IGBAOTUN: Amofin Beulah Adeoye, Portrait of a Standout Leader || Olajide Hamzat

By all metrics, Amofin Beulah Adeoye, the legal luminary redefining leadership and philanthropy, stands out among his peers by an unmistakable margin. Thoughtful and reflective, Adeoye is a leader with the temperament and vision to lift the people through change and transformation. Quiet and cerebral, caring and compassionate, fearless and firebrand, Amofin Adeoye embodies the can-do spirit that makes Nigeria, despite her contradictions and complexities, a fascinating nation.

In Nigeria, for instance, defining what makes a leader can sometimes be a tough task. In this piece, I will explore and dive into the brilliant book by Patrick Lencioni, titled Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Writing about the five dysfunctions of a team, Lencioni identified absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results as the culprits that often derail an organization from achieving its desired results.

“A fractured team,” Lencioni clarified in the book, “is just like a broken arm or leg; fixing it is always painful, and sometimes you have to rebreak it to make it heal correctly. And to rebreak it hurts a lot more than the initial break because you have to do it on purpose.”

Inside looking out, Amofin Adeoye is by far an excellent team player. As one African proverb wisely contends: If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, you have to go with others. While organizations recognize individual brilliance and uniqueness, their overall success hinges on each worker’s ability to set aside their egos and team up for the growth of the company.

As Lencioni noted, building a team takes time and patience, but Amofin Adeoye believes that not building a team is a defeat of anything we set out to achieve. In the corporate world, the ability to inspire and encourage people to deliver on their tasks is essential to overall success. When it comes to prodding people to do their jobs, a trusted leader will get things done better than one with a big ego.

In effect, Amofin Adeoye has been able to achieve all-around success partly because he understands the five dysfunctions of a team. This is evident in his career trajectory, philanthropic interventions, and, importantly, his relationship with the people. Without mincing words, the absence of trust remains one of Nigeria’s biggest problems. Whether it is the trust deficit between leaders and the led or between people and institutions, the mistrust, to mildly put it, is quite palpable.

Also Read Amofin Beulah Adeoye Honored with Prestigious NUJ Award of Excellence

Ask an average Nigerian on the street whether they trust those in government. Recently, Kemi Badenoch, leader of the British Conservative Party, stirred the hornet’s nest when she claimed officers of the Nigeria Police Force once stole her brother’s personal belongings.

Her cold indictment opened up a flurry of criticisms and condemnations, putting the law enforcement agency under the dark spotlight. As criticism greeted her negative portrayal of the police, many Nigerians flooded social media recounting their ordeals in the hands of corrupt police officers.

Also Read Amofin Beulah Adeoye Sympathizes With Victims Of Ibadan Tragic Event

For Amofin Adeoye, building trust and sustaining it is key to leading people through changing times. Like Lencioni, he equally believes that trust cannot be built in an atmosphere of invulnerability.

“Trust,” Lencioni admitted, “is the foundation of real teamwork. And so, the first dysfunction is a failure on the part of team members to understand and open up to one another.”

Catch me next week for the continuation.

Olajide Hamzat writes about the various prospects and potentials of Oyo State while projecting Amofin Beulah Adeoye as a solution provider, problem solver, and creative, adaptive, and innovative leader and thinker with compassion and empathy.