Finding leadership requires vigilance, hard work, an abhorrence of complacency and self-satisfaction –and a willingness to make changes when changes are needed, no matter how painful they may be.
– Katharine Graham, first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she took over as CEO of The Washington Post
I just came back to the office today after interviewing Charles Lubasi Milupi, Minister of Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development of Zambia and one of the richest businessmen in Zambia. The eloquent, articulate and charismatic minister gave one of the best interviews of my career — the interview just flowed with substance, knowledge, wisdom and ambition for the future.
He was also the former presidential candidate for Zambia so besides discussions on business and trade and the aspirations of Zambia to be a developed nation in the shortest period of time, I asked him what were, in his opinion, the three biggest attributes to being the best possible leader, no matter which part of the world one comes from.
He said, without missing a beat, firstly you must know from the heart what is needed to be done. You must have the instinct to understand that there is a problem that needs to be solved, intelligence to see what the root causes of the problem are and compassion to move yourself out of your personal comfort zone
and mobilise whatever it takes to solve it.
The second attribute. You must have the wisdom to know how to solve the issue with speed and efficiency, combined with diplomacy and tact. To have the analytical skills to see the end objective and have a gameplan to combine both the short-term and long-term plans to achieve it, understanding that there might be sacrifices that need to be made, unpleasant encounters, people who may not understand your objectives … but trusting your instinct anyhow that what you are doing is right.
Finally, the courage to actually execute it. Knowing there is a problem, and knowing how to solve it will achieve no impact if one does not actually start working actively on bringing the first two attributes to life.
“It’s like watching a drowning man, you know” he said. “You see a drowning man — you identify that as a problem.
That’s No 1. Then you may be a strong swimmer, so you know how to help him, you can strategise where to jump into the water so the currents won’t sweep you away, how to handle him without him pulling you under
out of fear and swim back to safety and so on.
That’s No 2. But No 3 is everything — will you do it? You know you will get wet, you might have the actual possibility of being dragged under the water with him, you may hurt yourself in the process.
If you do it anyhow and bring him to safety, that is how all three attributes combine to create strong leadership.
Leadership skills are the hardest skills to come by because managing people and their multitude of expectations are terrifying to a lot of people. When you run a business, you need all the people in your organisation to help keep the company together with one collective vision and hard enough as it is, it is just your company.
When you run a country, however, you have the hopes and needs of millions of people who are investing in you (through tax dollars) to make the country a better place for them. There is a lot of pressure both ways so the art of leadership is a skill that is possessed by very few.
The good news is, it can be learnt. To add to the words of the good minister, I say you also need to have a lot of belief in yourself, confidence, resilience, patience and organisational skills. And sometimes, a larger than life presence.
Let me elaborate.
You are constantly challenged on a daily basis by people who don’t agree with you, who want things their way and not yours, who challenge you and this can lead you to doubt yourself and the plans you have made. This is where the confidence and self-belief come in.
You have to persuade people to understand why things are the way they are, to guide them and repeat this again and again … until they see it the way you see it. It’s exhausting and takes lots of patience.
And sometimes, it gets to you. People can disappoint and suck a lot of your energy from you, and here’s where you need resilience to keep getting up again and again after every time someone disappoints you.
Organisational skills because a leader needs to mobilise resources and skills and see the big picture — for then only can you solve the smaller problems.
Larger than life presence because people need someone to look up to, not someone to look down at.
And lastly, if unfair, hurtful remarks are thrown at you just for doing your job, remember that lions never lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune. Feedback can reach the writer at beatrice@ibrasiagroup.com
