Adedeji Awolesi

Awolesi Adedeji Israel

Leaders are innovative, charismatic and inspirational to people. What qualifies you as a leader? For you to become a leader, you need to have followers.  Leadership according to Yukl (2013) is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it and facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives. In the past, leaders are being categorized into three. There is the democratic leader, autocratic and laissez- faire leaders but nowadays, leaders are being categorized as transformational or transactional leaders. Leaders are different from managers because manager’s controls human time. Managers direct, plan, organise and control human activities in the organisation while leaders inspire followers.

Based on what my colleagues say, I am a transformational leader. I help my team member and I develop them. During the Unit 3 group activity, we were given a task by our tutor to work on a plank. The task was really hectic and we were all trying to use common sense to work it out. As a leader of the team, I encouraged everyone to contribute equally and Seun one of the team members brought the idea of tying the middle of plank to the wood so as not to move. I advised Soye and Umar to pull the bottles on the plank since that was what the task entails. On the other end, I was regulating the bottles to be stable and at the end of it, we achieved our goal.  Overall, my team members say my leadership style is innovative and I allowed them to give their views and support their ideas.

I have learned to manage and lead others by developing my leadership skills. I learnt that a great manager knows the strength of individual team members, what triggers the strength and understand their preferred learning style.  I always try to incorporate this into any activities with my team members. I know what each member is good at and how effective they are so anytime we have a task in hand, I always find it easy to delegate and my team members never disappoint me.

My understanding of effective leadership has been borne out from Richard Branson, the CEO of Virgin Groups. He is a visionary leader who is always motivated by good challenge. Richard believes that motivation for his employees is the key success factor for Virgin group. His philosophy of management is if you can motivate your people, use their creative potential, you can get through bad times and enjoy the good times together (Manfred, 1998). He loves what he does and he can’t resist any new challenge. The other leader that motivates me is Aliko dangote.

Aliko Dangote is the richest black man in the world and the richest in Africa according to forbes 2013. He is a visionary leader that believes that ‘nothing is impossible’. His company Dangote Group is a diversified conglomerate with interests across a range of sectors in Africa, has over 18 subsidiary companies, with several interests in cement, sugar, flour, salt, pasta, beverages and real estate, with new projects in development in the oil and natural gas, telecommunications, fertilizer and steel (Tribune, 2013) . He believes so much in investing in Africa and always says ‘if he is given $5billon, he will invest it in Africa’. He motivates, inspires and influences me never to settle for less and aim higher.

Having the goal of being one of the biggest entrepreneurs in my generation. Being an effective leader is one of the secrets of achieving this. I plan creating an establishment that will create a million jobs for people and will last for centuries after I am dead. To achieve this, I read lots on entrepreneurship, leadership and building up a business. I have learnt a lot from my little life and hope to start putting them into practice after my educational life.

Leadership is the core catalyst for improvement and development in any establishment, organisation, economy and nation. I always tell my friends ‘Africa does not lack anything, all it is lacks is good leaders to drive for development’. America, Europe or China is not better than Africa, all they have is good leaders that do the best for their country and set down plans and map out ways for the unborn generations. My learnings from leadership has been great and all I have to say now is for you to watch out for me.

References

MANFRED F. R. KETS DE VRIES. 1998. Charisma in Action: The Transformational abilities Of Virgin’s Richard Branson And ABB’s Percy Barnevik. Winter papers.

Tribune. 2013. [Online] Available at: http://www.tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/component/k2/item/19410-i-started-small-as-a-trader-in-cement-aliko-dangote,-richest-black-person-in-the-world.html [Accessed: 21 Sep 2013].

Yukl, G. 2013. Leadership in organizations. Harlow: Pearson Education