The Bahamas Youth Leadership Development Programme was re-launched on Saturday, November 26, 2016, with the guest speaker for the event being Prime Minister of the Bahamas, the Rt. Hon. Perry G. Christie (centre). Accompanying Prime Minister Christie to the event was Minister for Grand Bahama, the Hon. Dr. Michael Darville (seen at right). Also seen are the founders, Zhivargo Laing and his wife, Zsa Zsa, former participants and current 12th grade students from Grand Bahama. (BIS Photo/Lisa Davis)
Impressed with the work of the Bahamas Youth Leadership Development Programme, Prime Minister Perry G. Christie urged the event’s founders to develop it on a national level.
The nation’s leader was on island on Saturday, November 26, 2016, to officially re-launch the programme at Pelican Bay Resort at the invitation of founder, Zhivargo Laing.
Minister for Grand Bahama, the Hon. Dr. Michael Darville, and Melvin Seymour, Permanent Secretary, Ministry for Grand Bahama, accompanied the Prime Minister to the event.
Following a brief history of the organization by Mr. Laing, the Prime Minister told the 12th grade students from high schools on the island of when he was put out of school at the age of 14 and told he could not learn. He explained that educator, D.W. Davis refused to give up on him, and he went on to pass not only his BJCs but BGCSE’s as well.
“Intervention in a child’s life becomes very significant. Sometimes it makes the difference in that life,” he said.
Prime Minister Christie urged the students to believe in themselves and not worry about where they have come from or where they are in their classes academically. If they believe, he said, they will achieve great things.
Relating to his audience that leadership has been his life, the Prime Minister said it has taught his five valuable lessons.
Prime Minister of the Bahamas, the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie, was on Saturday, November 26, 2016, the guest speaker at the re-launch of the Bahamas Youth Leadership Development Programme at Pelican Bay in Freeport. Also seen in the front row are: Zhivargo Laing, Founder; Minister for Grand Bahama, the Hon. Dr. Michael Darville; and Melvin Seymour, Permanent Secretary, Ministry for Grand Bahama. (BIS Photo/Lisa Davis)
“First, leadership matters. John Maxwell says, ‘Leadership sets a cap on everything.’ I believe this to be true. Families, schools, businesses, churches, communities and nations, more often than not, achieve to the extent of the quality of their leadership. We needed capable leadership in our country in the past; we need it today; and, we will need it in the future. The extent to which this and other youth programmes succeed in developing leadership in our young people is the extent to which we will lift the cap on our nation’s future. Leadership truly matters.
“Second, leadership is not a position. If leadership was a position you could just appoint someone to it and they would be a leader. If anyone believes that just getting elected, appointed or promoted to a leadership position is sufficient to make them a leader, then they show great unawareness of principle of leadership. You don’t become a leader by a title and you don’t need a title to be a leader.
Leadership is more than positions or titles. Leadership is the ability to rouse the conscience of a group of people so that they can work together to achieve a common objective. It is inspiring, moving, motivating and empowering people to do what they must do to accomplish great things. In order to do this, leaders must have vision, that is, some way that they are seeking to shape the world so that it is better than what exists. We motivate people to work and work together when they have, believe in and share a common compelling vision.
“Third, leadership is an act of both the mind and the heart. Effective leaders have to be able to think critically, solve problems, effect good plans and execute them. Yes, it is helpful for good leaders to be knowledgeable, smart, intelligent and experienced. It is helpful, some say even necessary, for leaders to be able to have clear thoughts and to articulate those thoughts to others. Leaders must be clear minded indeed. Leaders, however, must also have those soft skills that speak to our higher humanity.
Leaders must be listeners, respecting that others have a voice, words and thoughts that matter. Leaders must be gracious, knowing that the power they wield is only wielded well when used in the interest of bettering others. Leaders must be sympathetic, able to suffer with those of their followers who suffer. Leaders must be compassionate, able to move to relieve suffering where possible. Head and heart sometimes contradict each other, but there is no better expression of humanity than when both work together in a leader to improve the human condition.
Following the opening ceremony of the re-launch of Bahamas Youth Leadership Development Programme, guest speaker, Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Perry G. Christie, spoke with some of the 12th grade students of St. George’s High School. The event took place on Saturday, November 26, 2016 at Pelican Bay Resort, Freeport. (BIS Photo/Lisa Davis)
“Fourth, leadership is demanding. Our world is complex. The people in it come to life with many different backgrounds, interests, desires and views. Leadership requires spending considerable time and energy making results happen. Because this is so, effective leaders find that they must make great personal sacrifices carrying out their work.
“While others watch, the leader must be about the business of getting results. Sometimes your effort results in success; sometimes it does not. I find that if you have done your best, Heaven will not ask for more. You can lay your head on your pillow at night and sleep soundly knowing that you gave all you had to making the world in which you live a better place for the people you serve.
“Fifth, leadership is about service; service to people. When a leader makes leadership about himself, he/she runs the great risk of missing the whole point of the noble calling.” The Prime Minister said that being a leader is about the people you serve and not you.
People of his generation, he continued, will soon have to leave frontline leadership whether it is in the family, school, church, business, community or the nation. When this happens, there will still be work to be done and leaders today, if wise, will provide those who follow with the skills to be successful.
“This is why I have come. Because I want to join with Zhivargo in saying that leadership matters and because it matters it must endure. For it to endure, we must do the work that this programme seeks to do. We must build or “BYLD” the leadership skills of you are young people. As the late, great Dr. Myles Munroe said, ‘The greatest act of true leaders is mentoring’.”
By Robyn Adderley
