Lead in the marathon, not the sprint

by Dr Raymond Perrier · June 23, 2014

There are some phrases in the English language which we use as throwaway lines and forget how incisive they are.�I often say to people who seem to be running out of energy when a project is not quite completed: �Don�t give up yet! It�s a marathon, not a sprint!�

Prof Al Gini in conversation after a Pretoria lecture on leadership. (Photo: Sithembiso Shoba)

I was reminded more fully of the true importance of this phrase when I found myself a few weeks ago travelling on a plane with a group of people coming home from Durban the day after the Comrades Marathon.

If you ever watch the race, you may get carried along by the energy of the crowd, the adrenalin of the event and the sheer force of will of the participants, and so not see the true pain experienced by the runners. But 24 hours after they completed their 72km run, the heroes on our plane showed through their hobbling and limping and tender steps that it had not been an easy task.

I was flying with Prof Al Gini who was halfway through our own version of the Comrades�the Winter Living Theology.

In his four weeks in the country Prof Gini covered 4000km between four cities, and delivered 46 lectures to a cumulative audience of over 1000 people.

He confessed to me that the last time he had spent this much time with nuns was when he was at primary school with what he jokingly called the BVMs (�black-veiled monsters�) in Chicago 65 years ago.

This amazing feat of endurance lecturing had been delivered by a man whose energy belied the fact that he had just celebrated his 70th birthday!

Reflecting on what he had to say, it occurs to me that the phrase �it�s a marathon not a sprint� could apply not just to the programme of his lectures but also to the subject of his lectures.

His theme was leadership�how to nurture good leaders, how to respond to bad leaders, how to build trust, how to rebuild trust. And the theme was one which found resonance among each of the audiences he spoke to: clergy, bishops, lay people, business leaders, civil servants.

There is no doubt that there is a �crisis of leadership� in South Africa. Prof Jonathan Jansen at the University of the Free State has used this phrase and many have agreed. But we fall too easily into the trap of expecting to get out of the crisis in one bound. Surely just one more course or book or workshop, and all will be solved.

Of course it won�t be, and South Africa�s own history reminds us that change has always taken a long time and there are frequent setbacks along the way.

Madiba�s leadership�his skill, his honesty, his resilience, his magnanimity�did not emerge overnight but were forged by many years of hardship as an activist and even more as a prisoner.

The struggle against apartheid itself was not a single act of courage and resistance but a sustained lifetime of protest and resistance by many people over several decades.

And so the forging of this still new nation and the creation of a culture of ethical leadership is not something which can happen even in just 20 years.

Prof Gini reminded participants that South Africa is still in a better shape than the United States was 20 years after they became an independent nation.

This is not to let us off the hook, nor to give us a reason to give up in despair, but rather to appreciate the small victories along the way�each completed kilometre of a marathon�and not give up while the race is still in progress.

Among the most inspiring moments of the course was when the professor invited participants to share examples of people in their lives who had been outstanding leaders.

Some wonderful �unsung heroes� were proposed: the Soweto man who showed consistent fairness both at work as a policeman and at home as a father; the husband who had given up a comfortable life as a well-paid surgeon so he could treat children in need; the teacher who every day of the holiday read to her young students in the park; the mother who demanded respectful behaviour not only from her nine children but also from the apartheid forces who tried to bully her.

Each of these stories was linked by examples of great virtue shown not in one heroic act of moral courage, but instead in a life of daily perseverance and struggle and commitment.

These people may never have taught a leadership course in their lives or written a book, but their witness to the people close to them bred a generation of leaders who hold true to those values.

In turn, we have our chance to be models of leadership to those who are influenced by us�in our families, in our workplaces, in our communities.

But if we really want to bring about change, we have to show this not just in one flashy sprint but in an ongoing marathon of good leadership.