REINHILD NIEBUHR

with Craig Bailie

WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE?

In this episode of Young Africa TODAY, South African author, businesswoman and social entrepreneur Reinhild Niebuhr engages in a conversation with Craig Bailie, a South African policy researcher. Craig raises the important notion of ‘followership’ – understanding our role as citizens in Africa in relationship to our leaders – and emphasises the need to reflect on the question of our individual purpose in relationship to our environment, whether we are leaders or followers.

Watch this episode and join the conversation on how we as the people living in Africa can work together towards building stronger families, neighbourhoods, communities, countries and the continent of Africa as a whole.

NOTE: Kindly also read the following comments by Craig Bailie, after he viewed this video of our conversation:

“Yesterday, Reinhild Niebuhr of the Young Africa FOUNDATION interviewed me. I enjoyed our conversation about issues that one cannot come close to unpacking to the degree necessary in the space of half an hour. I hope the relatively short interview will inspire wider conversation and more meaningful action.

Having watched the recording of the interview, I will make a few qualifications/admissions:

(1) For me, the key takeaway of the interview is the significance of individual purpose for living a full life and for pursuing and executing meaningful collective action (the health of the collective depends on the individual’s health).

(2) While I agree that followership is fundamental to leadership (the latter cannot exist without the former), I don’t know that “followership is as important as leadership.” I agree with John C. Maxwell’s dictum, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” It takes a leader to create and sustain a following. It takes a good leader to create and sustain a following while multiplying leaders and serving those outside the ‘in group’ (political leaders must please note this). Perhaps the question is less one of, ‘Which is more important?’ and more one of, ‘Which comes first?’ The point is, things start with leadership. People of faith may want to think about how the universe came into existence, for example.

(3) I realize I didn’t do an outstanding job of defining/explaining the concept of ‘followership.’ I have my instructors at Regent University (Dr. Kathleen Patterson in particular) to thank for introducing me to this concept. Good leadership depends on good followership. For leaders to be good, they not only need to have good followers, but they themselves must exercise good followership. Every person is ultimately under the authority of someone or something else. By ‘good followership,’ I mean courageous followership. Ira Chaleff outlines the dimensions of courageous followership: the courage to assume responsibility, the courage to serve, the courage to challenge, the courage to participate in transformation, the courage to take moral action, and finally, the courage to speak to the hierarchy. I can recommend his book, “THE COURAGEOUS FOLLOWER: STANDING UP TO & FOR OUR LEADERS.”

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