Our ship is going down; new leadership response needed - Otabil [AUDIO]
The founder of the International Central Gospel Church, Pastor Dr Mensah Otabil has called for a new leadership response to the national wellbeing of Ghanaians.
According to him, it was only through such a move that the economic crisis currently confronting Ghana could be averted.
In a message delivered at the Festival of Ideas 2014 in Accra on Thursday [August 14, 2014], Pastor Otabil said “we cannot continue partying and we cannot assume that things will get better. We have to act intentionally, decisively and methodically.”
He said as people who are players in the national life, whether as pastors, educators, finance people, “we can’t afford to be perplexed and so overwhelmed by what we hear, we see, that, we become frozen in action and we do nothing.”
The theologian and influential motivational speaker put his message across in a playback of the famous 1912 Titanic story and gave an account of how three captains of three different ships, the Titanic, Californian and Capethia, reacted when the Titanic was sinking.
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He said the captain of the Titanic, Edward John Smith who had a brilliant career and had never had an accident was so confident of the projections about the ship that it was unsinkable, and so did not go through all the safety and evacuation routines before sailing.
Pastor Otabil said when the ship hit an iceberg, even though it was a shock, the captain thought it was a minor incident and so there was a delayed response.
He said because they did not plan, when the ship started collapsing, they didn’t know what to do so there was a haphazard evacuation that led to massive loss of lives.
He recounted that at the time the titanic was sinking, the Californian was nearby but when they saw the SOS messages, the captain thought the titanic couldn’t sink and instead of moving to save lives, he assumed they were in a celebratory mood. And even when the lights were going down, they thought the ship was moving away and was on course and so did nothing.
Pastor Otabil said the third ship, the Capethia, which was even further away interpreted the signals correctly, turned around and travelled quickly at great risk through the iceberg to save lives.
He said the captain of the Capethia whilst speeding made arrangements for all the emergencies that would be needed and got his crew ready for the assignment.
They took four hours and when they got there, the titanic had sunk for two hours but they were able to rescue 710 people, “because he was a leader who responded quickly and knew what to do at that time."
Pastor Otabil said in all three scenarios, “we see three kinds of leaders that can emerge in a crisis.”
“The first is the one who is over-confident and believes in his own story, that he is unsinkable and continues telling himself that, till he sinks. And we can see that leadership in our own lives, in our companies, in our businesses, in how we manage crisis.”
“Or there is a second kind of leader who is the over cautious one, who never knows what to do and always hopes that things would be better, worst case scenario and so when the ship is sinking, he thinks it’s a party.”
“Or there is a third kind of leader, who is decisive, who follows the rules and who sees the urgency of the moment. I believe that we need a new leadership response in our national lives.”
“We cannot continue partying and we cannot assume that things will get better. We have to act intentionally, decisively and methodically. And if we do at the national level, I think we can avert a disaster.”
Pastor Otabil said instead of assuming things would be alright it would be better to come to the reality that things could get worse, and if they do, what do we do?
He said on the night of great tragedy when several hundred died, hundreds were also saved.
“We may not be able to save everything but we should be able to save something.”
“I have been a Ghanaian all my life and since my childhood, I have never in my life seen crisis go down in Ghana. I have never seen things go up and down. It seems as if we are on a permanent trajectory of deterioration, when things go bad, they don’t revert to normal, so I find it difficult to see things getting back to normal based on my experience as a Ghanaian.”
“So what do I do, I prepare for the worst and hope that I can arrive on time, to save some people or to provide some help somewhere.”
The motivational speaker said he was not government and doesn’t control the economy but only respond when some people make those decisions.
“If they make good decisions, good for us but if they make bad decisions, I still have to respond.”
Listen to Pastor Otabil in the attached 15-minute audio below
{mp3}otabil_titanic_leadership{/mp3}
Writer's email: enoch.frimpong@graphic.com.gh
