Lead with character – 2

“Reputation may help you build monuments. But character will help you build memories.”

Reputation is what people think you are based on the you that is revealed to them. Character, however, is really who you are when no one is watching you or breathing down your neck and there is no fear of penalty or the need to put up a good appearance. The real challenge of responsible conduct is, if your character and your reputation were to meet each other in a dark alley, would they recognize each other as belonging to the same person?

Reputation may get you a job or get your foot in the door. However, only character will determine how you perform! It is not unusual for people to project positive images to the public, especially in the age of social media and Photoshop that can make a troll look like a princess! When it is convenient, anyone can put up a good appearance. The capacity for make-believe is something that humans find almost natural. That is what actors do daily. A hypocrite is defined as somebody who pretends to possess principles, virtues, religious or moral values that he does not actually possess and whose actual conduct eventually belies the professed principles! The word actually originates from the Greek word “hupokrites” which means “actor”, “pretender”, “dissembler”. It is derived from stage plays where actors sometimes had to play roles that were not in sync with their natural character or when they had to act more than one character in a drama presentation. They would then have to wear a mask or disguise to represent the other persona they were trying to portray. A hypocrite is therefore someone whose actual conduct is totally out of tandem with his projected public profile. A good example is the “fake it till you make it” motivational speaker who regales his audience with a poverty to prosperity story to motivate them but who in actual fact, is very broke and probably came to the event in a borrowed suit! Or the public figure who publicly professes undying love for his wife and publicly serenades her while the poor woman is there wondering if this wasn’t the same pugilist who regularly pummels her into submission at home!

Driving on the wrong lane just because you can. Jumping the queue. Influence peddling. Inducing law enforcement to pervert justice. Buying judgments by bribing judges. Padding budgets and contract figures or awarding bogus ones that see money paid but the job never executed.  Lying in resumes to get a job. Embezzling or misappropriating the collective patrimony just because you have the privilege of a position. Desiring or contesting for public office simply because you believe that it is the easiest way to enrich yourself at the expense of everyone that you are elected to serve. Compromising the quality of products because you desire to make higher profits. Selling fake products for the price of the original. Bribing government officials or being bribed to facilitate a contract. Insisting that an applicant must sleep with you to secure a job that she is more than qualified for even after going through the rigours of an interview or selection process. A police man arresting innocent, defenceless citizens and extorting money from them simply because they are not connected to big wigs. Offering to sleep with someone in a privileged position simply because you need a favour, a job, or patronage that you know that by merit, you don’t deserve. Students sexually harassing lecturers for grades and lecturers sexually harassing students. Lecturers who insist that the purchase of an overpriced photocopied handout is a precondition for passing a course. Youths scamming people of their hard-earned money through the internet and feeling no sense of shame or remorse about it. Some even go ahead and compose songs to extol this aberrant lifestyle! Petrol pump attendants who dispense air for petrol or station owners who tinker with pumps to make them under-dispense. Nepotism that exalts parochial tribal, ethnic or religious bias over merit. The list of our perfidious moral debauchery appears endless.

When you talk about the upsurge of moral somersaults at every level of the society, some people are quick to blame it, in an escapist fashion, on poverty. In truth, poverty does not cause corruption. Rather, it is corruption that breeds poverty. When poverty is endemic in a society, check its moral fabric. You will find intricately woven into it, a predilection for and preoccupation with self, the very foundation for corruption. The Yoruba call it the “bamu bamu la yo, a o mo pe ebi npa omo eni kankan” syndrome. Translated, it simply means “as long as we are well-fed and fully satiated, who cares what happens to any other person?” It is the reason why one person would corner for himself from the common patrimony what should have been used to build good roads and functional hospitals and schools for thousands of others in the collective to benefit from. After all, if he needs to travel on the terrible roads, he can buy luxurious SUVs high enough from the ground with reinforced shock absorbers that absorb the impact of the rough terrain. If he or any member of his family falls sick, they can travel abroad for medical attention, and if his children need to go to school, it is the norm to send them abroad! Corruption is not a poverty problem. It is a character problem. Greed is not synonymous with poverty. No matter how much money you give a greedy man, he never has enough. Conversely, no matter how little a contented man has, he is grateful!

A leader’s character is not tested or proven in his comfort zone. To know a man’s true character, three platforms provide the litmus test. The first is adversity. You never really know a person until you see him confronted with pressure. How do you know if a man has contentment? When he is financially broke and now constantly sees people around him living in opulence. Or, while he is still thinking of how he would pay his rent to avoid being ejected from his sparsely-furnished two-bedroom apartment, he runs into a former subordinate who has become a multi-millionaire and owns several properties in town.

Good character is baked in the furnace of adversity that tests our resolve and values. Diamond is charcoal that survived intense pressure over time. It takes fire to separate gold from dross. The taste of orange is only known when squeezed. Tea releases its aroma in the atmosphere of intense heat.

Imagine this. Everyone in the office knows you as a man of integrity, the very reason for your present position. One of your children is about getting married. The youngest child’s school fees are due. So is your rent. Your only car breaks down. One of your parents is ill and needs medical attention urgently. As if on cue, without anyone else knowing about it, a customer brings you cash running into millions as payment for supplies made by your employer company.

What would you do?… continued.

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!

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