Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 40, Number 1, 1 Ianuali 2023 — What is Leadership? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

What is Leadership?

Adapted from the message shared by Kahu I(enneth Makuakāne at the OHA Trustee investiture at Kawaiaha'o Church on Dec. 8, 2022.

Kahu Kennelh Makuakāne deliverinq his sermon. - Photo: Joshua Koh

Iwanted to talk to you about the question: "What is Leadership?" I'm going to talce you to Psalm 78:7072. It says, "He chose David, his servant, and took him from the sheep pens, and tending the sheep, he brought him to be the shepherd of his people, Jacob of Israel, his inheritance. And David shepherded them with integrity of heart and skillful hands." If you lenow some of the stories of the Bible, the people were without kings. So the people of Israel decided to get their own King. But when God said, "I'll find you a king," they went, "nah...we'll piek our own." So they picked this guy named Saul and, unfortunately, Saul was... pohō (useless). So God told them, "The next one is mine. You had your ehanee." In first Samuel 16:7 God tells the prophet Samuel to go out to go find the lcing that he chose, so Samuel went to the house of Jesse and when he arrived, he called for all the sons. Ihe first son that eame out was this big, strapping number one boy with all these muscles. But what did God tell him? "No, Samuel, that's not the one I piclced." As it says in this verse, "...the Lord said to Samuel the prophet, 'Do not take his appearanee or his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see what man sees. For the Lord looks not at the outward appearance, but the Lord loolcs at the heart." That's what leadership is, it's about the heart. So what is the leadership of the heart?

People want to know that they ean trust you. 1hey want integrity. We eall it "'oia'i'o" (true, authentic). It needs to be true, firm, genuine, real. In Chronicles 16:9 it says, "the eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully eommitted." [To the Trustees]: God searched the whole earth for you folks. I was talking to a leupuna who said, "Our lāhui is resilient. We endured having our kingdom stolen. And people thought that we were going to become extinct. But we, the lāhui, have endured." But the thing that I want you to remember is that I refuse to endure having our own people, my people, have hakakā (arguing/fighting) with and among eaeh other. Ihe [people of] Israel fought against eaeh other. There was one ltingdom. But there was hakaleā wiīhin the nation of Israel. So what did they do? They cut their naīion in half! The northern part became Israel; the southern part became Judah. Are we going to make the same mistalces that other nations have made? It's okay to have different mana'o from other kānaka. It is not okay to belittle another kanaka's dignity. Because when we do that, we unknowingly belittle another lcanaka's mo'oleū'auhau. Because when you spealc to them, you also speak to the family that have been here with them and still continues to be with them - our leupūna leahikō. So we never speak ill about other leānaka. Mueh less anybody else. Let me tell you the story about [revered kupuna] Nana Veary and her tūtū. They saw this man coming from a distance and her tūtū told Nana, "When that one comes, bring him in the house." When the man arrived, they brought him into the house and sat down at the leiīehen table. They started talking story, he ate, and then when he was mā'ona (full) he got up and left. Afterwards Nana asked her tūtū, "Was that your friend?" Her tūtū replied, "Oh, I don't know who that is." Nana said, "You don't lenow who that is?" "No," said her tūtū. "Ihen why did you invite him in?" Nana's tūtū said: "I wasn't talking to the man, I was talking to the spirit inside of the man." ■ To view Kahu Makuakāne's entire message go to: https://www.youtube.com/watcb?v=GjPMuSwxFGO