It is the start of the new year 2025. As a leader, you are geared up for transformation at your organisation. You want to see a new breed of leaders that can take up the mantle to drive organizational legacy. If you are in the same boat and looking to enhance your leadership development skills, here is a valuable insight from my experience from my early years at Nile Bank, later acquired by Barclays Bank now Absa.
Winning leadership isn’t about control; it’s about enabling growth in others in your team. Great leaders don’t just shout out orders or seek the limelight, they establish frameworks to guide and empower their staff and step back. The journey of leadership development commences when you trust your people. That way you accomplish more by doing less.
Consider my work experience: A one Bentley at Nile Bank.
Bentley, an expatriate Managing Director at Nile Bank sometime in early 2002, revitalized a struggling bank with the support of the fantastic Samuel Njuki by empowering his executive team who in turn empowered the frontline staff. Instead of micromanaging, he encouraged them to innovate customer service processes that, for lack of a better word, empowered it forward as well. For instance, one teller proposed streamlining increased customer cash withdrawals at the counter, bypassing bureaucratic delays and making the customers happy to easily access their funds instead of long delays in back office manager approvals who even did not know the customers well! Bentley endorsed the idea, leading to a rapid surge in customer satisfaction and superior performance across bank branches.
Bentley’s approach wasn’t conventional leadership but rather enabling. Authentic leadership lies in empowering those closest to the challenges and observing remarkable transformations unfold. What is your leadership lesson? Share your experience below.
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