Article written By Onawumi Kehinde (Ayochris)
Daring, courageous, and inspiring, good leadership can turn the tide for a nation. There have been many heads of state, leaders, and conquerors that history remembers.
However, there are only a handful of famous world leaders in history we still revere, be it for their extreme courage, their vitality, or their determination towards achieving their goals.
Some leaders like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington changed the world for all times to come, whereas some leaders like Genghis Khan, although very powerful, spread terror and tyranny wherever they went, needless to say, these leaders left the world and their impacts will be felt for all times to come.
Contemporary leadership offers new models and frameworks. These offerings can help future leaders to explore what it means to be a leader and characteristics that inspire President Donald Trump of United State of America, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, (Nigeria President) and Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, CFR( Temporary President of 148th IPU United Nations General Assembly).
Trump was born with silver spoon but he built his wealth from nothing before discovering himself. As at year 2003, Trump was in such desperate for financial assistance following his father’s death and his family businesses kept failing:.
In 2004, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts filed for bankruptcy with $1.8 billion of debt but Trump eventually made a comeback and builds his wealth from nothing.
When President Tinubu, GCFR narrated how he made his money and how he became an house owner as a civil servant in US in a lengthy interview, he granted TheNews Magazine on March 29, as he celebrated his 64th birthday.
He said “At Deloitte and Touche, I chose to travel more than 80 per cent of my working years there. And that is because if a staff chose to travel, he would make more money because he would get travel allowances. I was sent on an assignment to help set up a an accounting and auditing system for a joint-venture between National Oil and Aramco in Saudi Arabia but by the time I returned to the United States, I discovered that my account had been credited in millions. I bought a house from the money and invested the rest in the U.S”.
He went to USA as a student and became a landlord and investor within six years. He is a model of building wealth from nothing through vision.
Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, CFR was not born with silver spoon, his journey towards conquering the world began when he was law student at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, started out by organising training workshops for all cadres of civil servants in the 90s before veering into consultancy for government on withholding tax from oil companies, helping government to make billions of naira in the process and getting a tidy commission for his efforts in the process.
A turn-around expert of impeccable pedigree, his business model is built around acquiring badly run businesses and performing corporate surgery on them to make them profitable. He builds his wealth from nothing through vision.
Building wealth from nothing might feel like you would be doing the impossible, but there are countless of self-made millionaires in dollars who have proven that it can be done. It takes hard work, resilience, smart strategies, and discipline because the hard work pays off.
It may be difficult for a leader that can’t build wealth for himself to build wealth for a state or nation, that is why entrepreneur performs better as a leader of a country or state than others.