WATCH President Obama Deliver His Message To Nigerians

President Obama demonstrates the need to keep Nigeria one, the essence of a free, fair and credible elections and the fact that violence has no place in the democratic process. Watch the video below, courtesy the US Embassy, Abuja’s YouTube page.

Photos: People in Buhari's village wash their roads after GEJ pays a visit

 

According to the instagram user who shared this collage of pictures, this is Daura, the hometown of Buhari in Katsina. Apparently, Jonathan went there to campaign for re-election and the people there hilariously began to wash their village roads after he left. Lol

10 Ways to Lead Your Workforce by Example

 

An executive who works alongside team members is rewarded with better performance but chumming up to employees is a fine balancing act. Too much comfort may breed complacency, an unwillingness to take on challenges, suppress independent thought and opposing ideas. You want your team to support and respect your decisions but you don’t want anyone to become the head of your fan club. Here are ten ways to lead your team by example:
Walk alongside your team, not out in front
We often hear the term “lead from out front.” The most successful leaders walk alongside team members providing encouragement, support, and a good role model to follow.
Motivate your team around a common set of values
Leaders are human and mess up from time to time. Ensure the team’s goals are value driven so that during any blunder, the group will be propelled forward by shared values.
Sweat it out with the team
When a big project involves extra hours, work alongside your team and be the first to offer gratitude. Surprise your team by passing out water bottles and healthy snacks.
Be humble
Avoid gloating if you have just closed the sale of the year. Instead, share your process for closing the sale. Brainstorm with your team on how you could have been more effective at overcoming an obstacle you faced during negotiations.
Do not be afraid to ask for advice or take direction
The next time you make a presentation at a conference, collaborate with your team to identify “best practices” to share and what they consider the most important talking points. Show them your vulnerability and be the student by valuing their contributions; this builds trust and credibility.
Empathy, empathy, and more empathy
Your top advisor is falling behind for the second month in a row. Can the motivation speech. Empathize and engage in a meaningful discussion about how the economy is creating challenges for other advisors and work together to find helpful solutions.
Empower others to be part of the solution
Encourage advisors to develop creative solutions to help other team members who are facing day-to-day challenges.
Make thinking transparent
Post your sales goals mind map in a central location. If everyone understands the thinking behind the process, it is easier to reach goals.
Get your hands dirty
Go out into the community and try a new sales strategy. Be the first to report failures and ask for suggestions on how to improve the new sales approach.
Taken together, these steps can engender loyalty and respect in a leader. Walking alongside and collaborating with your team members about what is needed provokes a ‘we’ attitude. Show you trust them, share areas for improvement, applaud successes, and display your confidence in them. These components foster a sense of commitment, making it harder for individuals to abandon their managers and sales goals.

11 Things All Great Leaders Know

 
Great leaders – and by great, I mean leaders who great people willingly follow in small organizations and large ones, know that the bottom line is measured by how well our teams are inspired and motivated. 11 facts true leaders know that help guide themselves and their organizations:

1. We’re only as good as the people we attract. Good leaders don’t need to be the smartest person in the room, and they know that everyone around them reflects on them. The stronger the team around us, the stronger we are. If we can’t attract high performers then we aren’t one.
2. We make mistakes too. Great leaders understand and embrace their imperfections. When they make mistakes they own up to them in public, address the mistake and move on. The best leaders learn from their mistakes and don’t repeat them.
3. The more power we give away the more power we have. The power “held” by someone is proportional to the power, authority and responsibility they give to other people. Power is exponentialized by sharing it with our colleagues, not by hoarding it to ourselves.
4. Staying well and fit is part of the job. We can’t be too busy to stay well. Leading well takes energy – physical and mental stamina. If we’re not fit, neither are our organizations.
5. We can’t “fix” people. People can’t be managed or “fixed.” If we try to fix people, we will fail….epically. Good leaders understand they need to instill good will, help their people identify their strengths and then play to them. They don’t fixate on what’s wrong; they concentrate on what’s known and seek to maximize.
6. Over-communication is impossible. The telephone game is loudest in a vacuum of communication from leadership. Great leaders communicate with their teams early and often, and they reinforce their points repeatedly not worrying if they’re being redundant because they know they can’t be.
7. We can change people’s lives and not know it. Sometime in our careers people who have worked in our organizations will email, call or meet us and tell us that we changed their lives. Great leaders probably won’t remember that moment, but we know and are humbled that we can have that impact.
8. People with lives come to work. People – with their own backgrounds, experiences, families, interests and problems – come to work, and to expect them to not show up during working hours is unrealistic and unproductive. Great leaders understand that life is dynamic and that the best organizations accommodate their teams’ lives and shiftconstantly to make it work.
9. Rules should be broken every once in a while. Rules and policies exist to give guidance. We know that we should bend those rules from time to honor reality effectively and respectfully.
10. People will leave us – and that’s OK. Expecting that your team will stay with you through their careers is misguided and foolish. Great leaders know that their influence increases as their people go out into the world as champions of their organization and they do everything they can to foster great alumni relations.
11. We can’t do everything well. No one is perfect. No one is a straight A student in a job either. Great leaders understand what they’re good at and where they shouldn't spend their time and they hire great people to do the things they don’t do well.

From www.rocksarehard.com

Omojuwa On Chances Of Buhari And Jonathan In 2015 Election

General Buhari is running as a presidential candidate for the 4th time in a row. The only difference between his current effort and the three previous ones is the fact that this time, he goes to the polls as a clear favourite. Surely, there must be a reason why a man who, it looked like, never had a chance in the last 12 years is now solidly placed to win.
The reason? Two words: Goodluck Jonathan.
President Jonathan said he deserved credit for the APC becoming what it is today. The president is right, but he missed the irony in his own assertion. He wants the world to believe the APC exists because his government created an enabling environment for the opposition to thrive when, in actual fact, the opposition rose on the hills of Jonathan’s incompetence.
General Buhari has always been a phenomenon in the North – he still is – but the same could not have been said of the South until the run-up to the 2015 elections. Why is that? Because of the same old gee, Goodluck Jonathan. Nigeria’s current president has failed so many times many Nigerians are inclined to choose to vote for just about any form of matter over him.
Where exactly has Jonathan failed and why his failures should not be overlooked?
The president’s most telling failure is his inability to address the insurgency in the North. For many years, the president’s disposition to Boko Haram was: “they are killing themselves to make my government look bad”. This position was echoed by the president’s men and allies.
The belated response to the of 59 Buni Yadi boys in Yobe, the absurd delay in even believing the Chibok girls were truly abducted until some 18 days later, the Kano rally dance that came 24 hours after the Nyanya bomb blast, and several other shocking responses to Boko Haram’s activities sold the president out as being indifferent to the pains of Nigerians who live under the constant menace of terror.
Meanwhile, General Buhari’s history as a no-nonsense leader proves he will not approach Boko Haram with kid gloves or underrate the terror group, to which President Jonathan has confessed.
Corruption and government accountability are major issues in this election, and understandably so.
A November 2012 report says some N5 trillion was either misappropriated or outright stolen under the Jonathan administration. At least N1 trillion was stolen under the guise of fuel subsidies, if the House of Representatives’ report is correct. There is the $20 billion the then-Central Bank governor and now Emir of Kano HRH Muhammed Sanusi II said wasn’t remitted to the Federation Account. Two days ago, he was on CNN’s Amanpour insisting the government’s explanation for that was not satisfactory.
Another former CBN governor, Prof Charles Soludo, insisted some N30 trillion has been lost due to the current administration’s mismanagement. As these words get written, the government has not issued a reasonable response to his charges. They offered a lot of emotional tantrums through President Jonathan’s campaign and the Ministry of Finance.
On this front, Buhari comes out on top again because of his reputation of never being the one about amassing wealth or using his privileged position to loot the country. He is generally perceived as upright. His choice of Pastor Yemi Osinbajo helped to cement that perception.
The third major deciding issue for this election is the economy. The Nigerian economy is walking on tightropes. The government likes to claim it has made Nigeria Africa’s No.1 economy. The economy was rebased in 2014. All the government did with the “rebasing” was to account for the inclusion of new sectors like the entertainment industry and telecoms into the calculation of the country’s GDP. This was accumulated over the previous 20 years or so, but the government has sold this as one of its achievements. Pictures of Cameroon were presented as completed road projects of this administration, and an image of a housing estate in Lekki was used as that of completed housing projects in the Northeast.
Four out of every five Nigerian graduates are out of jobs. Extreme poverty is unacceptably high, the naira is seeing worst trading days ever. Perhaps, the greatest picture of that reality is Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, losing $7b in November 2014 alone; since then, he has lost enough money to make another person the 2nd richest on the continent. Nigeria’s foreign reserves continue to take a plunge. Its debts, local and foreign, continue to rise. It is all a mess out here.
This is what the elections are about. It is a direct Yes/No referendum on president Jonathan. Not a few people voting for General Buhari will do so just to vote against President Jonathan.
Voting Buhari is the right thing if this really is about the future of Nigeria. Of the two available options, President Jonathan is a failed president. In a sane world, he would not even dream to be a candidate, let alone become one.
General Buhari used to be a dictator. He has since learnt democratic tenets having, without resorting to violence, trusted the courts three times after losing previous elections. It is obvious he is in this because he firmly believes he can be the wise old man who sets Nigeria on the road to socio-political and economic recovery.
General Buhari gets my vote. Easily. It is the most logical decision. In a country where money and materialism hold sway (including in the so-called religious houses), those who are able to share dollars will certainly turn many heads. What will matter in the end is how much Nigerians want “change”. Another four years with Goodluck Jonathan would be a disaster for Nigeria. It is time for Buhari.

Japheth Omojuwa

Mr. Omojuwa is a respected Nigerian social media expert and columnist

courtesy Naij.com