Thoughts on Leadership..

You cannot lead people to where you are, you can only lead people to where you have never been.

If your ambitions do not make you look silly and fantastical, if your dreams cannot stop people dead in their tracks, if others can see where you are going effortlessly, you are a manager. If the people are ALREADY in the same room as you, the best you can do is manage the present, not lead them into the future.

Leadership is not about the skills we often talk. about, it’s not about strategy and organizational efficiencies, it’s not about running an institution or a business smoothly. Leadership is about believing in something better, articulating it in a such a manner that people are willing to take a risk, demonstrating sufficient knowledge about the journey so that people are compelled to join you.

It is about creating an image of a future, and making people thirst for it, and showing enough courage so that you can be trusted to lead them to it.

But above all, it is about finding the destination / purpose you cannot live without, and committing to making it happen. Leadership is about you and what your life is about.

‘Whoever / whatever validates you enslaves you’

How do we get to that point where we can boldly say we have found something worth living for, and if necessary, worth dying for?

I will explore three concepts / philosophies of leadership that are dear to me.

The family unit is one of the world’s oldest institution and its most successful. Despite all the advancement in technology, the manner we parent has not changed in a millennia. The basic organizational structure remains the same, and in most cases, the parents continue to offer excellent leadership.

Why is this so successful? Because the parents have found a purpose worth living for, and if need be, worth dying for. We spend our time painting a future for our children, and sacrificing to make it come to pass. The difference between the uneducated parents that spend their savings to get their children through school and those that don’t is the single minded conviction that they is a better life worth sacrificing for, and it is within their reach. My widowed mother didn’t receive a university education but she sold the dream to her 7 children and we all bought it. It is about what we see and what we are willing to sacrifice, not just their parenting skills.

Let’s then explore religion, and the immense power it has over us. We follow a spiritual path because of the stories we have been told, not just of the past and the sacrifices endured, but the future and the promises it holds. That’s why we follow, that’s why we don’t question religious guardians, they have an unquestioning belief in a future we all want to see, of heaven. The moment they are no longer convinced or convincing about the destination, the congregation will fall apart.

And finally, let’s explore Ikigai, a Japanese concept that refers to a sense of purpose, or a reason for living. The word is a combination of the Japanese words iki (to live) and gai (reason), which together signify “a reason to live”. It places our purpose at the intersection of our mission, our passion, our profession and our vocation. In this regard, our mission is doing something the world NEEDS, our passion is doing something we LOVE, our profession is something we are GOOD at and our vocation is something we are PAID to do.

To find a DESTINATION that is worth living for, to locate this sweet spot, that’s our PURPOSE.

I would argue that a leader is someone who has found a purpose, and because of that, they have had to develop the SKILLS, to acquire the RESOURCES and build the RELATIONSHIPS needed to accomplish their goals. Our skills don’t make us leaders, same set of skills that you find in successful leaders are abundant ( and often dormant ) in people who never aspired to lead. It is our PURPOSE that awakens the leader in us.

How we do define our purpose?

I like to think our. sense of RESPONSIBILITY to our family, to our clan, to the society and to future generations is the singular driver of our PURPOSE on earth. The internalized belief that you are BLESSED, that your talent and your knowledge are above and beyond what you need to thrive, it creates a CONTRACT some people cannot renege, thus turning them into leaders.

Parents know that in a relationship with their newborn; they have all the advantages, and they must therefore commit to leading that child safely to adulthood..

Your education, your talent, your resources, your accomplishment, they impose an obligation on you to serve. The more your resources exceed your need, be it intellectual, spiritual or financial, the greater your obligation to serve.

This takes me to the most topical issue in leadership in Nigeria today — the contrast between entitlement and gratitude. One who is entitled cannot be a leader, for to be entitled is to be ungrateful, and one who lacks gratitude does not live in the present or the future, they exist in the past.

A sense of entitlement has its foundation in the belief that you have given more to society or to your family or your company that you have received, and so you are waiting to be made whole. You are therefore neither fit to serve in the present or capable of leading into the future. You are deficient when entitled, you are incomplete without gratitude, you are non present, not able to dream. You are chained to the debt you think you are owed.

And our lack of gratitude emanates from a denial of our place in society, a refusal to understand that we are not just the 1%, we are at the top of the 1%. With a population of 215m and growing, the entire population of our tertiary institutions today is just above 2m, from OND to PHD. Of this number, less than 200,000 or 0.1% of the population are in private universities. And most of us who continue to prance the earth waiting for Nigeria to do something for us are either products of universities or parents with kids in them. Our entitlement to MORE from Nigeria is the ultimate failure of character, of parenting. Those to whom Nigeria has given everything seem the most critical of her.

But the conversation goes even deeper, with the various body parts of Nigerian elite living in denial and blame, the business elite rightfully and often righteously blame the political elite for failing to create the right environment for growth. They are ENTITLED because they are waiting, not forcefully insisting on the changes that will save all of us, or even making the sacrifices within their area of control to set the tone for change.

The intellectual elite no longer see their obligation in taking ideas into the real world, some are waiting for government to fund an archaic and dying system that cannot support the need of our society today, and in many cases, they are preventing the change that we desperately need.

And our political elite continue to lead without any iota of humility, failing to accept responsibility for their shortcomings or help to reform our systems.

But the elite are all one and the same, we are responsible for our collective inaction, and we are unable to lead because we are mostly entitled. We demand and we insist and we castigate, but we are unwilling to sacrifice.

We say leadership is service, which is not totally incorrect. But anyone can serve from anywhere. Leadership is SACRIFICE, because only those who are in the present, those who are grateful and those who feel they have received from the society more than their fair share will willingly sacrifice and therefore, can truly lead. They are the ones most willing to give of themselves for the benefit of others.

“You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

- Kahlil Gibran

We are entitled and ungrateful when we are owed something.. we sacrifice when we owe something. And ONLY those who are willing to give something selflessly can truly lead.

Abubakar Suleiman,

• thoughts expressed at the Lagos Leadership Summit on 17th April 2024.