Leadership
Are You Building Leaders or People Who Have Learned to Wait for You?
If you are not a business leader, you may want to skip this one because this conversation is really for people building organisations and managing teams.
I can confidently say this:
every company needs people with the authority, courage and competence to make sound decisions.
every company needs people with the authority, courage and competence to make sound decisions.
Something interesting happened recently while I was preparing to travel to China with 27 other business leaders.
Before travelling,
I appointed one of our team members, Anyalewechi Precious, as the 30-Day Capacity CEO of Pamtech Properties and Estate Limited.
I appointed one of our team members, Anyalewechi Precious, as the 30-Day Capacity CEO of Pamtech Properties and Estate Limited.
It was an experiment in leadership.
I wanted to see what could happen when someone was given a different level of responsibility, visibility and an opportunity to lead.
At the time, there was a lot happening at 08City Garden Estate in Port Harcourt.
We had made a 90-day development promise, and there was still plenty of work to be done.
Construction on 30 housing units was ongoing. Our roads needed attention because the rains had prevented us from completing some of the work. Contractors required constant supervision, marketing activities needed to continue, and I was about to be thousands of kilometres away.
Construction on 30 housing units was ongoing. Our roads needed attention because the rains had prevented us from completing some of the work. Contractors required constant supervision, marketing activities needed to continue, and I was about to be thousands of kilometres away.
So I made the decision to put Precious in charge and instructed him to resume operations at 08City Garden while also coordinating the tech team.
From there, something interesting started happening.
He began showing me activities at the estate and regularly updating me on progress.
He was following up.
He was coordinating people.
He was taking ownership.
At one point,
I laughed and wrote in a post:
I laughed and wrote in a post:
“This CEO title is powerful oohh.”
But behind the joke was something I had been thinking deeply about while building Pamtech.
What Actually Makes Someone Behave Like a Leader?
Is it the title?
Is it the salary?
Is it the office?
Or is it the responsibility and authority we give that person?
Sometimes,
we employ people,
give them impressive titles and then refuse to allow them to make decisions.
we employ people,
give them impressive titles and then refuse to allow them to make decisions.
Afterwards,
we complain that they are not taking initiative.
we complain that they are not taking initiative.
I think this is where many business leaders unknowingly create the very problem they later complain about.
Imagine this common situation.
A problem occurs and somebody reports it to a supervisor.
The supervisor reports it to a manager.
The manager says the issue needs to be discussed, so a meeting is scheduled with ten people.
Everyone comes together.
They explain the problem.
They discuss it.
They agree something needs to be done.
Then somebody finally says:
“Let us get approval from the MD.”
By the time the matter reaches the founder or managing director, three days may have passed.
The customer is already angry.
The contractor is waiting.
The opportunity may be disappearing.
Yet everybody feels they have been working because they attended meetings.
The question I think leaders should ask is:
What exactly did the meeting produce?
If ten people gather to discuss a decision that one competent manager should have made yesterday, then we may need to examine the structure of that organisation.
I ask myself this question too because I sometimes notice the same tendencies around me.
Meetings Should Not Become a Hiding Place
I am not against meetings.
We hold meetings at Pamtech, and they are extremely important.
Meetings should help people make better decisions, coordinate work, share information or solve problems that genuinely require several people.
But meetings should not become a hiding place for people who are afraid to take responsibility.
A healthy organisation should clearly define who can make which decisions.
Otherwise, everyone keeps escalating problems upward until eventually everything depends on one person.
And when every decision depends on the founder, the company has a serious scaling problem.
Responsibility Without Authority Is Frustrating
When I appointed Precious as our 30-Day CEO, I was not expecting him to suddenly become an expert in real estate development overnight.
That would have been unreasonable.
What I expected was a change in behaviour because of the responsibility he had been given.
He needed to coordinate people.
He needed to ask questions.
He needed to follow up.
He needed to communicate progress.
He needed to push approved work forward.
And most importantly,
he needed to know which situations he could handle himself and which ones genuinely required escalation.
he needed to know which situations he could handle himself and which ones genuinely required escalation.
Now imagine if I had given him the CEO title but insisted that he must call me before speaking with the road engineer, a contractor or a supervisor.
Imagine if he could not make any operational decision without waiting for me to finish whatever I was doing in China.
What would have been the point of the appointment?
He would simply have become a messenger carrying a CEO title.
Unfortunately, that is what happens in many organisations.
We delegate responsibility but retain all the authority.
Then we hold people accountable for results they were never fully empowered to influence.
For me, that is not leadership development.
It can quickly become leadership frustration.
Sometimes Leaders Create the Dependency They Complain About
Sometimes we complain about the same behaviour we are producing.
We say:
“My managers don't take initiative.”
But whenever they take initiative, we interfere.
We say:
“Nobody can make decisions without me.”
But we have never clearly defined which decisions our people are allowed to make without us.
Some leaders complain that everybody depends on them, but behind closed doors, they secretly enjoy being needed.
That can become dangerous.
Founders can easily become emotionally attached to being the most important person in every room.
We want the organisation to grow, but at the same time, we are uncomfortable with becoming less involved in its daily operations.
But a company that can only function when the founder is present has not truly become an organisation yet.
It is still dependent on an individual.
The real test of leadership is not how many decisions you can make personally.
It is how many capable decision-makers you can develop around you.
The Question Every Business Leader Should Ask
A few days ago, I asked myself a question:
Am I building leaders, or am I building people who have learned to wait for me?
That question is worth asking honestly.
Because leadership development is not just about promoting people or giving them impressive titles.
It is about giving people responsibility, clearly defined authority, room to make decisions and accountability for the outcomes.
People will make mistakes along the way.
That is part of development.
The goal is not to create employees who constantly ask:
“What should I do?”
The goal is to build leaders who can say:
“This is the situation. This is what I think we should do. This is why. And this is the result.”
That is when an organisation begins to develop real leadership capacity.
So I will leave fellow business leaders with this question:
When you look at the people working with you today, are you genuinely building leaders—or are you building people who have simply become very good at waiting for your approval?
NC
About the Author
Engr. Ndubuisi Chidomere, MNSE is a Nigerian engineer-turned-entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Pamtech Group, a diversified conglomerate operating in automotive, oil & gas, media, and innovation sectors. He is a Forbes Business Council Member and thought leader on African entrepreneurship.
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