Name: Benjamin Lawal

Title: CEO/Chief Editor

Organisation: Wordflex Consult Limited

Benjamin Lawal is a professional ghostwriter and content curator with more than seven years of experience. He presently leads a team of content writers, ghostwriters, editors, proofreaders, and designers in his Content Writing Agency. In the last three years, his writing agency - Wordflex Consult Limited- has helped hundreds of individuals, businesses, and organisations to develop content for various purposes. Benjamin loves to impact his world through the instrumentality of leadership and entrepreneurship. This explains the reason he turned his passion (ghostwriting) into a business to raise the next generation of content gladiators from Africa.

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

I hope Benjamin's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. What have you found most challenging as a leader?

Bringing your followers into the understanding of your Vision and ensuring they see right into it as you want them to.

2. How did you become a leader? Can you please briefly tell the story?

My leadership experience started back during my high school. I was not the most social, but I was so inquisitive. So, there was this time we needed to elect a new class representative. Three students were expected to show interest while others would vote for their candidate of choice.

At first, the students need to nominate their candidate while any student can nominate themselves. My name was called out by some of my classmates who believed in me.

I was made the class representative of my class right from our third year until our final graduation from high school (which was for 4 years).

It was a huge experience for me. Before I finished High School, I ended up leading the whole student as their Senior Prefect (despite the fact that I was in the Arts department, which usually happened to be a disqualification as the students in Sciences are considered the most brilliant)

My leadership experience in High school followed me through and as a result of it, I developed an unexplained sense of responsibility wherever I find myself.

As a college graduate, I had told myself I wanted to be a leader in my world. I wanted to help people find their place in life. So, I started using my ghostwriting skills to build a career for myself.

At some point, I knew it was time for me to set up a team of writers to help with my constant flow of projects and that was how I started my first business, Wordflex Consult Limited.

With Wordflex Consult Limited, I do not just run a team of professional ghostwriters. I also help budding writers find their feet by giving them the opportunity they need to test the waters.

3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?

I use the Pareto principle. I pay more attention to the 20 percent of tasks that yield 80 percent results for me daily. So, I do not spend too much time dwelling on tasks that will yield low results.

I try to make every day of my life count. I have my schedule for every new day set the night before. I ensure I plan it and at the end of the day, I do a review of how I did during the day and where I need to improve on myself.

4. What's a recent leadership lesson you've learned for the first time or been reminded of?

I learned recently that as a leader, not everyone is your follower. You are not meant to help everyone stay in line with your vision. Some people will stay, learn, and stick to your vision while some will never stay no matter the effort you try to put in place.

So, it is better you just spend your time identifying the right followers - those who are willing to learn and ease your burden.

When you meet people who do not care about your vision, you need to let them go.

5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?

I will say "Leadership" by Brian Tracy.

This is one of the books that have shown me how to effectively lead others to be productive.

When we started our writing agency, I discovered that many of the ghostwriters are working below expectations and I knew they could do beyond that.

So, I utilised a lesson from the book which is to be what I want them to be. So, I showed them how they could increase their speed, effectiveness, and quality by doing the same task with them and showing them how I did it.

It helped. I was able to show them that what the company required of them wasn't unachievable or impossible.

6. If you could only give one piece of advice to a young leader, what would you say to them?

Leadership is a responsibility. As a young leader, you will be tempted to think that you have reached the peak and you just need to relax. The truth is, the higher you go on the ladder, the closer you are to loads of responsibility.

Don't ever be a lazy leader. It takes diligence to become a leader, it takes responsibility to remain as a leader.

7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader, so far?

I wouldn't call it a story. I would say it is the testimonies I receive from people who follow me and learn from what I do. I have young writers who are now independent all because they passed through our organization and learned the skill they need to survive as a writer.

I am glad I am able to contribute to my society by building new set of professional writers who will go ahead to use their creative minds to portray our world in a great light.