Are we training new dictators?

As I was about to write about how a true servant leader gets things done, I was reminded about a research project that my wife Teboho has carried out on leadership in schools.

I decided to go to St Michaels College to see how tomorrows leaders are groomed there. Fr George Hunt was discussing leadership with school prefects.

What did Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler and Mobutu Sese Seko have in common? Fr Hunt asked.

They are all dead, declared one prefect. They were all dictators, another answered.

They were all altar boys, John, the head boy said.

I hadnt thought of that one, but thats brilliant! Fr Hunt responded, writing on the blackboard. You have in fact given me a good heading for this session: Dictatorship and the Churchs Altar Boys. But before we proceed, John, tell me this: You are also an altar boy and you have a skivvy. How does the boss/skivvy system work?

In our system, John explained, every prefect has a servant boy or skivvy who calls him Boss. The skivvy makes the bosss bed, cleans his room, shines his shoes and makes him coffee. The skivvy must do all this for the prefect before he can do them for himself.

You see, Fr Hunt said with finality, Karl Marx talked about the dictatorship of the proletariat. In our schools we practise and perpetuate the dictatorship of former altar boys and prefects. Our schools are academies for grooming the dictators of tomorrow.

It is arguable that the boss/skivvy system described by John has its merits. It teaches young boys to respect authority and prepares them for the harsh realities of life in the workplace.

In her research, my wife discovered worse examples of leadership training in schools. One former high school leader told her that in his school, prefects were allowed to punish boys who were considered to have violated rules. A well known form of punishment was to tie the offender to a tree and leave him hanging upside down!

The point of all this is to show that instead of training our student leaders to be servant leaders, we train them to be dictators. Those of us who have been to boarding schools will recall how new boys, instead of being made to feel welcome, are instead tortured, maltreated and made fun of by older boys; and how prefects lord it over other learners.

These traditions are supposed to be of great benefit to students as explained above, but unfortunately they tend to instil values and a culture that contradict Christian values. Many Christian schools just follow these traditions quite oblivious of Jesus teaching, and we then get surprised when former altar boys and prefects who were considered to be exemplary Christian leaders turn out to be dictators. What they have been exposed to is the leadership of domination, not servant leadership. They have been trained to be served, not to serve.

Church schools are supposed to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Just imagine the positive impact that John the head boy and his team of prefects would have if instead of only enjoying the services of their skivvies, they could make it a point to go to the junior hostels from time to time and make the junior boys beds, and even make coffee for them!

In this way they would be showing that a leader is not a boss who is there only to be served, but someone who also serves.

Christian schools can learn lessons from schools like Hilton College in KwaZulu-Natal which is going out of its way to promote the spirit of servant leadership among all its students.

Many of our leaders have gone through church schools. Can you imagine how much positive impact the Church could have on leadership practice in secular society if it could put into practice the teachings of its founder?