You can be poor and be a good leader. You can be rich and be a bad leader.

You can be poor and be a poor leader. You can be rich and be great leader

Introduction

I saw references being made about the alleged financial condition of our current parliamentarians. Based on what I read, it stated that with the exception of three parliamentarians, all the other parliamentarians are broke. My curiousity was piqued and so I stopped by the Office of the Integrity Commission to see if I can get a sight of the declaration of the parliamentarians. Unfortunately, financial condition of parliamentarians in the Turks and Caicos is not public information even though parliamentarians must document their financial condition with the Integrity Commission. The only thing I was able to see was the register of interests that was declared by parliamentarians and there are no dollar amounts documented with the register of interests.  Despite the staff at the Integrity Commission assuring me that the financial condition of parliamentarians are confidential and not released to anyone, I left there wondering where the alleged information came from and how credible and reliable is the data that people put out there.

I then begin to ask myself, does it matter if a leader is poor or rich? As I ponder on this question, I concluded that the financial condition of a person does not necessarily determine whether that person will be a good leader or not, there are others things that matter that are discussed below.

Your financial condition

Our very first leader of the Turks and Caicos, Hon. JAGS McCartney was not a rich person but he was able to lead and transform the lives of many people in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Mother Theresa was not a rich person but was a world changer through her charitable work. You see you can be poor and be effective as a leader as you know what it is to have little or nothing at all and so you will do all you can so the lives of others can be improved.  Of course, you can be poor and become very corrupt because you don’t want to be poor and so you become greedy and do whatever it takes to get out of your poor condition.

Now being rich does not mean you will lead well. You can be rich and so out of touch with the average person on the street and the only thing you care about maybe to become richer.  Of course, there are some rich people who are great leaders and it is not because they are rich, it is because of other reasons which I will discuss below.

Your good heart

You can be rich and you can be poor but what really matters the most is your heart. If you have a good and kind heart, you will be effective as a leader. A good and kind hearted leader will be caring and will be empathize and sympathize with the people and in so doing will address the needs of the people. A good hearted leader will go to bed thinking about the people. A good hearted leader will wake up thinking about the people. A good hearted leader will put policies in place to empower and uplift the people.

Your integrity

If you are a person of integrity, it does not matter if you are poor or rich. Your integrity will not allow you to compromise your financial condition. No matter how poor you are, you will not become greedy. No matter how rich you are, you will not become greedy. Therefore, to me, what matters about leaders is their integrity.

Your ability

Finally, I believe the ability to get things done is what matters. You can be rich and still do not have the ability to get things done. Of course, you would think because someone was rich, that person was able to get things done. Not necessarily so. Ironically, you can be poor and have the ability to get things done.

Can you imagine people calling themselves leaders and they are not able to get anything done? The whole essence is about leadership is the ability to get things done. Your ability is centered on your confidence, your wisdom, your vision, your communication and your aggressiveness.

Conclusion

Now I do believe for transparency purposes, the financial conditions of our political leaders should not be confidential. If the information is in the public domain, it would prevent people from fabricating the financial conditions of our leaders. I cannot speak for other countries but I know prior to the General Election in the Bahamas, the financial condition of all parliamentarians were published.

As I said in the introductory paragraph, your financial condition does not dictate your ability to lead. You can be poor and be a good leader. You can be rich and be a poor leader. Likewise, you can be poor and be a poor leader. You can be rich and be a great leader. What matters is that you have a good heart, you are a person of integrity and you have the ability to get things done.