By Tope Babatope
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What will be the future of leadership in our world? This must have been one of the series of questions , Dr Myles Munroe  asked in his last book titled, “The power of character in leadership” before living this sinful world through a plane crash. Of course this is a question for all to ruminate on. A familiar but significant truth applies to our present leadership crisis.

You can lead people only as far as you gone yourself. And many of our leaders have not stepped up to the starting line of character development, let alone crossed over it.

A future that includes strong, ethical leaders in our governments, businesses, educational institutions, civil organizations, and homes will be secured only by a return to character training and personal character development as our priority. Leaders must embrace this challenge and actively seek to change their ways if our nation is to move from mind-set of corruption and compromise to an outlook of conviction and character. Instead of seeking political power or economic power or entertainment power or sports power, leaders should pursue political character or economic character or entertainment character or sports character .

Munroe explained in one of his write ups why today’s leaders are so deficient in character. According to him , a major reason is that across the globe, much of leadership training both formal and informal- fails to emphasize or even include the concept of character as an essential element of leadership . In addition, many governmental and corporate leaders, along with supervisors, bosses, and others in authority, are not mentoring their colleagues and employees in important principles of character development .

A new type of leader must begin to emerge within our governing institutions, our communities, our business , our employment, our families- and ourselves. Leadership that is weak in ethics and values has allowed our nations to fall apart. It has also initiated many of the problems we grapple with. A return to character in leadership will enable us to begin to address these problems from a position of strength, resolve and honor.

Good character is like a personal security system for your life. Many people install security devices in their homes and places of business to protect them from outside forces- such as thieves who would steal from them and intruders who would do harm to their family members or employees. We can install character in our lives so that it will work like those security systems. We do this by developing values and establishing a code of ethics that will alert us to, and protect us from, the negative effects of various outside influences, such as life’s pressures, difficulties, and temptations. These negative influences can threaten our leadership by invading our lives and stealing our willpower, common sense, and better judgment . True leadership has always been built on strong character.