Looking back, I realise I was being prepared.
Last week, during a leadership class with Ema Land Muita, we were asked to create our leadership timelines.
As I started mine, I realised something: my leadership story started much earlier than I thought.
Where It Started
I was about 9 or 10 when I began following my dad to his favourite newspaper stand on Saturday mornings. He could spend hours reading newspapers. Before we left, he would buy a few to take home and tell me:
“Rather than sitting down and doing nothing, pick a paper and read too.”
So I did.
And I fell in love with newspapers, especially the financial pages. I became fascinated by stocks and shares. I knew my dad invested, and I wanted to understand how it worked.
At the time, I thought I was simply developing a love for reading. I didn’t realise I was learning something much bigger.
Learning to Lead by Example
Years later, in my second year at university, I read The Richest Man in Babylon. One lesson stayed with me: set aside part of every income for investment. So, after my tithe, I started putting another 10% aside.
Soon, some of my friends joined me. I got an exercise book and began recording their contributions. When the money accumulated, I would arrange appointments with a stockbroker in Marina, Lagos, and take them along.
Some of my friends opened their first savings accounts, and some bought their first shares.
Looking back, I realise I wasn’t just helping my friends save. I was learning how to influence others through my own example.
Then came 2006.
I founded Dolly Children Foundation.
It took three years to get registered because of repeated issues with the names we submitted. Every application cost money, and I was still a student. The saving and investment discipline I had developed years earlier helped me fund the early stages of getting the Foundation registered.
That experience taught me a leadership lesson I still carry today:
A leader must be willing to invest in the vision first.
Sometimes that investment is financial. At other times, it is your time, energy, relationships, reputation, or simply your willingness to keep showing up before anyone else sees what you see.
Connecting the Dots
Last week’s exercise made me realise that the dots were connected.
The little girl following her father to the newspaper stand, the university student keeping an exercise book of her friends’ investments, and the young founder trying to register an organisation were all becoming the same person.
I just didn’t know it at the time.
“Perhaps that’s the thing about leadership. It doesn’t always begin with a title. Sometimes, it begins quietly in the habits we develop, the values we absorb, and the small responsibilities we take seriously, long before we realise they are preparing us for something bigger.”
Looking back, I realise I was being prepared.
“And perhaps some of the experiences we think are ordinary at the time are actually shaping us for responsibilities we haven’t encountered yet.”
So let me pause here and ask:
What experience from your early years do you now recognise as part of your leadership journey?
I’d love to hear your story.
If this reflection resonated with you, or if you would like to support or learn more about the work we are building at Dolly Children Foundation, I welcome you to connect or reach out. Leadership is often being built long before we notice it.
