One of Nigeria's leading figure in corporate leadership is Mr. Bunmi Oni, Managing Director of Cadbury Nigeria Plc. In this lecture which he gave recently, he spoke on Releasing Your Leadership Potentials. Enjoy this extract: Time is very short. It doesn't matter whether you live a hundred years or not. And we often discover that with hindsight.

The second thing, therefore, is that we spend each day of our lives writing down a new page of what our lives will be like. And if time is short, you will know that each moment count.

Now, if we spend each day of our lives writing down a new page in the way that the stories will be told about us the way we lived, then it means that today is the consequence of the future. Though, one of the things that we learn in conventional thinking is that today is a consequence of yesterday. But I have learnt over time that what you do today has to be determined by the way you want the future to look like. Therefore, today is a consequence of the future.

Also in the process of growing up, we realise that the process of maturing is also a process of learning to be interdependent. Because in life, we learn that you go from the stage of dependent to the state of independent and on to the state of interdependent. And that is the reason I think that this subject is particularly important because it comes to the whole subject of leadership.

DEFINITIONS
The subject under focus is 'Releasing Your Leadership Potential: And in this subject, are four key words - release, potential, leadership and you.

I. YOU
Talking about 'You', we learn every time that you are supposed to be about your purpose, what you are meant to be. But we find that many times, there is something that wants or seeks to abort your mission. So really, the difference between the two words, being about and abort, is you.

2. RELEASE
Release essentially is referring to bringing out something that is latent, something that resides within you. It talks about unleash, about activate, about unveiling, about breaking boundaries, about extending your existing horizon. That is what release is. It talks about nurturing, it talks about building. Really, releasing your leadership potential is bringing out your leadership potential, bringing out something that is latent, unleashing that potential, bring out what the effect of it should be, bringing out and activating what should come from your own leadership potential. It is unveiling the character, it is unveiling the nature, it's breaking the boundaries.

3. POTENTIAL
What is potential? Potential is what you are equipped for, what you are made to be, what you should be. Potential is your purpose. Many times, the word purpose speaks about ability, about talent. For many people, we struggle about the whole idea of purpose. What is my purpose? What is the essence of my being? I have discovered that the things that give us an indication of what our purpose is, is simply to understand what our talent or gift is. Because usually, your natural gift is usually an indication of the direction of what you are meant to be. So, you realise your potential when you understand your purpose.

One thing that tells us a lot about purpose is a seed. Every time you see a seed in your hand, you can look at that seed and see a meal or many different things depending on what your approach is. If you hold a grain of corn in your hands, you can either see it as a seed or something that gives you a meal. You can see it as a tree or as a great tree, as a forest or a factory.

Just that single seed because in that seed lies all of the potentials to become a tree, become a forest, become a factory. You can decide to limit your own horizon depending on your own understanding of purpose. So, your gift or talent is an indication of purpose and it may have nothing to do with the job you do at the moment.

Myles Munroe says, 'Your job is what you do until you discover your work.' The job that you do, or what pays your daily bill is what you do until you discover what your work should be. Your purpose may have nothing to do with what you are doing at the moment. It may have nothing to do with what pays your bills at the moment.

To appreciate potential therefore, we need to understand purpose, and to understand purpose we need to go back to the beginning. Because in the beginning, God said, "Let us make man in our image and let him have dominion and let him have authority". That is, let him fulfill a purpose in the process of creation. But two verses down in Gen. I :28, God made further pronouncements about purpose. There, He pronounced these five different words.

He said be Fruitful. This means to have a capacity to initiate, to have a vision and the capacity or energy to deliver such vision. Fruitful is not just about procreation. Been fruitful is an indication of a capacity to initiate, that is the capacity God has given to us. It is the capacity to conceive a vision, and the capacity to bring that vision to reality. That is what being fruitful is.

Then God said Multiply. Multiply again is not just about procreating, it is about replicating the nature and the character that God had put in us. It is about creativity, coaching, mentoring, reproducing and replicating standard.

The third word God gave was Replenish. You only replenish what is exhausting. Replenish speaks about renewal, refreshing and motivating. God, from the beginning has given us the capacity, indeed a responsibility to replenish.

The next word is Subdue . This speaks about harnessing, pooling resources together and empowering. Subdue is to harness the resources and to set about value creation. One of the issues we have in our country today is about resourcing and managing our resources. The very structure defect we have is that we do not have value adding activities. That is the role that we have as individuals, that is our responsibility as part of the word 'subdue'. And until we place our economy on the basis of value creation, we are going to remain poor.

The fifth word is Dominion. It speaks about authority, about creating a direction, about communication. Many have dominion over people they can't communicate with. One can only have dominion over people he can communicate with. Looking at the list of things God says man should have dominion over, the .only thing that you don't have to have dominion over is man. Therefore, men are not to have dominion over women. Gen I: 28 only says man should have dominion over things of the earth and over things of the sea.

So, if you are going to release your leadership potential, you must understand what potential is and you can only understand potential if you understand purpose. But to understand purpose, there is the need to go back to the original maker/manufacturer in His manual, to give you an indication of what the purpose is.

4. LEADERSHIP
When I look at these words, they seemed to describe very perfectly the attributes of leadership. These five words - fruitful, multiply, replenish, subdue and dominion encapsulate exactly what leadership is. Leadership is perhaps the most studied subjects in our world today. It is as old as man, perhaps, it is probably one of the least understood in our world today.

This concept of leadership is best illustrated by a Chinese parable that speaks about leadership. It says trying to describe leadership is like trying to describe a bowl; a bowl can be described by the height, the circumference etc. But the capacity of the bowl is determined by the space that is enclosed by it. It is also the same with the concept of leadership. The effect of a leader is determined by the combination of those things that are encapsulated in the leader, which we sometimes may not be able to place our fingers on.

The first thing we must learn about leadership is that it has got nothing to do with position. It means connecting the head with the hand, and you only connect the two, through the heart. Now, since leadership is about connecting the head and the hands, through the heart, the head speaks about vision creating the direction, charting a path for people to follow, creating the state for the movement of people. Therefore, the head role of a leader is the role of a path finder.

The heart is connecting with one person or the other. Remember what is said about interdependence, it is empowering. Therefore, the heart part of it is like a team builder's role of leadership. The hand part of it can be likened to the role of a gardener. The gardener prunes, weeds, tends and nurtures and when necessary, he re­plants and substitutes. Replanting speaks about succession, replacing yourself as the leader.

Which one of these roles makes one the master over other? Does pathfinder makes one a master? If you are a team builder, does that make one a master? If you are a gardener does that make you a master? Leadership really is not necessarily about who is on the top, it's about you, it's about me. It's about everybody, youths and adults. Leaders to be effective therefore in his relationship with other people, he must not first ask for a heart before he asks for a hand. You can't get people to do things until their hearts is with it.

So, a leader must ask for the heart before the hand, and you cannot ask for a heart or hand until you are trustworthy. Because people do not listen with their ears, they listen with their eyes. They only hear what you do and it does not matter what you say. The ultimate goal of leadership is not to create followers but to create leaders and the measurement of success is the extent to which he is able to replicate/reproduce good leaders.

This also brings to mind another Chinese proverb that speaks about the sun. A leader is compared with the sun, the sun seats in the sky and distributes all of its energy so that plants and animals can make use of it to grow and the growth is towards the sun. Meanwhile, sun does not lord it over plants and animals to grow toward it, it does that by distributing all of itself.

God also demonstrated the above' concept by giving Himself, through His son, to us first. So, we only need to believe Him so as to become what He wants us to become. One big thing that has distinguished the leader therefore is when he is able to say ‘follow me, I am right behind you'.

The truth is that though the leader is in the front, yet he is behind. Because as he reproduces leaders, he steps back giving them support.

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