Leadership Essentials Workshop

“This workshop has been a real eye-opener to what leadership is all about. I am much thankful.”

That was a typical comment I received after completing a three day leadership training on behalf of Wycliffe Associates here in Jos, Nigeria with members of the national Bible translation organization.  A result of an organizational capacity assessment exercise I conducted with them last March, this was the requested training workshop they wanted me to come back and conduct for them.

Workshop Participants (top) Teamwork exercise to build
the tallest paper cup tower (bottom)

So, for seven hours a day Wednesday through Friday, I presented a basic Management 101 type course based heavily on the Managerial Leadership handbook of Robert Orr, a Canadian friend who has been doing this sort of training for years with Brazilian and other national ministries.

What was particularly interesting for me was to hear the many responses from folks when I was talking about good practices in mentoring, job performance reviews,  and developing the next generation of leaders. “This is so foreign to our Nigerian culture,” they said. “So often, leaders are threatened by their subordinates and will actually try to keep them from being successful.” The chairman of the board, a retired Army colonel,  gave a dramatic example when a military superior assigned him a task that was virtually impossible to do. “I know he did not expect me to complete it, probably thinking it would prevent any further promotion for me,” he said. “When I worked hard and was actually able to finish the job, I could tell he was so surprised.”

Another topic that generated a lot of discussion was on how to help leaders finish well. Again, the amount of corruption among Nigerian business, political and even church leaders is so common here that it has come to be a regular expectation of anyone in leadership.

Working through these cultural differences is certainly a challenge for a ministry like the Nigerian Bible Translation Trust. But from the strong affirmation I received for the material presented, I certainly hope it will have an impact in spurring greater integrity, efficiency and effectiveness in future translation projects.