POWER WITHOUT CONTROL

Power without control is nothing…

In the business sector; compromise, softness and compassion are seen as sign of weakness. To succeed as a leader you must exhibit Napoleon’s style of aristocratic type of leadership and struts the firm’s corridors full of dictatorial gait and tendencies. If you think that was in the renaissance age, follow me patiently as I take you on a familiarization tour of my experience at the boardroom two years ago on the highly discriminatory Lekki phase 1. My interview with the affable looking gentlemen that presided over the business empire did not prepare me for the experience that laid ahead. On scope and commitment to the project, we seemed to be on the same page. Or so I thought.

My inaugural board meeting with the chairman in attendance went well, at least for me. What I however found disturbing was meeting my fellow chief executive officers for the first time being chewed out raw in a meeting. Granted that one or two of the executives present appeared slack in preparation for the meeting but I absolutely did not feel that the humiliation they faced was needful. In a medium sized boardroom full of about five or six professionals with commanding experience in their relevant fields being turned inside out in an embarrassing manner like that could be counter-productive  I do not have anything against brainstorming or strategy session, but running down professionals just to feed your ego is simply horrendous.

Subsequent meetings were useless, ineffective, inefficient, inadequate, demoralizing, humiliating, frustrating and time wasting. Besides, the meetings were too frequent and most of the times targets set at the last meeting were hardly realized before another meeting. It was only a matter of weeks before hypocrisy, cheating and back stabbing crept in to the team as members employ all manners of dirty tricks in the bag for survival. The mini emperor running the show, lacking self belief and integrity, depended largely on divide and rule tactics to run the group. Professionalism and decent manner of communication were jettisoned for rumours and hearsays.  Gradually, the end of the project began to show as the leadership started encroaching on highly skilled operations of which he had no knowledge of.

Decent professionals saw the handwriting on the wall and did what was appropriate. This is a brief insight into the murky waters of power leadership without control. In this day and age, leadership is supposed to be supportive and to modify organizational behaviour  The focus should be on meeting the organization targets and objectives without endangering the individual goals and ambitions. The mark of a true leadership is helping in taking strategic decisions with the benefit of information at his disposal without delving into everyday operations. By the way, hospitality industry in not for charlatans that erroneously believed that selling time and space is all that is there in hotel management.  

As a final shot and without getting personal, John Quincy Adam once said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are a leader.”