gives you credibility as a leader and gives you the authority to address issues.
Begin this leadership journey by ordering your private life in the right direction. Begin this journey by bringing order in your family that is where leadership begins.
Why do I say this? The socio-economic transformation we are talking about begins by the transformation of the family unit. The family is the basic unit of society and a nation is as strong as its families. As a leader, you cannot help other families if your own family is not in order.
I have noticed a very worrying trend over the years, the increasing marriage breakdown of young Legislators. The young men feel this is the time to divorce and marry a new wife while the women on the other hand do not care anymore to ensure the stability of their families.
Let me speak to you as a mother and one who has managed a family and a public office at the same time. You need a strong family to succeed as a leader. After the hustle and bustle of a public office, you need a haven to go back to. A strong family is the wind beneath the wings of a leader.
You cannot lead others if you cannot manage your own family. Let the transformation begin in your own home. Mother Tereza once made this profound statement- “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” As the adage goes, charity begins at home.
I appeal to you to build strong families. It takes a lot of sacrifice to do this, but the benefits are worth it. Avoid actions that may lead to the detriment and destruction of your marriage and the suffering of your children and family members, as this will bring you into disrepute before the people who trusted you enough to elect you.
If you are married, I pray that you will commit to your relationship to your marriage partner and your family as you serve. Only then will you have authority to guide the many families in your Constituency.
Clear vision and mission:
- 3. Thirdly, have a clear Vision and Mission- The first and basic characteristic of leadership is having a Vision of what could be and enlisting others by appealing to their values, hopes and dreams. Without a Vision, there can be no leadership. If we do not know where we are going, we will never get there.
Vision is an image or description of the future. It answers the question “If we could create the Constituency of our dreams and have the impact, we most desire, what would we look like five years from now?” Mission on the other hand, defines who we are and the way we carry out all our work.
Mission defines the focus of our work, the direction we are going to take to accomplish things. While Vision is directional and answers the question, “Where will we be in five years?” Mission is foundational and answers the question “why do we do what we do? Why do we exist?” It is said that vision is eyes- it is what you see, and Mission is hands – it is what you do to achieve the Vision.
The Servant Leader must have a clear vision and mission for the Constituency- what do you want your Constituency to look like in the next five years and what are you going to do to achieve it.
When I went to Ruhaama, I had a clear vision of what I wanted to do for my people.
I wanted to see their livelihood improved right from the homestead. I wanted to see clean homes that were economically empowered. I wanted the people to have quality social services ranging from education, health to the environment.
And so, I engaged in several activities ranging from the homestead to rehabilitating schools. To ensure complete development of households in Ruhaama, I introduced annual homestead development competitions for all households in the constituency.
A team of adjudicators would inspect all homesteads focusing on basic requirements that make a home a comfortable place to live in.
These included home hygiene, proper nutrition, proper sanitation, availability of adequate food gardens, a granary for food storage, mosquito nets, income generating activities, etc. At the end of the inspection and scoring of marks, I would award prizes to winners in every Sub-County, and this encouraged everybody else to work harder on developing their homesteads.
Together with my team and partners, we facilitated training and sensitisation of communities on poverty eradication programmes. Many of our people are living in abject poverty and yet they have land. The President has passionately taught our people for years, but he cannot be the only one doing this. We must stand up and teach our people what do.
In addition to sensitisation and training, we also initiated income-generating activities for the poorest in the community including, goat rearing, cattle rearing, poultry, piggery, etc. These are some of the things that you can focus on, to improve people’s lives.
In the area of social service delivery, I constructed many classroom blocks in schools that were badly in need of classrooms. Improved the only referral hospital (Itojo) and other health centres in the constituency. Established a clean water provision programme that provided gravity flow schemes and water wells to many schools and communities. I also worked with the Central Government to provide power for lighting and small-scale manufacturing and to improve the road network across the constituency and neighbouring counties.
By the grace of God, I also established a microcredit revolving fund for the youth,
women, and men in all the Sub Counties of Ruhaama Constituency. This went a long way in improving the economic status of many families.
I will never forget a testimony by a young man who after university did not bother
to look for a job but went on to borrow money and start his own ICT Training school. Today, he is a serious entrepreneur running a company known as Raptech and he now employs several young people.
We were also able to introduce improved agricultural methods and supported
environmental conservation by spearheading a campaign of tree planting on the bare hills of Ruhaama.
I must also tell you that I did a lot of monitoring of Government programmes to ensure that they brought real and tangible results to families. The NRM Government has invested heavily in programmes to uplift the standard of living of our people including NAADS, Operation Wealth Creation, the Youth Livelihood Programme and the Women Fund among others.
If these programmes were well monitored by you Members of Parliament, they would help our people. It is not enough to stand on the floor of Parliament and complain about what is not happening in our communities. We should be the ones to report what is not happening and put the various Ministries at task to do what they need to do.
Shortly after I joined the Ministry of Education and Sports, I had to take a
countrywide school feeding campaign to ensure our children are fed at school.
Because school feeding has a big bearing on the learning of our children. It is
incumbent upon you Members of Parliament to ensure that our children get school lunch. This will improve the children’s attention in class.
The NRM Government has committed to build a primary school at every parish. If
our parishes were organised, children would run home for lunch and come back to school or better still, primary school would close at 1:00 p.m. And secondary schools at sub-county level would each get a bus to pick students and drop them in the evening. So, it would be the secondary school students that pack lunch.
It is our job as Parliamentarians to oversee the implementation of the laws and
policies we enact, The Public Service, which includes the Legislature, is an
indispensable instrument of national development. It distills and dissects the policies of government, discovers, and develops the systems for implementing these policies and determines and deploys the manpower. These tasks are indispensable for socio-economic transformation.
My sincere prayer is that we shall all embrace Servant Leadership, may our connection with God, our lives of integrity and clear vision and mission be the strength and guiding light as we serve our motherland, Uganda.