This is for the Leader in me

"It's never too late to start over. If you weren't happy with yesterday, try something different today. Don't stay stuck, do better.." Don't feel threatened by the success of others who are better than you, instead, learn from them. Ask questions, "what is it you do that make you get these good results?" Even if you are a boss, nothing stops you from learning from those you lead, after all, the essence you were made a leader is to lead a heterogeneous set of minds and achieve the firm's goals.

But when you see others as a threat to your own personal target, sorry people are not trees, they will move/leave and when they leave, you become more frustrated, you become a kind of a round peg in a square hole; subordinates see these frustrations all over you, your incompetence is obvious and you become an hurdle to the firm's goals, the next thing, you are sidelined, carefully taken out of tier-1 projects.

According to Adrian Furnham ("The Incompetent Manager; 2003) "...managing people is, and will remain difficult as any manager knows. Management is about ability and skills, attitude and values, knowledge and understanding, but also about personality and mental stability."

To the leader in me, I say never under-estimate talents. What you ridicule today, you will pay dearly/triple for it tomorrow. My job as a leader is to nurture talents, now no mind is the same, likewise strategy and path of execution differs. Don't expect everyone under you to be "yes-boss" zombie. Graduates of today (the Millennials) are not having a long term career plan with you, for what? To be payed salary???? To be taxed???/. All over Africa, young minds in their twenties are developing Apps, techies, connecting the dots of IoT, they are the tools of disruption in the mobile banking sector (think about it, the huge market in retail and corporate spending). We compete for these bright talents, now what do I do to help (not too comfortable with that word though) the ones we are lucky to get into the corporate culture we desire? Did I just say corporate culture? Well......yes it still exist but not as rigid as it used to be.

To the leader in me, I say be open-minded, always listen, never shut down ideas, pay no lip-service to innovation, you must be innovative, if you can't, then build an innovative culture for the team; grow and expand with the team. Practice what you preach, preach what you practice, never ever report Peter to Paul, because believe me, Peter will know! Don't run down your team, it shows you can't lead; it is your job to turn crude to oil, rock to gold and millennials to ambassadors. Now what kind of Ambassadors are you birthing? To the leader in me.