A team lead at the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation, Izuoma Ogwuma, has identified leadership failure, particularly the failure to develop other people, as one of the biggest threats to institutional sustainability in Africa.

Ogwuma stated this in Abuja yesterday while speaking on the importance of succession planning, knowledge transfer and deliberate capacity building in strengthening institutions and ensuring their continuity.

She warned that institutions become vulnerable when critical knowledge, relationships and decision-making responsibilities are concentrated in the hands of one individual, especially when such a leader leaves, is transferred or becomes unavailable.

According to her, even highly capable leaders can inadvertently weaken an organisation when they become the sole custodians of critical institutional knowledge.

She identified several factors that prevent otherwise effective leaders from deliberately developing the capabilities of those around them.

Ogwuma said many organisations reward leaders primarily for what they personally deliver, rather than for the capacity they build within their teams.

She noted that leaders are often recognised for achieving targets, executing projects and delivering results, while less attention is paid to whether members of their teams have acquired the skills and judgment required to achieve similar results independently.

She also observed that some leaders consciously or unconsciously consider being the only person capable of performing certain critical tasks as a form of job security.

However, she warned that making oneself indispensable could ultimately weaken an organisation.

“An institution’s real strength is never its best leader. It is what remains standing when that leader is no longer in the room,” Ogwuma said.

Illustrating the danger, she cited the example of a regional programme office that operated efficiently for six years under a manager who personally handled virtually every critical decision.

Ogwuma explained that the eventual crisis in the office was not caused by misconduct or a single poor decision, but by the failure to transfer critical knowledge and judgment to other members of the team.

She said: “It would be easy to call what followed a leadership failure. But the leadership that failed that office wasn’t the team left holding it; it was hers, six years earlier, when she quietly decided that being the person everyone relied on was safer than building people who could rely on themselves.”

She described the situation as a hidden institutional risk, noting that it could exist beneath apparently successful leadership.

According to her, leadership may appear highly effective while an individual remains in charge, yet leave an institution significantly weakened once that person exits.

Ogwuma stressed that there was a clear difference between leaders who were personally effective and those who deliberately built teams capable of functioning without them.

She concluded that the manager whose office struggled after her departure had not necessarily failed because she lacked leadership ability, but because she had failed to build the people and systems that could sustain the institution beyond her tenure.