Leading like a lion or lioness in uncertain times part two

Dr. Wilbert R. Mutoko (PhD, FHEA) is a business doctor, researcher and senior lecturer for Leadership, Strategy, Change Management and Entrepreneurship at Botswana Accountancy College in collaboration with Sheffield Hallam University (UK), University of Derby (UK), and University of Sunderland (UK).

He is a dynamic and entertaining International Inspirational Speaker, Keynote Speaker, Executive Coach, Certified eSpeaker & Online Facilitator, and Author for almost two decades.

Dr. Mutoko has empowered over hundreds of CEOs, directors, and managers to discover their strengths, sharpen their presentation skills, build self-confidence and emotional intelligence, and harness capabilities to build winning teams; to become peak performance leaders with increased profitability.

His three books on financial freedom and relationships are available at Exclusive Books (Riverwalk) and Bala Books (Rail Park Mall). Dr. Mutoko writes in his personal capacity. For feedback, you can contact him on email: wilbert@wilbertmutoko. com or wilbertmutoko@ gmail.com. Visit Dr. Mutoko’s website: https://wilbertmutoko. com/

By Dr. Wilbert R. Mutoko (PhD, FHEA)

As a leader, by now you know how unstable your mind and emotions have become due to the current crisis. However, as you saw in part one, the lion is bold and continues to thrive regardless of the challenges per time. Let me invite you to learn more on leading like a lion in hard times.

In part one, I wrote that the lion’s success characteristics that could help leaders are: vision, boldness, and focus. In this part two, we look at the other lion characteristics such as: building competent teams, defending territory, and ability to hunt.

Building competent teams

The lion can live in a group or pride of 4 to 37, with an average of 15 lions in a pride. That means for a lion to succeed, it needs to learn to work well with others – being a team leader and team player. Great leaders are those that realize that there is power in the ability to work well with others. Any leader who believes in solitary work will be limited in productivity, effectiveness, and leaving a legacy. For example, as great as Steve Jobs was, if he were a one-man-band, Apple would not have grown to where it is today, especially after he left the world. Therefore, for your organization to thrive, you need to consciously put efforts into recruiting, coaching, mentoring, brainstorming, and training your teams to become more and more competent especially during tough times. Failure to do that will result in your organization closing.

Defending territory

Each pride knows its territory, and each territory is clearly marked. The lions in each pride fight vehemently to defend their territory, and in some cases to expand their territory. This helps to prevent lions from other prides from invading the area, while increasing opportunities for food and growth. Every leader should know his/ her territory. What is the size of your target market? What is your market segment? How much of the market does your competitors have? How are you making sure that you keep your market segment? Is there a way you can increase your market size?

Hunting prowess

Lions are known for hunting prey that range from very small animals such as rodents, to large animals such as the elephant, hippopotamus, or giraffe. However, in most cases, lions tend to hunt average animals such as antelopes and zebras. It takes boldness and strategy to hunt effectively. One of the main strategies is to target young or weak prey. It also takes working in teams for lions to win in hunting. Therefore, as leaders, we need to have clear tactics to lead effectively, working together in teams as lions do. However, it should be noted that lions do not always succeed in hunting. One of the reasons for hunting failure is that lions tend to be careless, forgetting that the prey can pick the lion’s scent, depending on the wind’s direction. Another reason for failure is that lions get tired quickly. Thus, leaders need to reflect and cover their weaknesses with the strengths of other team members. While lions (males) also go hunting, lionesses are the main hunters. This teaches us as leaders to embrace diversity in the workplace. Some men discriminate against women, not knowing that women are very powerful, and they can contribute immensely to the workplace; and in many cases they contribute better than men.

Conclusion

As a leader, you need to be consistently looking for ways to better yourself and to grow the organization. I hope that these lessons from the lion will inspire you be a better leader – vision, focus, and boldness. In the end, it does not matter how smart, fast, strong and connected you are; it matters how bold, focused, and long-term oriented you are as a leader.

I wish you the best of every success as a leader. Together we will sail through this crisis.