I have known Laide for a bit now.. Laide is the big CEO of Purple Group, owners of the mercurial Maryland Mall and the skyline redefining Purple Lekki mall.
The Purple Lekki mall is the latest addition to exquisite leisure experience in lagos.
Its unique design, ease of flow and other such apputerations makes it a compelling touch point in the city of Lagos.
To deliver on this multibillion vision, Laide and his team had to literarlly walk thru hot coal on bare feat
The challenges were humongous and poured on them like torrential rain in the deep rain forests of the South South
Pausity of capital, investor aparthy, horrendous macro economic headwinds including inflation which drove costs making budgets useless, FX volatility and then covid came and added its own.
The team pushed thru, evolving and devolving many a strategy to wrestle down the monstrous challenges that came at them
Some of the startegies including a public offer that didnt really light a fire and a combination of short, mid and long term debt capital which eventually led to the completion of the projects years after initial deadline
But a wonderful project they delivered as we could see during the launching of the place
Gov Babajide SANWO-OLU opened the edifice and during a tour of the place, he made some very glowing remark about the kind of leadership that would have delivered on this promise.
Laide’s kind of leadership is one that I would call consensual.
This type of leadership doesnt breath heavily down on its people, it respects their opinion and capacity and much importantly and uniquely leads from the back
This is crazy abi? As all business manuals and coaches will scream lead from the front
I see Laide lead from the back with a lot of empathy, strength, a huge ability to ask questions and very very importantly listen.
I came very close to Laides kind of leadership very recently
A young man was involved in an accident at the Mall and instantly the Government shut it down
This would significantly impact revenues, affect traffic, loss of perishable goods, impact very negatively brand equity and added to this, the human angle of the loss to the immediate family and Lagosians as a whole.
Purple was in a quandry. The first call I got was from Obinna, Laide’s extremely brilliant Partner.
I had known Obinna even before Laide when he was a handsome young banker.
His Bank and immediate boss were my clients at BGL and Obinna came across as a young man with a purpose.
Now my reputation as a mediator and crisis manager is begining to evolve having after successfully mediated between the Lagos State Government and elder statesman Sir Kayode Otitoju just a few weeks earlier
Obinna and I talked deeply about the crisis and agreed on some steps
Laide now called a few days later – Edgar, I need you on this and I said oya
The first meeting Laide called was a lesson in consensual leadership
It was 15 people including his top management and a consultant and myself plus his media people
He listened to all conversations, and asked the right questions, listened again, and barely interrupted or intejected.
His tone was respectful and this gave the grouping confidence.
It also assured the group that although he was in charge, everybody was a leader.
I attended over five meetings of this nature and in a period of four days spoke to Laide privately for an estimsted 20 times
His leadership skill needs to be studied. He would call me very late at night and trigger me with a searching question
Edgar, what do you think? Are we on the right path, this is what the Commisoner said, this is our thinking, are we on the right path, from your angle whatelse should we be doing?
His strength as a leader was in his ability to take corrections gracefully.
When he was wrong, he would not go defensive as most of us would
Reading their first press statement, I panned it. Ohh empathy must be the guiding theme on this and he said-write it
Most leaders will shout or throw in excuses or lean in heavy as their ego will not allow common sense engagement
But not Laide. Once I broached the theme of empathy, he threw it on the group – guys what do you think?
He always spoke last and after listening very intently to every body he would say – Edgar oya write it
That way he got the buy in of all 15 and a collective decision was now taken
Empathy was another theme he showed as a leader
His questions to me during private discussions very late at night showed this
Edgar, what kind wahala be this, Edgar how is the mother coping, what of the father, how do we reach them.
What is his background. What really happened, what kind of life did he live, should we do a monument for him, how do we support the family
These were recurrent questions from Laide thru out the period
He agreed to go visit the mother in London with priests and other form of support.
He sent a powerful delegation to the relatives in Lagos and was opened to working with the family in seeking closure.
In all of these, I observed very closely the thematic themes of Laide’s kind of corporate leadership – humility, deep respect for his people, ability to ask questions, ability to put together a strong crisis management team, ability to work the complex nature of Govt relationships, courage to admit weakness-which is very key and cannot be found in most corporate leaders, ability to take hard and far reaching consensual decisions amongst others.
As I read the statement opening the mall, the themes of empathy, vision driven corporate goals and much more importantly respect for life as against capital gains run thru all, throwing up the gift of leadership as embodied by this young Nigerian Corporate leader – Laide Agboola.
To balance it, he showed some weakness in some of the questions being repeated so many times showing some level of nervousness and little fear as to personal consequences – Edgar we didn’t do anything wrong personally abi?
But this quickly disappeared as it showed even though it kept peeking in occasionally.
Welldone bro and weldone to the team at Purple esp my other brother Obinna who is the perfect corporate partner.
Thanks
Joseph Edgar
Edgar is the founder of Barnaby and Edgar a niche consulting and advisory firm with mandates in real estate, entertainment, finance and media.