Toye Sobande launches leadership training for Nigerian entrepreneurs

Seasoned strategic leadership expert and lawyer, Toye Sobande has unveiled a new initiative to develop the leadership training industry in Nigeria, turning yet another stone in his quest to uplift the socio-political and economic development of the polity.

Dubbed ‘Leadership Workshop for SMEs’, the training platform solution, which holds in Lagos, would provide free solution-focused consultancy and leadership workshops for 50 selected Small and Medium scale entrepreneurs, in Nigeria, for two weeks.

According to Sobande, “SMEs in Nigeria are regarded as the backbone of major developed economies, and an important contributor to employment, economic, and export growth. The Bureau of Statistics in Nigeria, says SMEs contribute 48 per cent of the national GDP, account for 96 per cent of businesses, and 84 per cent of employment.

“With a total number of about 17.4 million, SMEs account for about 50 per cent of industrial jobs and nearly 90 per cent of the manufacturing sector, in terms of number of enterprises. However, despite the significant contribution of SMEs to the Nigerian economy, challenges persist that hinder the growth and development of the sector.”

The leadership expert stressed that there still exists a myriad of challenges in SMEs’ operations in the Nigerian business environment, ranging from the inability to access funds, there lack of structures and systems, corporate governance, lack of leadership and management skills, hence the training, will help business owners develop their leadership and management competencies.

“We believe when the leader of a business gets better the people working in the business gets better and the business gets better too. The Free workshops for the leaders of the SMEs will be conducted at every quarter of the year and it will run for a two weeks period.

“The workshops will assist in attaining a status report on the level of effective leadership and management capacity and other support strategies on the targeted recipients; as well as aid in driving the corporate governance structure and organisational systems and procedure, strategic direction and formulation going forward, especially in this present economic climate,” Sobande said.

The trainees will be exposed to a broad range of courses from Executive Leadership Development, where they learn to tackle real-world business challenges, to Personal leadership development to help participants shape a savvy approach to personal leadership.