Harsh Truths About Being In Charge, From My Leadership Diary

The leadership vein in my body has been active since my high school days. I served in several political capacities. It was all blissful and fun until I got to college and met a different side of politics. I experienced the concept of ALUTA (“struggle” in Latin), which made political leadership more about violent struggle.

Worse still, I realized that it was almost impossible, to be honest, or genuine as a politician in Nigeria. The figures and examples I saw weren’t encouraging enough.

I slowly detached from politics, which consequently started a new path in my leadership journey. I drifted into what I love to call “organizational and operational leadership”.

Unlike political leadership, which prioritizes the quest for popularity and a stamp of approval, this aspect of leadership directly affects the day-to-day lives of people and seeks to solve their problems by building and implementing systems.

Some instances of my contribution to this space include my role as the inaugural Chief-of-Staff of Nigerian Model United Nations Society for their Lagos MUN conference; serving as the inaugural Campus Director of the Hult Prize On-campus Competition at the African Leadership University; my contribution as the first President of Campeedia, a media organization I founded at my university; and most recently, my role as a Housing Administrator in charge of Transport Coordination at ALU’s Student Accommodation.

My three years of experience in these roles challenged my view on leadership and taught me lots of lessons about managing people’s lives. This piece is a mix of my experiences and lessons from my world of being in charge.

As a leader, your world is filled with challenges and uncertainties that often push you to doubt your ability. As Jim Rohm puts it,

“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor but without folly”

For every roadblock, you’ll encounter your success or failure depending on how you respond and how quickly you learn from mistakes and move on.

There will be nights when you won’t look forward to the next day because you’re gonna face dissatisfied followers that won’t hesitate to give you a piece of their mind. There will be days when you’ll treat yourself after a big win.

How will you respond when you encounter the realities that come with being in charge?

Here are some of those truths:

Dealing With Opposition Is Inevitable

Occasionally, you’ll encounter folks that are eager to tell you to do your job, or how to do it, and whenever you slip up, they’ll feel really good about themselves.

You’ll be shocked to realize that most of the people you lead will point a finger at you when things go wrong, even if they are yet to do their part as members of the community.

And if you finally get things working perfectly, most people might suddenly think that your job is too easy, oblivious of the work that went into making your systems work.

Therefore, everyone, including you, may feel that you don’t deserve the compensation you get for your role.

As a housing administrator, I had a bunch of people occasionally stopping me on hot afternoons and cold evenings to remind me how easy my job was haha.

I did meet opposition every day and consequently associated it with being in charge. It’s quite inevitable.

The interesting thing about dealing with opposition is the handicap you occasionally have in responding to backlashes when you have answers that you’re not at liberty to give.

Therefore, your only option is silence and a solemn prayer that you fix things.

Sometimes this can graduate to a complete disregard of your authority by a faction of your followers, making them act against the interest of the community.

This is more like casting a vote of “no confidence” on you and threatens harmony.

You’ll have to stand up to these bullies using the right channels, and your diligence to work as a justification of your abilities.

Just be careful and never resort to intimidation to gain trust like dictators do.

In the long run, there’s a big chance that you’ll get a huge majority to believe and stand with you, but never everyone!

A Good Plan Is Not Enough!

Perhaps the harshest reality of leading is discovering that a good plan isn’t good enough to make things work.

I remember the days I’d pat myself on the back for creating cool blueprints only to realize that no one would show up to implement them at the appointed time the next day.

Other times, external stakeholders would delay in delivering their contributions for reasons that they never communicate.

Then, you’ll realize that you are not completely in control like you thought. Your best bet will be to always have a backup plan and be ready to act quickly during contingencies.

However, backup plans are easily neglected because they require extra resources that can’t always be accounted for. This shouldn’t undermine their importance.

You Don’t Decide What Is Right Or Wrong.

There’s this subtle trap of trying to uphold what is right against all odds. Like most leaders, this was a tricky pitfall for me.

The truth is that “right” is relative, and you’ll have to consider all perspectives to determine the best path while creating systems.

I started off creating and enforcing bus loops that only fit into the school schedule which seemed reasonable.

With so much pushback, I realized a lot of people had numerous mitigating circumstances beyond their control which prevented them from following the schedule.

Some of them were missing lunch every day. I immediately increased the number of loops and they became too many for drivers to handle. As a result, they were late and grumpy.

Both attempts failed. The truth about succeeding as a leader is not in enforcing what we believe is right or what the system claims to be right, but by finding common ground among parties.

You’ll need to inspire your followers to sacrifice a little comfort in exchange for viable solutions to their problems.

On both occasions, I ignored finding common ground. This became clear when I sat with some students, the transport company, and the school’s operations team to factor in their inputs in creating an optimized transport loop that almost catered to everyone.

This wasn’t perfect either. We had to keep optimizing as circumstances changed. In some cases, one or both parties were not satisfied, including me. But that was because we were unable to make the sacrifice required from us.

Despite the imperfections that come with every solution you provide, finding common ground does save some stress.

Building Personal Relationships Is Hard.

Another difficult part of leadership is the loneliness you experience while building and maintaining relationships.

You might almost have no life of your own. You might get too busy fixing the problems of the masses that you ignore the folks in your life or the ones that share common identities with you.

The time required to build successful relationships (platonic or intimate) does not respect your leadership responsibilities.

Finding balance is highly recommended for success.

There’s also the fear of building new relationships, especially with your followers (it’s harder when they are young like you).

It is easy to summarize your attempt to have a normal social life as an abuse of office.

My case was a mix of both. I lacked the skills for maintaining contact with my old buddies and bonding with new ones.

I tried to treat everyone equally, in futility. This strict intent to promote equality made it difficult to bond with new people I genuinely found interesting.

I resorted to shallow conversations as compensation, which isn’t too nice.

Holding on to the concept that everyone is equal is counterproductive. Some people put in more work to become more important than others, in your life.

It was unfair of me to push the people I cared about away because I wanted to succeed as a leader. Embracing your relationships with love and dignity is a better option.

However, you need to protect your loved ones from the chaos that comes with being a leader. It can get really messy when they get caught up in the mix. Privacy is the key.

Your Cabal Is Your Strength

Another vital form of relationships is the role of advisers.

I like to compare this group to what is commonly known as the Cabal in politics, a group of individuals with a solid understanding of issues and the environment, but with no desire to lead.

As a leader, you won’t run out of criticisms, therefore having a trusted team that constantly helps to sharpen your grasp on trends and decision making is vital.

I initially dismissed the idea of having a cabal due to its bad connotation in my home country, Nigeria.

I learned the painful lesson of being oblivious to the complexities that came with issues and how this eats deep into the community over time.

While having a group of advisers is great, you’d have to do more to ensure that they remain advisers not “co-decision makers”.

Neglecting this will slowly make you a puppet, making your leadership experience torturous.

My Biggest Takeaways

Today, it is easy to dismiss leadership as a practice that confers fancy titles on particular individuals and puts them beyond the reach of others.

This is no surprise considering the conduct of most African leaders today.

On the contrary, my experiences have taught me that true leadership in any sector involves spearheading the creation and enforcement of systems that make the lives of the people you lead a lot easier.

As cool as that sounds, it will come with a plethora of harsh realities like understanding complex relationships, dealing with opposition & crisis, mastering negotiation, creating common ground always, and above all, finding a suitable life balance.

By taking this path, I’ve realized that my understanding of life and resilience in tackling its challenges has been strengthened.

My desire to grow has also pushed me to forgive myself in the times I failed, learn from my errors, and move on.

For this reason, I consider my experience very useful.

Although there’s a fair chance that some leaders might have different experiences from mine, I am convinced that I would have been a better leader if I had started my journey aware of these harsh leadership truths.

Nevertheless, the tough sides of leadership are nothing compared to what we are capable of achieving while we are in charge.

What are some of the experiences you've had while being in charge?