Leadership Starts With You, Not him!

Many Nigerians easily heap blames on failures in administrative, managerial, cultural and traditional matters in Nigeria on leadership. Often, some of these Nigerians quote the work of Professor Chinua Achebe on “The Problem with Nigeria” to support their argument or position. I have not read the Chinua Achebe book and could not possibly agree with the contents of a book that I am yet to see or read. None of those who hold the view that Nigeria’s woes have traditionally been derived from its leadership have proffered a workable way to get us out of the quagmire. But to me, failure of leadership is a straight whole gamut that moves forth and backward. It is mutually horizontal. I think that the easiest way to factor it is just for each of us to appraise ourselves.

This has become timely because leaders are never born. Leadership is a trait that is acquired in the course of growing up. It is beyond the confines of formal education or the traditional school system. It is an everyday training that is open only to those who labour to learn and acquire the skills. My thinking in this context relates to my observations from our every day interactions and the gaps that stubbornly remain unattended simply because we opted not to care or that we are too busy to be distracted by small things.

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Leaders As Creators

How Leaders Create The Energy Essential To Success

Written By: Andy Cox

Leaders know high energy individuals, workgroups and organizations create success. How to create and sustain that high energy is the key challenge leaders face every day.

The following behaviors and beliefs are keys that leaders we have worked with have found work to achieve consistent high energy with their people.

Leaders start with the belief that commitment unleashes energy and that compliance reduces energy. To the extent that their people feel committed to the goals of the organization, they will work harder, produce more and accomplish more than any group of people waiting to be told what to do. Compliance keeps people waiting for direction - it keeps them asking ” What do you want me to do now?”

Leaders share knowledge and information, they don’t hoard it. They want their people to know how things are going. They believe 90% of their people can handle the truth, but that 100% of their people are turned off by half truths and secrecy. Leaders practice the exact opposite of the “if knowledge is power, than the sharing of knowledge is a reduction in power” behavior of high control managers.

Leaders work with their people to create goals that align with the organization’s goals. Then they keep the goals as simple as possible and work to have their people align their personal goals with the goals of the organization. And they fight to keep the goal process as simple and free of bureaucratic stuff as possible. They want goals to create energy, and not have process destroy it.

When leaders think they’ve communicated enough - they know they need to communicate more. Effective communication creates energy.

Leaders protect the time of their people. There are always distractions that can take the energy out of any endeavor. Leaders keep their people protected from the low value, time and energy eating things that invariably show up. Just as individuals need to keep their eye on the few important things, so must leaders keep their eye on the same few important things,

Leaders define what having “your eye on the ball ” means. The purpose of goals - solid, real goals focused on contribution and accomplishment - keep the main things the main things - and make it easier for everyone to be energized and focused.

Leaders know action creates energy - lack of action sucks the energy out of any enterprise. Ever been in a restaurant when it’s not busy? Bad time to be there - you might expect the best service and the best food, but it rarely works out that way. Come back when the place is really busy - and see a high level of service and energy and focus. Focused busy has a power all its own.

Leaders have high expectations of all their people - and they hold them to their expectations. Nothing is more demoralizing and sapping of energy than to have a manager indicate by words or actions that not much is expected. And guess what? When that belief is communicated - not much is accomplished. Nobody ever did anyone a favor by telling them to “take it easy.”

Leaders demand that their people know what their contribution to the enterprise is and how it is measured, and how they are doing. And not just at the annual performance review. Leaders hold performance reviews all the time.

Leaders know the more open and communicative their behavior, the more authority, power and energy they and their people have. High control managers, on the other hand, fail to see that, and hold as much power as possible to themselves, and in doing that, they actually cede power to others, and don’t tap the potential energy of their people.

Leaders protect the energy of their people from the negative 5 percent that show up - in even the best organizations. They protect them by taking swift action to either remediate the negative behavior, or, failing that, by getting rid of the negative 5 percenters. And not by simply palming them off on the next manager or leader.

Leaders incorporate these beliefs and behaviors into their every day work and play. They know that anything that requires constant special attention to keep going will fail. Only imbedded behaviors and beliefs have lasting value.

Review the behaviors and beliefs that leaders have shared in this article, and see where you can add to your impact and create more energy with your people - and the people around you. Do it through action - today.

Article Source: Afro Articles

About The Author: Andy Cox helps clients align their resources and design and implement change through the application of goals focused on the important few elements that have maximum impact in achieving success - as defined by the client. He can be reached at www.coxconsultgroup.com

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ABUSE

Written By Che Oyinatumba.

Before the Amazon saddled and tamed the bronco called NAFDAC, the only drug I know that was abused, is volume 5 and 10. This drug was the companion of the rich who can not sleep for the poor are hungrily awake, plotting how to undue the rich man or where they can’t, main the master’s favourite goat.
Another drug I use too know that was abused is cocaine. Once one is referred to as drug user/abuser, my mind drifts to the rich man’s son, who schooled abroad and acquired the white man’s mannerism of constantly sniffing, hugging his chest, with darting eyes like a rat ready to pounce on a piece of funeral meat.
Dr. Dora Akunyili, came on board and broadened my understanding. The use of any drug, be it Vitamin C or paracetamol without certified medical prescription, is drug abuse. Suffice to say that, anything done improperly, or properly without consent of the recipient, is abuse, even if it is for the common good of all or the recipient. When is the tenure of Dr (Mrs.) Akunyili at NAFDAC due and expiring? Or is she in abuse of office?

Nigerians like a performing official and quick to build a personality cult around such, as depicted by “coming soon” soap opera being advertised in AIT. Most Nigerians have failed to understand that any drug, no matter potent it is, has an expiring date. A date beyond which its potency is of no effect and its continuous use is poisonous. In social circle, it is called point of diminishing returns or a plateau, where the brain runs in auto mode and can not generate fresh ideas to attack fresh problems. At this stage in a carpenter’s life, every problem is seen as a nail and solved with a hammer. Gradually, Dr. (Mrs.) Akunyili is degenerating as the Director General of NAFDAC and if nothing is done, her failure from the exalted height we hold her, will be a sore on the nose, used by the international community to ridicule the black race.

Her spiral dance to questionable efficiency was noticed during the campaign tours of Yar’Adua/Goodluck. She was obstructively visible and some of her fans excused it by blaming the highhandedness of OBJ, whom they reasoned must have “commandeered and threatened” all appointees and hangers-on, as was evident during the PDA convention to support Yar’Adua. Another faithful claimed that she was drafted to make sure that the cold drug to be used by the PDP presidential hopeful-as he then was-was befitting and not the one produced at the request of omo nna, fit only for a donkey in the country of production.

After the emergence of Yar’Adua as president, one had thought that Dr. (Mrs.) Akunyili, will face the illegal drug marketers at Head Bridge Onitsha and the kingpins she alleged wanted to kill her. There are other issues to be addressed. The locally made Vitamin C tablets (chewable) are rough and despite having a NAFDAC approved number, tastes like chalk! Same applies to other across the counter drugs. The clamp on importation of certain drugs in the absence of a local industry to cater for the hunger induced medical condition of Nigerians, should be reviewed. The few industries, can not meet local demand, the comatose power supply under Yar’Adua’s government, makes mincemeat of this noble attempt. Through out November/December 2007, I could not find an infusion water-drip anywhere in Kubwa Abuja. Phone calls I made to other cities, confirmed the scarcity. This is ordinary sterilized water how much more other drugs?

Rather than tackle these problems, to our dismay, the strongman of Ibadan garrison, while facing trial at magistrate court Wuse Zone 6 Abuja threw up Dr. (Mrs.) Akunyili into the murky waters of PDP backstabbing. In an interview with journalists Alahaji Adedibu said “Having lost appointment as minister, she is going about abusing everybody…” Further more Adedibu reasserted that during the campaign tours that Dr. showered encomiums on him. One can dismiss this as the ranting of amala politics, but the resurfacing of Dr. Akunyili at the judicial abuse of Nigerians on Tuesday 26th February 2008 gave me a reason to worry. Wistfully, an observer asked if Dora has come to support Buhari (Whom it is believed recommended her for the job), or Yar’Adua, who wants to reshuffle his cabinet once the tribunal gives him a reprieve. Another opined that she came to stop the jurist from abusing the faith Nigerians have reposed in then.

Nobody denies that this great woman has done well, but any dance who fails to leave when the applause is loudest, is doomed to be booed out. There are others in NAFDAC, who can push this Akunyili’s success story a step further. If she is interested in Politics and if her tenure has “expired”, let the Senate or whatever body responsible for her acceptance of her resignation letter/removal step up and perform its duty. Until Nigerians see that governance cum service to our fatherland, is slavery determined by constitutional, Civil service rotation based on competence, age on the job and not godfatherism, the younger generation will be worst than this generation. A firm example should be shown that once you have expired your constitutionally allotted time to do your best for the good of all; you are elevated to senior citizenship to allow others contribute their quota. Some thought Nigeria would have collapsed if the constitution was not adulterated to contain third term, but here we are, celebrating the dismantling of the criminal dispossession of Nigerian heritage under “due process”

It will be recalled that as a build up to the fever pitch Tuesday, the lower tribunals have been dismantling the fraud by Iwu’s infamous INEC. As prelude to the Supper Tuesday, David Mark, the senate president, was unmarked by Abubakar Usman (young Alahaji). All Nigerians were ready for a landmark judgment. But the Court of Appeal ruled as though they are not Nigerians and illogically affirmed rigging.
Mark you, the David Mark election that was unmarked, was conducted on the same day that Yar’Adua’s sElection was done, same time, same returning office, and same political party. Could PDP have rigged in Mark in tow LGAs and fail to deliver a PDP presidential candidate?

The tribunal has given the sort after temporary reprieve as the battle ground shifts to Supreme Court but the PDP convention at the door step, is giving the presidency a nightmarish dream of Chairman Mao while in China.
The needful cabinet reshuffle may be a donkey years away. Apart from the ambition of those who showed crocodile support at the tribunal, there is need to drop some of the baggage this administration of strange bedfellows. What is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) doing in tourism industry? What is a distinguished SAN, who served as Attorney General of a state for 8 years doing as a junior minister in the comatose power sector? This is grouse abuse of the silk.

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