Name: Emeka Collins Obilor

Title: Co-founder & Author of Your Expert Tech Guide in 10 Easy Steps.

Oranisation: GRITO Talent Agency.

Co-founder with 7+ years of professional Tech experience (onsite, remote, hybrid) from Web2 to Web3 and Author of Your Expert Tech Guide in 10 Easy Steps.

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

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

Cheers,

Jonno White

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

Leading myself has been the most challenging: the struggle with procrastination as a creative leader, time management in human relationships, and financial management as an employer, to mention but a few.

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

I became a Leader when I realized on-the-leadership-job in 2013: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care".

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

-I believe God wakes me every morning: so I awake with thanksgiving to God, study my bible, meditate on God's word, and make confessions into my day.

-I read articles on human psychology from Quora, attend to priority emails, and "eat the frog" (in the words of Brian Tracy) on my to-do list.

-My body prompts me to take a power nap in the afternoon to revigorate my mental alertness. I awake to attend meetings and close out on pending tasks.

-I take a stroll in the evenings, hang out at a neighborhood bar or at a snooker spot to unwind, and read a few pages of any book before retiring for the night

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

Leveraging systems, structures, and processes around your business will save your team from conflict and its leaders from burnout.

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?

"How To Win Friends and Influence People" By Dale Carnegie is one book that has had a profound impact on my leadership so far, because it was while I read this book that one of our company's name (PLUGSTUCK) and slogan was born.

Plug (business) - to connect as many Africans to the internet. stuck (customer service) -to stay with our customers for life. slogan - "Get connected, stay for life".

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

If you're a young leader in this internet age; where information is at the click of your thumb, you should vehemently hate ignorance and voraciously love knowledge.

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

The story of when the team and I went all out for 'We Are Coding 2022' to empower at least 100 Africans with in-demand IT skills in response to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 8 & 9.

The budget for this project would run into thousands of USD but we decided as a team to first of all, contribute our quota as a percentage of the total budget (to show how much we believed in its success).

To cut the story short, we had the top 1% of speakers join our onboarding session from MIT in the USA, Cameco Corporation in Canada, and Landing. jobs in Portugal, and a Renowned Scientist from Nigeria. Visit youtube.com/@plugstuckltd to watch in 1 min.

The take-home is to attempt projects that scare, so much so that you and your team become the first believers and investors, before anyone else.