Heavy is the head that wears the crown

Have you ever been offered a leadership position that you rejected? What exactly was the reason why you rejected it?

I have been in a couple of leadership positions at some points in my life. Starting from primary school, I have been made the monitor of some of my classes and also in high school, I occupied the position of prefect in most of the classes but I gave it up at one point.

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Why did I give it up? Because managing humans is difficult as hell! You can never please everyone and because of that, you won't be loved by everyone.

I can be really ruthless when it comes to being in a leadership position as I don't give room for inequality. Even if you're my friend and you mess up, you still get same punishment as others.

The funny thing is I'm very friendly and I love to joke a lot but when I'm in a leadership position, I become focused and serious because I know being a leader isn't easy and if people see you can be pushed, you end up being just a puppet with someone else pulling the strings.

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What am I building up to?

As I have mentioned before, I'm currently in my fourth year in the university and this year is meant for field practical training (FPT).

We in the faculty of agriculture uses this year to get hands-on experience on the field instead of just listening to theories everyday in the four walls of a classroom.

Coming specifically to my course of study which is fisheries, we use the first semester to practice managing a farm; the university's experimental farm and we are there everyday from 8am to 4pm (except weekends).

Then as for second semester, we are to travel out to one of the research centers around the country, and we are hoping we get sent to the oceanography research center in Lagos.

So, since we will be going on a trip that will last for 2 months (it will be starting in January), a committee was set up to oversee all the activities for that period. Some of my classmates were nominated for various positions which includes male and female coordinators, treasurer, financial secretary, welfare, transportation and accommodation.

I was nominated for some of the positions but I respectfully declined. The one that was really funny was when someone mentioned my name for the position of treasurer.

I imagined having all that amount of money in my account which will be at least NGN1 million ($2000), I will definitely be tempted! I looked at the person that mentioned my name and I was like "you want to kill me?". If $1 gets missing from the money, my classmates are going to drag me to hell, it has happened to someone before.

I refused all the nominations because my classmates can be really stubborn. One of my friends @Maxline was the coordinator of my class but he was being frustrated by a lot of people and now he has been temporary stripped off that position (you can read all about the issue on his article: the cabal).

There are a lot of responsibilities that goes with leading people and though it might seem like an easy task in your head, it's actually frustrating in practice. There will always be some set of persons that feels they know it more than you and will always challenge your authority.

Even if you smile a lot with them, they will resort to manipulation and flattery just to make you do things their way. And if you're the hard and disciplined type, they keep coming up with problems that will end up frustrating you.

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I have been a leader in some group projects in school and anyone familiar with group projects knows how it usually ends; one or two persons ends up doing all the work and the others take credit as well even when they didn't contribute.

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I remember the last group project I led, we were 10 persons in the group but only two of us ended up doing all the work. I told the others that since they didn't contribute academically, they will have to do so financially and pay for all the supplies we will use for the project.

I told them that's the only condition I'm giving them before I can add their names in the final report. They thought I was joking but some of them actually paid up, but two didn't. I ended up doing exactly what I said; I didn't include their names in the final report as a participant of the project.

I got two new enemies that day but I didn't care, I rather have them as enemies than to compromise on my principles. If I add their names to the report, am I being fair to the other persons that contributed? You can now see that between the options of pissing off 8 persons or incurring the wrath of 2, I picked the later option.

Just as I said earlier, you can't please everyone but at least make sure it's just a minority of the people you're leading that are not pleased. If the majority of them aren't satisfied with your leadership, doesn't that mean you're the problem? (The president of a certain country comes to mind).

Leadership isn't easy and one has to be firm and disciplined when they are leading. The person that wears the crown knows how heavy it is, and every other person just sees the beauty of it without knowing the headaches that comes with it.

So back to my initial question, have you been in a leadership position? How was your experience?

Thanks for reading 💗💗💗

Friday October 15, 2021.