Doing business in Nigeria has become very challenging. But for the category of leaders that I represent or exemplify, winning through superior values has become the only safeguard. We must get round the learning curve and with determination, deploy relevant and specific skills as well as our organisations’ network of capabilities.
We must avoid strategy traps, develop unique and differentiated trade crafts with distinct features of ownership, growth momentum, productivity and enormous competitiveness. New perspectives should be adopted in order to create healthy and positive work environment; inspire and motivate team members as well as adopt strategies for seeking and asking for feedbacks.
A solution that can never fail us is for leaders to become authentic purpose-driven champions. Don’t just drive purpose as a business strategy but diligently and genuinely use it to guide strategies, relationships with colleagues and customers, allocation of resources as well as decision making. We must really challenge ourselves (leaders and employees) to win in this tough economic climate, avoid heuristic traps and create superior cascades in our service lines and geographies.
Leaders thinking skills (or neuro-cognitive skills) must come into full play in the domains of flexibility, adaptability, tolerance and other problem-solving skills. We must manage frustration among our people to avoid irrational decisions. Principles of neuroplasticity, if fully imbibed, will surely enable us engage in collaborative problem solving.
Nigerian political scientist, Professor Patrick Utomi, pointed out the negatives of egoistic leadership in what he described as the “Psychology of Power.” He noted that leaders, as a result of the allure of high status, become dissociated from reality. “They become puffed-up, susceptible to flattery and intolerant of even the mildest best intentioned censure or feedbacks. They appear possessed by inexplicably malignant forces to such an extent that they are notoriously insensitive and self-absorbed.” His draw-down, is that these leaders become guilty of empathy deficit and incompetence to such an extent that they stop benefiting from useful engagements and value-delivering collaboration.
For emphasis, let us take a critical look at a recent publication by Harvard Business Review (HBR), titled, “Lessons From Five Leaders who Changed the World.” In the publication, Robert Simons explored the unique qualities of visionary leaders and noted that their specific leadership traits helped to elevate them as standouts. The core lesson from these leaders: Mary Kay Ash, Bill Wilson, Sarah Breedlove, P.T. Barnum and Steve Jobs, is that “People (including employees) are attracted to optimism and hope in leaders.”
The first leadership lesson, according to HBR, is that praise is powerful and leaders must harness the power of recognition. Mary kay pointed out that “Associates can be praised to success.”
In the second lesson, Bill Wilson warned leaders to “eliminate ego.” Wikipedia described the egoistic leader as arrogant, unpleasantly proud and behaving as if he is more important or know more than other people. They are haughty and overbearing. Bill Wilson said “there is always the danger as people succeed and rise up the hierarchy that they start to think that they are infallible, their egos start to dictate how the organisation is run, that everyone is kind of afraid to say anything until the boss clears what he or she is going to say.” He cautioned that to succeed, “leaders must make sure that hierarchy does not overcome the power of individual initiative.”
The lesson from Sarah Breedlove is that leaders must “build networks inside their organisations and externally with customers and other stakeholders.”
P.T. Barnum said in order to achieve enormous success, the leader must “have an absolute eye on the customer. Know what they want and give it to them.”
The fifth lesson is from Steve Jobs. According to his visionary antecedents, the leader must be “a demanding and unrelenting boss.” Complacency negates competitiveness and the danger of being “leapfrogged.” Also, associates must be regularly encouraged, motivated and rewarded for their performance. HBR pointed out that “If you cannot find ways of motivating your people to bring their very best, your business sooner or later will be overtaken by someone who can.”
Mutual Benefits Group is an example of companies that have been successfully checkmating the “Japa” syndrome. The company’s laudable solution has been its novel and very creative retail business model, personally led and supervised by me. “Japa” is a Nigerian slang term that has gained widespread usage among the youths to describe the act of leaving Nigeria in search of “greener pastures.”
The retail business model showcases over 2,000 graduates of universities in Lagos State alone. We have over 3,000 of them spread across the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This model is excellently and radically innovating the traditional concept of mobile entrepreneurship. It inspires and redirects individual and team energy through specially designed human performance strategies that are delivering impressive numbers and a desirable competitive advantage. The model galvanises the totality of the marketing and sales strengths of these very hardworking individuals and of course, enterprising and committed leadership which imbues them with a sense of mission, greatness and lofty aspirations. The retail teams are very well aligned and focused on their goals. The synergy of their marketing and sales activities with our organisations mission of winning (always) with an unrelenting commitment to delivering superior values, also makes them unstoppable. Objectives are regularly measured against key results and this keeps them on their toes.
The trust, understanding and chemistry among team members are indeed, amazing. The core strategy is for them to be very close (and therefore available) to customers with compelling and tailor-made beneficial values.
The result of this very innovative experiment is the fact that these talented and hardworking youths are continuously focused on their jobs in spite of the unstable nature of the Nigerian marketplace.
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