Leadership Lessons From Imtiaz Sooliman

What did I learn from interviewing Imtiaz Sooliman?

Two things.

Firstly, executives who can replicate his leadership style will have incredible success.

And secondly, replicating his leadership style is virtually impossible!

If you haven't heard of Imtiaz, he is the CEO of Gift of Givers, a remarkable humanitarian organisation that he founded in South Africa in 1992.

Initially focusing on delivering the basics to disaster zones, under his leadership, it has developed into arguably the premier disaster response organisation in the world.

The organization is renowned for its rapid response to natural disasters and crises worldwide and now provides providing emergency medical care, food, water, and shelter to affected communities.

Gift of the Givers also undertakes long-term projects such as building hospitals, schools, and boreholes, and implementing agricultural programs to foster self-sustainability.

And this incredible impact is all down to one inspirational leader.

Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman.

I got to meet Imtiaz at the last Crossfin quarterly meet-up.

My role?

To host the interview with Imtiaz in a way that would be informative and inspirational for the attending executives.

With some guests, this can be challenging.

Not Imtiaz. I don’t think I’ve ever been so inspired, nor learnt so much in such as short space of time.

I hope Crossfin will publish the interview someday, but for now, here are the leadership aha moments I took away from the interview.

#1 Purpose

If you follow me, you’ll know how passionately I believe in the power of purpose. (For a fuller article, check out my article A Horse Called Purpose)

I admit this means I’m prone to confirmation bias when I come across purposeful leaders who succeed. But I find it unimaginable that something as impactful could have been created without a deep, altruistic belief in the possibility of helping people.

Without deep conviction and belief, you can not develop the mental resilience to fight through the setbacks, ignore the naysayers, and attempt the impossible.

And 32 years on, Imtiaz is as passionate about his mission as ever. He literally exudes passion for his project from every pore. And it’s infectious.

All of this has allowed him to inspire and mobilise tens of thousands of people who themselves go on to do incredible things. Selfless things. Often dangerous things. And all for no financial gain.

It’s the ultimate example of crowdsourcing, where organisations benefit from the input of people who are not on their payroll.

Of course, as an NGO, Gift of the Givers has the advantage of being able to set purpose before profit, but when you see how this focus on helping others catalyses collaborative action, it’s easy to see why similar principles should be applied in for-profit organisations.

#2 Clarity of conviction

The second trait that impressed me was the clarity he had about what to focus on.

If helping people who have experienced disaster is his purpose, how does he know which disasters to respond to? How does he know how to respond? How does he know how many people to mobilise?

This is a classic choices conundrum, which all executives face.

Simply he has to decide every day what the most effective allocation of limited resources is.

Most executives achieve sub-optimal outcomes because they lack focus. They try to appease too many people, find it difficult to say no, and therefore spread themselves too thin.

When I asked Imtiaz how he chooses which disasters to respond to, he shared that he has a clear decision-making process. A checklist if you like.

It was almost algorithmic in method. Principles based.

But it was the conviction of his answers that stood out most.

Despite the complexity of the environments his teams work in, he gave the impression that solving disasters was as simple as building lego.

That the way Gift of the Givers was tackling the issues was the best way. The optimal way.

This, of course, may not be the case.

However, leaders must show conviction in their decisions if they want their teams to follow.

This is obviously critically important when the choices you make are literally the difference between life and death and you have limited time to make these decisions.

But corporate leaders that want to inspire their teams can learn much from Imtiaz about how to use constraints to bring focus and how conviction can inspire teams to do incredible things.

#3 Network Effects

If purpose and conviction are the foundations of success, it’s the network effect that amplifies Imtiaz’s impact.

And after 32 years of effort, there are few as networked as Imtiaz.

It’s this network that allows his team to mobilise so quickly.

Every leader who has faced a natural disaster likely has Imtiaz on speed dial. In turn, Imtiaz knows every person to call to resolve the issue.

Somehow, through the thick and thicker of South Africa’s crazy political environment, Imtiaz and his team, have continued to find ways to mobilise some of SA’s most gifted surgeons, doctors, scientists and executives in a way that the local government can only dream off.

And that can only be achieved when you are purposeful, assured and super networked.

Conclusion

Purpose, conviction and connectivity are not new leadership ideas.

So why do most leaders struggle to apply these three basics on a day-to-day basis?

In my view, it's because they fail at the first hurdle by dropping purpose for profit, which makes the next two steps that much harder.

But even executives who succeed in applying these first three characteristics are unlikely to be able to compete with the real secret of Imtiaz's success.

And that is his encyclopedic brain.

Dates. Names. Places.

Listening to his story at times felt like I was listening to a large language model, just without the hallucinations.

Absolute recall of who did what and when and what the impact was.

If his brain was a piece of software I’d imagine it as a mix of slack, wikipedia and trello all rolled into one.

But unlike software, he has clearly lived and breathed every step of the journey so has the practical experiences too.

This obviously gives him the awareness, experience, and conviction to provide disciplined, real-time responses to manage every crisis and seemingly role-switch with ease.

I certainly cannot mimic this last skill. I struggle to remember the names of towns I visited on holidays. And I find it hard to switch my focus from work to family at the best of times.

Which is why I started this piece stating that replicating his style of leadership would be virtually impossible. At least for me.

But I do have a workaround. I delegate.

And in that sense, not having encyclopaedic knowledge is perhaps a good thing.

Because compensating by effective delegation is critical if you want to scale businesses and ensure they continue to prosper long after the founders depart.

Imtiaz admitted in our conversation that he finds delegation difficult.

I wondered, listening to him, what would happen to Gift of the Givers when he eventually retires.

So perhaps, on reflection, we shouldn't try to replicate absolutely everything that Imtiaz does. Finding purpose, conviction and networks is a good start.

But perhaps less hands-on and more delegation will, in the long term, be a better path to success for mere mortals like me and you.

Interested in using thought leadership to amplify your brand, increase sales or inspire your teams? Then drop me a note at [email protected].