Tajudeen Akande is a Financial Analyst, Senior Partner and Director at the African Board of PKF International; a global firm of chartered accountants with offices located in over 400 cities and 125 countries, with the aim of achieving continuity among clients, thereby building relationships and delivering superior services. In this interview with Omolara Akintoye, the Chartered Accountant with over 29 years’ experience, said a good manager must have emotional intelligence and that professionals can help society by ensuring that in every dealing, ethical standards should be introduced, which can help to reduce corruption to its barest minimum.. Excerpts…..
What is your management style?
I believe in participatory management, what is called democratic leadership style. I like to involve people in decision making so that they can also have an input. I always believe that as a leader, no matter your vision or your conviction, if that vision is not shared by your team members, it may ultimately not be effective in implementation. That is what defines my management and leadership style. I’m also very decisive when I need to take decisions.
And your management philosophy?
I believe in the philosophy of togetherness, trusting people to be involved in decision-making. My management philosophy is that as a leader, you must trust your subordinates to be able to take decisions through. As much as possible, delegate and co-ordinate, because it’s very easy for delegation to turn into a lassez faire system, which can be very chaotic. So, delegating decision-making process and getting involved in terms of co-ordination and ultimately, decision-making so that it is participatory. But the leader is still seen as leading from the front.
Do you micro-manage?
No, it is totally against my philosophy. In fact, any of my managers that is not delegating enough or cannot mentor, is not fit to lead. I believe in identifying future leaders and mentoring them to become good leaders. Anybody you are looking at, if he doesn’t have the characteristics of being able to delegate and mentor is not fit to be a leader.
How do you motivate your staff?
It’s different combinations, ranging from motivation by acknowledging their good deed. I believe in appreciating good deeds. What anybody has done well, because I’m also a very critical person. So, when you’ve done something good, I do acknowledge that. Over the years, I’ve discovered that it can be very motivating; you also reward performance. Also in my career and experience, timely feedback also serves as a good motivating factor for staff whether they are doing it right or making a mistake. Not when the deed is done and it’s already too late they get penalised. Unlike if their attention had been drawn to it with timely feedback, they would have changed in course of action.
How do you reprimand erring staff?
It depends on the situation and the gravity of what has happened. Sometimes it’s about calling, advising and in the course of that, you get a lot of harsh tongue. Not shouting; it could take a form of warning. It also depends on the frequency of occurrence. I don’t mind you making a mistake and correcting you but if I keep correcting you on the same issue overtime, then you’ll see my other side.
Do you apply the carrot and stick approach?
I do. You can’t flog all the time and you can’t pamper all the time. Sometimes you also dangle the carrot; so, I do.
What has been your toughest decision as a manager?
That was when I had to fire a staff who is also a personal friend, which was tough. I knew it’s a decision that would still come back to me, for someone who is close. We’ve been together for years, something happened and you just have to apply the same principle for everybody. That can be very tough. There is also a situation whereby, because I like to interact with people, you do this to break barriers and make them feel free. We’ve had a big time together and then an incident happened the next day in the office and you had to issue query. People got shocked, not believing you could actually issue that query. For me, it’s one of the toughest decisions.
Your best decision overtime?
That is my decision to stick with this career. In my formative years, I’ve got to cross roads as to what do you do, you’ve had offers here and there, you’ve seen colleagues move, you see things happen in different sectors. I just looked at myself and what I have a passion for and what my personal disposition is and I decided to stick with accounting practice. My friends even thought I signed my life to poverty, but today I look back and I’m happy to say that it couldn’t have been better anywhere else.
What is your definition of a good manager?
A good manager must be calm, plan before acting; must be able to motivate his team, as well as have the ability to create another manager through mentoring. He must also have emotional intelligence. You cannot afford to react emotionally, because decisions that are based on emotions are always very wrong. Yes, as human beings, we have emotions, but you must get over emotions before taking decisions. So, he must have the capacity to display high level of emotional intelligence.
As an upwardly mobile executive, how do you ease off stress?
People often accuse me that I work too hard, but I also play as much as I work. So in terms of socialising, I try as much as possible to catch fun with friends after work, that is why I belong to many social clubs. I’m a member of Lagos Country Club, also their current president, also a member of Sagamu Golf Club. I also belong to few other associations. I like to take holidays, just relax, and switch off the phone. It’s the key to healthy life, especially when you have a busy executive lifestyle. I’ve been an active clubber for over 20 years.
In retrospect, what do you regret most in your career and profession?
Absolutely nothing; no regret at all.
Your fond memories of starting out as a professional?
(Laughs) I recall going as a member of team for auditing, getting into various environment and people receiving us with a lot of respect. You see everybody checking themselves. You can see the anxiety all over them, they can’t wait for us to leave; it makes me feel important, really. Also by the virtue of the nature of the job, you have the opportunity of interacting with management and board members that, ordinarily, you wouldn’t have had access to. But as an auditor, you are able to interact with them. The job also exposes you to a lot of travelling round the country, staying in the best hotels in town; those were the experiences of the profession as a senior accountant in training then. I still look back to those days and I feel today my colleagues might have lost some elements of respect which we had in those days. Probably because there are more people in the profession now, more people have come from this side to the other side, so it’s like we know what they are coming to do. Another reason could be because of the way people also conduct themselves. In those days, when people heard that you were chartered, they look at you with a lot of respect, and with the training we received then, once you stepped out, you knew that you were representing your firm and you had to conduct yourself in an orderly manner. Even when you are hungry and a client is offering you something, you reject such offers. And eventually after having finished the engagement, you are given the best treatment by the entire management team. Unlike today, you are there, they just abandon them in one room. Those good old days are no more there.
How best do you think professionals can contribute to the development of this country?
First, there is something that is common to every profession, which is called ethical standard, medicine, law, accounting, journalism, engineering etc, which separates the professional that is well trained from the ordinary man on the street that learn on the job. One of the major problems I see in this country is corruption, pride and weak leadership arising from lack of practice of ethical standards. It’s easy to say let the professional get involved in politics, but when you look at those in politics, some are professionals while others are not. It’s about people maintaining and conducting business. I mean in every aspect of human endeavour, there should be a high level of ethical standards. So, professionals can help society by ensuring that in every dealing, ethical standard should be introduced, which can help reduce corruption to its barest minimum and the society will be better for it.
Finally, you are the newly appointed president of Lagos Country Club, what are you bringing to the club that is different from what other past presidents had done?
In a nutshell, I intend bringing transformational leadership. Every person that had served the club in the past has added one thing that is different from what their predecessor had done, so we’ve had progress. Transformational leadership in a way that we want to create change that is faster, that is revolutionary, so to say. I think we’ve had a fair share of being complacent in our developmental journey, in which case, majority of our members believe that our level of development, as good as it is, should be a lot faster than what it is. So my vision is to accelerate that level of development; to take us at the pace of where we are coming from to be able to implement what we would have done in ten years in one year.
