Starting over, mark of a leader

Muna Onuzo Iyanam
| credits: File copy

As a business owner, I cannot count how many times I have asked myself this question: “Should I throw in the towel and just let another person carry all the risks of owning a business, while I stay safe and receive a guaranteed remuneration at the end of the month?”

 Leadership and entrepreneurial paths are dotted with hard decisions, sacrifices of time, and periods of strain in family relationships.

 Being a leader is the toughest job description to have, apart from being a mum. Leadership requires focus, dedication, tenacity and grit! Yes, being a leader comes with its perks, which makes it a glamorous and highly sought-after job title, be it in politics, religion or in business.

 Becoming a CEO is the ultimate dream of most people; to become the number one person in their field of work is their inner craving.

 However, what those who currently occupy that position will not tell you is that being an entrepreneur, a leader, or one who has the responsibility for others is a constant battle in decision making, character definition, self-management, clarity of thought and purpose, requiring resilience and involving tears, sweat and, sometimes, walking lonely roads, among others.

 I recently facilitated a one-day leadership-training programme for the managers of a company in Nigeria. While designing the programme, I decided to split the session into two. I made this decision in order to help the managers gain a deeper understanding of the fundamental dynamics of leadership and management. Leadership can be said to have two elements—the external and the internal elements, or, if I may, the interpersonal and the intrapersonal elements.

 The external element of leadership is the touch point between the leader, the led and the components that make up the relationship between them. These components include relationship management, business strategy definition and the actual day-to-day running of the business. This is where the behaviour and actions of the leader come into focus.

The expectations the stakeholders and employees have of their leader’s ability to make the right decisions, align organisational vision, engage and build a committed workforce and be accountable are high on the cadre of responsibilities shouldered by a leader.

The internal element of leadership deals with personality and likeability. These internal elements mutate into three critical sub-elements, which are awareness, focus and execution.

The awareness stage is what is referred to in the six leadership mindsets as managing self. The awareness stage probes deeper into the leader’s awareness of self—awareness of others and awareness of the organisation.

Understanding the business and its unique environment from top to bottom and vice versa is the best form of hands-on training a leader can have. It also involves an awareness of the fluid globalised business environment.

The second element, which is focus, is in my opinion, the most crucial sub-element within the internal element component of leadership. This is where the leader’s will and intelligence are tested.

Focus distils into choices—the choices a leader makes that can either make or mar his or her organisation. This is where most leaders fail and find it difficult to get up and try again. The mistake leaders make is to think that failure is an indication of one’s inability or lack of will to lead.

On the contrary, failure gives the person a unique opportunity to demonstrate the strength, resolve and confidence of a leader. It is an opportunity for one to assess the choices that he or she made that led to the terrible business outcome. Indeed the ultimate test of leadership is the ability to bounce back from failure and disaster.

Leaders are not judged by their failures; they are judged by how they have managed failure. The decisions they took after they realised their mistake define them as leaders and will determine how they will be judged—either as true leaders or as failures.

The ability to prioritise and focus helps leaders become effective. All activities in the growth of a business are important. However, some are more important than others. Therefore, the extent to which a person is able to combine these four categories of awareness mentioned above with an articulate vision would either distinguish them merely as a leader or as a great leader.

The final stage of the internal element of leadership is execution. This is probably the most difficult aspect of leadership. Getting results is the yardstick for appraising efficiency and effectiveness. Today’s business environment does not reward effort. It rewards results.

Those who repeatedly reach the finish line will always get the giant piece of cake.  It is not personal. It is business. Perfect execution of goals and strategy that lead to profitable increase in the business balance sheet is the hallmark of success.

This is where leaders miss the point, especially entrepreneurs. Having a big idea and executing the strategy behind this big idea is the thin line between success and failure. Most entrepreneurs are vision bearers. This means that their heads are constantly up in the cloud, dreaming up fantastic ideas, which sometimes end up becoming million-dollar companies; but at other times, a total failure.

What we see today are businesses that start well, but fail in the end due to lack of adequate capital, combined with a leadership with low self-esteem and without mentoring. This failure leads the entrepreneur to question their ability to run a successful business or to lead people. I have myself, and I know a majority of entrepreneurs will agree that they have also experienced this lowest point of being a leader and an entrepreneur.

This point of questioning and doubting one’s ability to actually run a successful business due to past mistakes, disappointments and a failure to relaunch is the most difficult to overcome.  However, once the person does, business becomes more rewarding.

Drawing from my own experience, my candid opinion is this: It is okay to fail. Failure gives you the opportunity to reassess, to realign and to relaunch in a better and more defined way. It is your resilience and ability to adapt to change and fresh ideas which may not always be yours that ensures, come five years from when the business started, that you and your business will still be up and bubbling.

 Guaranteed, you will fail and be disappointed. However, it is your ability to get up, dust off this phase and embrace the new lessons learnt that would keep you and your business ahead of the game.