Genuine leaders inspire us by their exalted visions, strength of character, charisma, tenacity of purpose, high moral compass, curiosity, competence and empathy.
The journeys of two global icons, Lee Iacocca and Satya Narayana Nadella, inspire and proffer leadership lessons. We can learn from them, profit from them and factor them in our collective journey as a country.
Permit me to begin with the former. Lee Iacocca joined the FORD MOTOR COMPANY in 1946. He rose through the ranks and became its Chief Executive Officer(CEO) and President. In 1978, when he was having disagreements with his Chairman, CHRYSLER CORPORATION, a rival automaker, was assiduously courting Iacocca. At that time, the fortunes of CHRYSLER CORP. were going down hill and the company was at the brink of collapse.
On assumption of office as Chief Executive Officer of CHRYSLER CORP., Iacocca did two pivotal things, which helped turn the fortunes of the country around. He used his immense goodwill to secure a loan guarantee from the United States Congress. This was as a consequence of the realization that CHRYSLER CORP, to survive, needed urgent cash infusion.
To galvanize the management and staff of CHRYSLER CORP. and to imbue them with hope and confidence at a time when their spirits had plummeted and the company faced imminent bankruptcy, Iacocca accepted a symbolic annual salary of $1 as part of his sacrifice.
This is how the New York Times of 24th April 1987, captured this grand and historic gesture:”Lee A. Iacocca, Chairman of Chrysler Corporation, who had voluntarily limited his salary to $1 a year in September 1979, to dramatize the company’s survival efforts, was paid $116,321 in wages for the last three months of 1980, annual proxy statements mailed to shareholders today disclose.”
Satya Nadella is the Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of MICROSOFT. He attended his first job interview at MICROSOFT in the 1990s. By a recent accounting, Marcel Schwantes reports that Nadella showcased his computer skills at the said interview. He was said to have solved algorithms on a white board deploying minimal data structures and memory.
In spite of his technical prowess, Nadella was asked a simple question that confounded him:”What would you do if you saw a baby fall at a crossroad?”
Caught off guard, Nadella gave a crass response that nearly cost him the job. He retorted that he would run to the nearest phone booth and call 911. Recall that in the 1990s cell phones were not in vogue.
The interviewer faulted Nadella:”You need to develop empathy because when a child is crying, you pick them up and hug them.” Even though Nadella eventually got the job, the answer was etched in his memory and consciousness. And for good measure, it had undergirded him as CEO of MICROSOFT.
At this most dire and straitened moment, these two sublime accounts are profoundly instructive. Imagine if Nigeria’s Executive and Legislative branches had borrowed a leaf from the rare self-sacrifice and self-abnegation demonstrated by Lee Iacocca…
Imagine if President Tinubu had, upon assumption of office a year ago, declared that because of the parlorness of the economy he was taking only half of his salary for the first four years… Imagine if members of the National Assembly, invested with equal patriotism and consideration for our “dead” economy, had followed suit…
Imagine if on top of these acts of self-sacrifice they had declared that they would make do with locally manufactured Sports Utility Vehicles(SUVs) instead of foreign ones…
Such grand gestures would not only have resonated with Nigerians, they would have wowed and galvanized them, knowing that the leadership was in sync with the abject reality which they faced. Nigerians would not only have supported the government to the hilt, they would also have rested, assured that the government was committed to improving their weal and addressing the many challenges that confronted the country.
Alas, instead of seizing the moment by finding recourse in such ennobling gestures, the two branches of government are merely content with feathering their nests and in living extravagant and opulent lifestyles while millions of their compatriots wallow in want and misery. Compounding misery and want, millions of Nigerians who can hardly afford a decent meal in a day are being called to make further sacrifices for the economy to grow.
Coming at a time when the President, in his address on 12th June 2024, said Nigeria was at an intersection between despair and hope when he assumed office, Nigerians expected that his government would have embraced hope by exuding the kind of empathy and understanding which Nadella was called to demonstrate by his interviewer.
Rather than for the leadership to show compassion and fellow-feeling for Nigerians, who are traumatized and pauperized by bad governance, and who are confronted with the greatest hardship in a generation, occasioned by harmful policies, the government is contemplating the purchase of luxury jets for the Presidency. This is highly insensitive. Besides, such an inane consideration knocks the bottom out of the President’s recent claim that:”I understand the economic difficulties we face as a nation.” If he did, then he must be living in denial.
Empathy does not only elicit the understanding of the follower-ship, which is hurting and in despair, it galvanizes it and earns the people’s trust. It assures the led that the leadership genuinely feels their pain and that it is consciously taking steps to ameliorate it.
As it is, the government’s continued calls for the citizens to sacrifice is not only casting it as unfeeling and mean-spirited but as a government which has lost touch with the woeful reality or condition of the led.
At a time of national despondency, we must learn the lessons which the uplifting journeys of Iacocca and Nadella teach. Let the President and members of the National Assembly be in the vanguard of the sacrifice which they espouse and preach. Let them show uncommon empathy and concern for the hundreds of millions of Nigerians immersed in multidimensional poverty.
To do otherwise is to insist that the tail should wag the dog. This will certainly stampede us onto the path of national ruin.