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LEADERSHIP
The Price of Leading
NJERI MUCHUNU
“I am crushed by the criticism. I get so tired of all the hats I wear, jobs I do, and time I spend. I’m exhausted by the weight of responsibility I have!” Does this sound like you?
Njeri Muchunu is a Leadership Curator and Advocate of the High Court of Kenya. She has extensive experience in the legal profession spanning over 17 years. She has worked in private legal practice, as an executive in the Corporate sector as well as the Public sector.
Startupmagazine.co.ke Jan/Feb 2020
L
eadership can be a burden. It will be painful — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
It is inevitable, inescapable. By its very nature leadership produces change, and change – even wonderful growth and progress- always involves at least a measure of confusion, loss and resistance. To put it another way, leadership that does not produce pain is either in a short season of unusual blessing or it is really not making a difference. Leadership is a magnet for pain which comes in many forms. You catch flak for bad
decisions and people blame you. You get criticism even for good decisions because you have changed the beloved status quo. When people suffer a crisis, you care deeply for them and instead of giving simplistic advice (or blowing them off) you carry their burden which means that some of the weight of their loss falls on you. Along the way, you are not immune to the ravages of betrayal by those you trusted, the envy of your friends and the list goes on. Many a leader feel shackled by past failures or past pains. Others look into
