There's an aspect of leadership that most political leaders don't like: building others to become leaders. Many don't realise that 'building' is as much an important part of leadership as 'leading'! Some pretend to build, but just install a weak, proxy leader and hold court from behind.

Which begs the question, why don't most politicians build leaders?

Because they are afraid. Afraid that the person they build will take over from them before they are ready to quit. But that's exactly what leadership is all about, to invest what we have learnt into others, and in their ability to lead better than us, we bask in the glory of having taught well.

Many years back while being chairman of an international organisation called the Round Table, I decided my theme would be, "Build Leaders!" I had T-Shirts printed with this theme and each of the members proudly wore one. Many years later, one of the members took over as the MD of a large pharmaceutical concern. On the day he was to address hundreds of his employees and stockholders, he pulled out the now old worn-out T-Shirt and holding it up, talked about how my legacy had influenced him, and how he was going to follow the same with all of them.

From the last I've heard from him; the company is doing extremely well.

What happens when political leadership isn't built? The organisation stagnates. Others overtake and soon the party becomes redundant.

The trap that most leaders fall into is to build a cult around themselves. Instead of building the organisation which means building leaders to carry on the task, they build only their own image and pull others down. Unfortunately, a leader is not immortal, but an organisation can be, but only if leaders are built to carry on the task the first leader started.

An example of a good builder leader was Christ. Even before management books were available, and the world filled with management gurus, he had a great leadership plan in place; twelve men, who lived with him, were taught by him, and then while his ministry was still going on, sent them out with instructions on how to deal with people and situations. They went out as leaders, with powers of healing and preaching, and then came back, where they were told where they had failed and how to overcome that failure and do better.

They certainly learnt much, as their leadership has the greatest number of followers till date.

This year, all you insecure political leaders and you who have made convenient proxies, step forward and build, invest your knowledge and skills, in not one, not two, but as many as you can and the country will benefit.

An old worn-out T-Shirt in my cupboard grins at me, as I end this piece...!