Mr. Linus Okorie, the President, Guardians of the Nation International, which is hosting a leadership clinic for 300 select youths in Abuja on Sunday (tomorrow), speaks on the leadership question and his new book, Footprints: Leading Beyond Today. He spoke to JOHN ALECHENU
What is your background?
I’m the President of Guardians of the Nation International, a non-governmental organisation and an author. I run a managing consulting firm – a leadership development concern that is responsible for providing leadership development opportunities for public and private companies, as well as a personal coach to decision makers. I’ve just published a book in the world market entitled, Footprints: Leading Beyond Today. The foreword was written by Dr. Myles Munroe.
What specifically does the book address?
It addresses the legacy question. The issue of legacy – if every human being who is living on the surface of the earth within the period of his stay that the best thing he can do for himself is to live in such a way that when he is no more, his name can become a resource for his children and grandchildren. When his name is mentioned, the society can respect the name, it attracts respect, and it attracts quality. So, what the book is about is to teach everyone the principles and standards of leadership that can enable them get to that state of living where life is no longer lived for self, but for the common good. It’s that state of living that guarantees one the right and the opportunity to lead beyond today. Several Nigerians established companies in the 70s, 80s and even the 90s, a good number died with their founders. What is responsible for this?
That tells you that every organisation, every institution, is a shadow of the founder of the one who thought about the idea in the first place. And so the leadership core values of that founder reflects on the quality of the organisation that individual is running. Therefore, the moment an individual assumes control of an organisation, the primary concern of the individual is to ensure that there is a leadership culture that is in place within the organisation. Which means there are certain standards, there are certain practices, there are certain core values that must be seen in operation in that company; there must be a sense of vision in that company. It means that everybody who works within that company will think in the context of vision. Now, when you have this kind of leadership core values within an organisation that reflects the core values of the founder over time and the workers in the organisation are trained and retrained again and again on the same core values, what happens over time is that, the person who is in charge, even when he is living, has started his succession plan. Succession planning has started, that means if that person stays within that organisation over a number of years. What usually happens is that the people who work in that organisation begin to tend to behave like the founder of that organisation.
What has happened is a transfer of what the founder actually stands for, that person is building a legacy that is going to live beyond him because he is not investing in the structure in terms of infrastructure. Take a country like Singapore for instance. You are aware in the 1960s Nigeria was at par in terms of development. In fact, Nigeria was making quicker progress because Nigeria had discovered oil. This is a country that there was no natural resource, no source of income in terms of what we call natural resources here. But this country took the very best of their young people. The leadership that was in place saw a future and they defined what consists of their national vision. And what did they do? They took their very best of young people and locked them up and began to teach them how to get to that future. They taught them the principles of leadership, they taught them the principles of integrity, principle of sacrifice, innovation and they identified the talent of those young people and they sent most of them abroad and they went to develop those talents and then they came back to the country and redesigned their country. That is why Lee Kuan Yew will never be forgotten in that country even when he is no more. Why is this so? It is because he is leading beyond today.
Why is such a thing not happening in Nigeria?
I just feel that people are just living for the sake of today and because people are living for the sake of today their actions reflect in today and are not sustainable. Actions are taken without deep thinking, without thorough thinking, without what I call delayed gratification. What people want to do is to sow seeds today and eat it today. People don’t want to do long term planning. Where they plan they plan for 50 years, 100 years. No nation should plan for less than 100 years; if nations do that then the leaders will disappear from the surface of the earth immediately they leave office.
But if you find leaders that have exhibited high quality of thinking, their actions and what they say with their mouths will add value to society. It will synchronise with a four-year plan; it will synchronise with an eight-year plan that is in between a long term planning system. That’s how nations can be transformed. This is what should happen to individual thinking. This is the same thing that can happen to organisational thinking because the sad thing that normally happens is that once a leader leaves, even if it’s a person of integrity and honour and is quite brilliant and he has energy, he has capacity to innovate to do things. If he does not allow the human beings within his organisation share in that ideal, buy into that concept, it becomes a concept in that organisation. There is a leadership culture in that organisation so if that individual leaves without putting that culture in place, no matter how good he is, what normally happens is that that organisation will crumble over a period of time.
How then do you build institutions?
You build institutions by inspiring human beings in that institution to buy into a culture. Once you do that, then there is a pattern.
Can you give an example, especially with the way things are run in the public sector?
Take for instance, the budget implementation is an issue in this country. Why is it an issue? For many years, there has been this culture even when the military was in charge. Over a period of time, we spent money on things that made no sense. We spent money on luxury cars and on projects that benefited those who were spending the money. At the end of the day for many years we have never achieved more than 25 percent.
There is an ongoing debate about the level of implementation, what’s your take?
Most of the figures they give us are faulty. Because if we truly achieve a quantum of that figure, it will result in transformation because you will see infrastructure, you will see the roads working, you will see airports working. We’ve had a history of waste for many years. If the President says right now, you know what; I want to ensure that my budget is implemented to the fullest. The secret of what he will do is to look at the civil service. This will mean overhauling the system. The Permanent Secretary who is supposed to be the administrative head of the organisation – a minister is just the political head. He gives the minister a deadline and says this is what I want you to do; if you don’t you’re fired. The minister goes back and puts pressure on the perm sec and directors this trickles down. By the time you know what is happening, the monitoring and evaluation is in place. The instrument of corruption is eliminated, the 10 percent issues are dealt with. People are given jobs strictly on merit. What is lacking within the system is clear cut leadership. If the President says this is what we want to achieve with the budget, the National Assembly members have come out to say go ahead and implement the budget. Even the NASS will have to now take up their oversight functions.