1 Essential Ingredient Missing in Most Leaders

Did you know that you get a dopamine rush when someone echoes what you already believe? It’s similar to the buzz we get when we eat chocolate or fall in love. Sounds like we should surround ourselves with people who agree with us, doesn’t it?

Sadly that’s what often happens to leaders, including church and ministry leaders. They are drawn to those who affirm them and tend to avoid, silence, or ignore those who might challenge them.

But as Noreena Hertz explains at the Harvard Business Review, “a vast body of research now points to the import of contemplating diverse, dissenting views. Not just in terms of making us more rounded individuals but in terms of making us smarter decision-makers. Dissent, it turns out, has a significant value.”

When group members are actively encouraged to openly express divergent opinions they not only share more information, they consider it more systematically and in a more balanced and less biased way. When people engage with those with different opinions and views from their own they become much more capable of properly interrogating critical assumptions and identifying creative alternatives.

Studies comparing the problem-solving abilities of groups in which dissenting views are voiced with groups in which they are not find that dissent tends to be a better precondition for reaching the right solution than consensus.

Honest Feedback

It’s extremely hard for a leader to get honest feedback due to the fact that most people’s tendency is to say what the leader wants to hear. Yet how many leaders actively seek out and encourage views alien and at odds to their own? Not many. And, as Hertz demonstrates, this has damaging consequences.

President Lyndon Johnson notoriously discouraged dissent, with many historians now believing that this played a significant role in the decision to escalate U.S. military operations in Vietnam. Excessive group-think is now recognized to have underpinned President Kennedy’s disastrous authorization of a CIA-backed landing at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. Former employees of the now defunct Lehman Brothers have talked about how voicing dissent there was considered a career-breaker.

Yale economics professor Robert Shiller explained that when it came to warning about the bubbles he believed were developing in the stock and housing markets just before the financial crisis he did so only “quietly” because: “Deviating too far from consensus leaves one feeling potentially ostracized from the group with the risk that one may be terminated.”

Hertz urges leaders to actively signal that they want to hear views different and diverse and in opposition to their own and cites a number of encouraging examples....

Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google, has talked about how he actively seeks out in meetings people with a dissenting opinion.

Abraham Lincoln’s renowned “team of rivals” was comprised of people whose intellect he respected and were confident enough to take issue with him when they disagreed with his point of view.

Stuart Roden, Co Fund Manager of Lansdowne Partners’ flagship fund, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, tells me he sees one of his primary roles as being the person who challenges his staff to consider how they could be wrong, and then assess how this might impact on their decision-making.

Of course, for Christian ministry, we’re not talking about encouraging people to challenge core biblical doctrines and practices. We’re speaking more of vision, direction, strategy, administration, problem-solving, management, etc.

Who is your Challenger in Chief? Who questions your choices? Who contradicts your positions?

And are you welcoming them, listening to them, or shutting them down?

Prof Anyang Nyong'o, the Kisumu Governor is Commendably Transforming the County Poised for Tremendous Growth .

Kisumu County is set to have its first dairy processing plant.  The county government says it has already identified land where the plant will be set up in the coming months, in a move aimed at boosting dairy farming in the lake side county.


 Busia could contemplate of fish and Rice factories to start with. Kakamega and Bungoma should have mega private sugar factories, Transnzoia should have maize flour mills so forth. The entire region will produce ordinary chicken for entire Kenyan consumption if they deliberately embarked on thinking outside the box. Devolution can work for us .

Agriculturally , the region boasts of fertile soils sometimes tilling doesn’t necessarily require fertilizers ,

The proposal of Kisumu dairy processing plant, is a case study of what can be achieved when you get forward thinking leaders. Prof Nyong’o is definitely going to transform  Kisumu County. 

RAILONZO INTELLECTUALLY OUTGUNNED UHURUTO EVEN IF THEY HIDE BEHIND MANY MEANINGLESS WORDS ..…Dr Miguna Miguna .

Miguna Miguna is stratum quality whose credible views highly needed in this country for anyone who has been keen at listening to the barrister expound on matters of legal concern in Kenya. He is wise, intelligent and a fearless intellectual  .

On IEBC he " the rotten @IEBCKenya must withdraw its illegal Gazette Notice on the fresh poll. It must be restructured and overhauled. Viva! " . He never predicts falsehood .

He seems to be blending healthily with NASA’s politics that respect the rule of law. The coalition should be keen in taking this revolutionary thinker as one of their advisers as a matter of urgency  . Dr. Miguna Miguna is sharp, and his grasp of law is admiringly sweet , try to keep him closer.

Kenyan political situation needs tyranny of top thinkers and not of defectors singing “yes” and “ Nah “ “ Mtu wetu wanyumbani “ empty rhetoric songs as long as some cramps , left overs and freebies to entice selfish stomachs are thrown around at the expense of a Nation’s proper governance . 

A Girl child is not Merely for Advertisements . “You educate a man, you educate a man, You educate a woman, you educate a generation.” Brigham Young.

It’s fascinating to see more girls among top-ranking students; more women having jobs, access to education, money and resources; more women holding positions of authority and making strides in all fields. But, what about all those girls and women who didn’t even get a chance to live?

Unfortunately daughters are still termed as liabilities in this era even if they are highly educated and developing at a fast pace, there is still a higher preference for a male child !

Gender preference and  socio-cultural factors and mistreatment in most cultures like dowry, wedding expenses, custom of gift-giving, inability of girls to take care of parents after marriage, domestic violence, ill treatment by husbands and in-laws, ill treatment on account of giving birth to a girl, and so on. This gender preference goes hand-in-hand with gender discrimination.

In cities, women employees face the glass ceiling effect and disparities in pay. Their non-inclusion in the decision-making processes at almost every level is also a widespread phenomenon.

Due to the wide prevalence of the patriarchal social system, a lot of women are still deprived of the right to own ancestral property, which is mostly given to the male child.

Universal   phenomenon

Gender inequality or gender discrimination exist  in many countries around the world , and women are fighting for the right to vote, to choose what they wish to wear and to own property, among others.

Horrific practices like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and trafficking are highly prevalent in parts of Asia, Africa, Latin America, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Gender-based violence and honour killings are a global pandemic, and in some countries, women and girls fail to get even minimum protection against these horrific practices.

How do we speak about the ‘missing women’, bringing to light the practice of female infanticide and female foeticide, which doesn’t give the girl a chance to even be born.

So, how can we change this scenario, which doesn’t favor the female child?

Since change begins at home, parents are the best agents of change. We can begin by looking at the positives of having a girl in the family and her contribution to the society.

Women are -

Pillars of the future: Just as we say that the youth of today are the citizens of tomorrow, so is the same with our girls. They are the women of tomorrow. If we want to empower them, we must reduce inequality and gender gaps, and create strong women leaders. We have to let them live today and raise them to be those leaders of equality and development.

Change-makers: Brigham Young once said, “You educate a man, you educate a man. You educate a woman, you educate a generation.” Women are naturally more social and thus more inclined to help those around them. By bringing up their daughter with the right values and education, parents can kick-start the change and create a change-maker.

Multi-taskers: Women are much better at multi-tasking. They are taking up roles, which were previously the preserve of men, like CEOs, entrepreneurs, while handling the home and hearth with equal flair. In some cases, they are also the providers in the family.

Creators of inclusive spaces: Women possess qualities like perseverance, a nurturing spirit, empathy, sensitivity which, when combined with complementary traits like planning and organising, are conducive to creating more inclusive spaces for people.

With such strengths that women possess, why should they continue to be sidelined? The girls of today are proving themselves equal to boys in every respect. They are distinguishing themselves as achievers in every field, from academics to sport to profession. They are successfully playing multiple roles in every sphere of life. Their will to develop and help others develop alongside is what can take our society forward. They are meant to be 50% of the population, their voices matter in creating a more equitable community. Moreover, they make a ‘house’ feel like ‘home’. So, go ahead and welcome the girl child with a warm embrace!