Welcome to my website, where I share insights on top performance and leadership. If leadership is your passion, you’ll resonate with my definition: leadership is the ability to serve others by helping them achieve successful outcomes within the team you have the privilege to lead.

I am particularly passionate about developing leaders—especially frontline supervisors and new supervisors leading for the first time. Becoming a first-time leader is personal for me. I experienced this transition as one of the most challenging and defining phases of my career as a leader in corporate America. Moving from a young engineer straight out of college to a supervisor was difficult. From the moment I had a team under me, I had to figure out how to lead effectively. I had no one to turn to for help, let alone someone who looked like me in leadership. I spent sleepless nights worrying that I would get fired soon, grappling with imposter syndrome--negative beliefs that kept echoing in my head that I didn't belong here, and fearing I would be “found out” for not knowing how to manage the team entrusted to me. To exacerbate matters, I was supervising a highly talented, all-white technical team, many of whom were working under a Black supervisor for the first time in their careers. On top of that, English was my second language, and my accent often required them to lean in and focus to understand what I was trying to communicate fully. It was a perfect storm that created constant stress and gradually eroded my self-confidence.

I quickly realized that many new supervisors spend their first few years like corporate orphans—wandering without guidance or mentorship, unsure of how to lead effectively, mainly because they were never properly led themselves. But, there’s a significant lack of great examples of great leaders to learn from if one wants to learn how to lead well. The number one responsibility of a supervisor is not simply to tell people what to do but to develop them to perform at their best. I felt utterly unprepared for my leadership role in corporate America. How could I have spent over half a decade and tens of thousands of dollars learning engineering yet know nothing about managing people in the real world? Was it me, or had the universities failed to prepare me for leadership? When I became a supervisor, I can hardly recall any investment in my development that lasted beyond a single day of mentoring, coaching, or leadership training. Nada. Yet, I was expected to perform and lead my team effectively. Can you imagine sending military personnel to war without boot camp? Sadly, this is the reality in millions of businesses around the world. I have wondered why many organizations often let First-time supervisors fend for themselves, which, in my view, is a travesty.

The only qualifications I brought to my leadership role—besides my two engineering degrees—were my passion for learning about servant leadership, which I had discovered growing up in Africa. When I was fifteen, a missionary from Australia gave me a Bible, the only book I had outside my schoolbooks. It became the most prized possession in my life. The stories in this book fascinated me, and I devoured the good book, reading it cover to cover and memorizing much of it every day. I found myself returning again and again to a man named Jesus. I was struck by how different his leadership was compared to the strongmen, authoritative leadership that I saw around me. Jesus had no army, throne, pedigree, home, or wealth. His followers were ordinary people—fishermen, tax collectors, and outcasts of society. Yet, when his time on earth ended at thirty-three, he had built a team of 120 people, among them 11 leaders he called disciples.

Jesus tasked his team of ordinary people with spreading his message to the world despite their lack of formal education, military experience, or wealth. They had no sophisticated culture, no connections with the elite of their time, and were living under Roman oppression. Yet, their leader had unwavering faith in them. Over three years, he showed them how to lead by example, even performing acts of profound humility—like washing their feet, a menial task reserved for household servants. Despite being a respected rabbi, Jesus humbled himself to serve his followers in this way, confounding everyone around him. His followers wanted to stop him, but he insisted on performing this act of humility.

These disciples, along with Paul of Tarsus, would go on to transform the world, spreading Jesus' message far beyond Galilee to Europe during the Roman Empire. Today, buildings are erected across the globe where people gather to follow Jesus' teachings. His influence transcended time. If we define greatness by impact, few would argue that Jesus is the most outstanding leader who ever lived. His followers lead some of the largest charitable organizations in the world, and his teachings continue to shape societies. The legal systems in many countries are based heavily on his teachings, and he inspired some of history's greatest poets, composers, philosophers, writers, scientists, and leaders. In his book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, historian Tom Holland brilliantly chronicles how the 120 followers Jesus left behind went on to change the world.

After over a decade of leading and developing high-performance teams, I concluded that servant leadership is the highest form—a model Jesus himself embodied. I now share these insights to help others grow into effective servant leaders. My blog is my way of filling the gap I wish had been available when I started my leadership journey.  Let’s explore leadership together!