Leadership lessons from ‘Strategic Turnaround’

 Maxwell Ubah

LEADERSHIP is not easy, whether it is leading a family, school,  organisation, or nation.  But,  it is possible  as  Dr   Peterside  demonstrated during his tenure as the Director-General of NIMASA. In the about-to-be-released book,  Strategic Turnaround, Dr  Peterside  shows that leading largescale transformational changes in a public sector  organisationoperating in a complex industry like the maritime sector is possible. The book is more than an account of stewardship  embarked upon by Dr Dakuku  Peterside and his team in NIMASA; it is a corporate case study of how any leader can lead largescale transformational changes in any  organisation. While your  organisational  context might be different, the principles of leadership  contained in the book are relevant,  practical,  and universal in application.  Consequently, irrespective of where you are in your leadership journey you will find in the book a treasure load of lessons, examples, and nuggets to help you become a more effective leader and unlock the greatness  in your team or  organisation.

While there are numerous  important leadership lessons contained in the yet-to-be-released book,  I will highlight five here

One of the greatest mistakes leaders  make in a turnaround situation, especially when they are brought in from the outside, is to come with preconceived ideas and strategies without understanding the challenges and culture of the  organisation they are supposed to lead. What they meet is a lukewarm reception to their ideas at best and resistance at worst. Great leaders first listen to their people to know the challenges of the  organisations  before casting their visions. When people feel heard, they, in turn, will listen and pay attention to what the leader has to stay. This should be done before the leader casts his or her vision or designs strategies. That is what Dr Dakuku Peterside did when he came in. He took the first three weeks to listen to his team and got off to a resounding start. He asked plenty of questions to understand the issues from different perspectives.

Leadership is ultimately all about people.Sometimes leaders are so carried away by their visions that they forget that the people they are speaking to are broken, wounded by past administrative failures, frustrated by not being promoted, worried about Job insecurity , and so on. Leaders who fail to address people’s pain points will not get their required emotional energy to embark on the turnaround journey. What are their pressing issues and which can you readily address? For NIMASA, one quick win that Dakuku secured was the promotion of staff. This exercise had not happened for several years but was achieved within the first seven months of his tenure and became an annual ritual during his tenure. He rejigged existing welfare packages to make people receptive of changes his team introduced.

In transforming a large  organisation  with a plethora of problems, many leaders try to fix everything at once. The result is that people lose steam and become burnt out from moving from one change initiative to another. Great leaders take a different approach—they focus on three to five critical activities that will guide all their change and transformation initiatives. NIMASA, under  Dakuku’s watch, developed a Medium-Term Strategy Plan with five critical components. His team called it the five pillars of reforms. He transformed  the Agency by paying attention to these component units.

Nothing derails a transformation  programme faster than the leader who does not model the way or walk the talk. Sometimes leaders are so hung up on motivating people that they forget that the greatest motivational force is the power of positive example.  Dakuku  led  by example. He was the culture champion at NIMASA, and he exemplified the  behaviours  he expected of his team. Transparency, effectiveness and efficiency became hallmark of his leadership. Dakuku’s turnaround time of files was amazing, his grasped of issues disarmed even the best professionals and his sense of compassion unparalleled.

The ultimate transformation of any institution is a marked improvement in results. Therefore, great leaders  measure results, not activities. One reason why organisations slip into mediocrity and oblivion is an absence of the focus on results. Activities replace results, and longevity is rewarded instead of actual performance. To transform an organisationas  Dakuku  did at NIMASA, you need to develop a compelling  scorecard,  use data to drive conversations,  challenge people to connect their everyday activities into tangible  organisational  outcomes,  and hold them accountable to deliver  organisational  results.  Strategic turnaround is just a book of leadership as it is a narrative of turnaround initiatives  under Dakuku’s transformational leadership.

• Dr Ubah is a Sloan Fellow, London Business School and CEO, Strategy House Limited.