Understanding our sexuality and how it affects us is fundamental to our ability to lead well. Good teaching about sex and sexuality, therefore, should be mandatory for leadership training.
This thought was further reinforced, after a five days training on sexual purity before and after marriage, for eighty one young leaders. The training was conducted by Choose to Wait, a ministry of Christ’s Hope International.
Understanding one’s sexuality, particularly when still young, is important because the sexual choices people make have far reaching consequences on their lives and their ability to lead well. In life, “we are free to choose” Silvia Holtzhausen observed, “but we are not free from the consequences of our bad choices.
Many young people in Uganda have limited understanding of their sexuality. This is a result of a culture that does not talk about sex. For many, talking about sex is taboo. Parents, whom I believe should be the first teachers of the subject, have relegated this vital responsibility to schools, the media, the peers of their children and other mediums. The outcome is confusion and skewed understanding that leads to wrong sexual choices.
It’s worth noting, also, that a lot of teaching on sex and sexuality common today is a form of ‘fire fighting’. I received what I would call my first formal teaching on sex and sexuality in primary five; and the reason? We had to learn and protect ourselves from HIV/AIDS. No one labored to explain to me my sexuality.
There is nothing wrong with teaching on sex and sexuality that is aimed at HIV/AIDS prevention; in fact more of it should be conducted. However, I think that teaching for HIV/AIDS prevention and other reproductive health related reasons a lone is limiting. There needs to be good and holistic teaching on sex and sexuality that focuses on both before and after an individual begins to have sex. In such teachings, the issues of sex and leadership, whose detrimental consequences we see in our society today, cab be effectively dealt with.
You must be asking for the meaning of good and holistic teaching on sex and sexuality. I say ‘good’ because I know there is a lot of bad teaching out there. I say ‘holistic’ because there is a lot of ‘bits and pieces’ teaching that focuses on different parts and not sexuality as a whole. Good and holistic teaching should be the kind that empowers the individual to understand himself so that he is able to make the right sexual choices both before and after he begins to have sex. It is through this understanding and being empowered that he can avoid the consequences of bad sexual choices.
What has this got to do with leadership? Quite a lot. Whether one’s service has been cut short because of HIV/AIDS, or one is having trouble because of a crumbling marriage, or children being raised without all of their parents, or someone is making news because of a sex scandal, all these affect the leader’s productivity and have far reaching consequences not only on the leader but on those that he leads as well.
I have found that the Biblical view of sex and sexuality, which is clear on how an individual should conduct themselves before and after they begin having sex, and in what context an individual should have sex, is not only good but holistic. It empowers individuals to make the right choices thereby avoiding the consequences of bad sexual choices.
It is my contention that understanding our sexuality and how it affects us is fundamental to our ability to lead well. We ought to make good teaching on sex and sexuality mandatory for leadership training.
What is the place of teaching on sex and sexuality in leadership training?
Kimumwe Gilbert
September 4, 2011 at 11:00 PM
Thanks 4 dat post Nick.it z very ironic &shameful how modern day leadrs r victims coz of lack of such guidanc &training.
Nicholas
September 9, 2011 at 7:54 AM
GIlbert, thanks for your comment. Do you think it is to late for mordern day leaders to be guided? I think that in the right setting and forum, they to can be guided. This will enable them avoid pitfalls ahead and make their leadership more productive. I think that this should be made a major focus of career development.
Edward Walakira
September 5, 2011 at 9:58 AM
There are things we ought to know as we are growing up. With our great ancestors, issues of sex and sexuality was handled and initiated to the little ones at various stages of growth. Today parents only care for themselves neglecting their children, something that has cause a lot of sexual abuse and lost of live especially of productive young people because they are yearning to get the right information. In leadership mentoring is key, parents are our first mentor and role models if they don’t play their role then we are bound to have poor leaders. Its shame for parents to leave issues of sex and sexuality to medias because some information is not good. On some televisions when the youths are presenting, their dress code “takes off our leaders”. It better we go back to our original Foundation