From misunderstanding leadership as giving directions to understanding its role in shaping a workplace culture, Olajide Samson Ishola, Group Chief Operating Officer of Pan Ocean & Newcross companies, explored what it truly means to lead and what being a leader must look like. At the initial stage of his professional career, he saw leaders giving directions and teams following them to the best possible extent. Such scenarios built in him the concept of leadership, which proved that a good leader is the one who convinces their team to follow instructions. But gradually, when he moved toward becoming a leader himself, his experience had a different story to tell.
“For me, leadership never felt like giving instructions for my teams to follow. Instead, I found satisfaction in letting them work on their own,” Olajide mentions. “We discussed projects, and I set them free to work in their own way to achieve their respective objectives as decided.”
Olajide, with time, understood how restricting people with pre-defined direction could limit even the best talents in the team from getting noticed. Hence, he tweaked the definition of leadership a bit and allowed every member to break all confinement and exhibit their true potential without any specific guidelines to follow.
Clarity & Transparency Make Strategizing Even Easier
When you know what you wish to achieve, it becomes easier to have a blueprint created to decide your first step. Olajide believes that achieving a goal should not be the sole purpose of a leader. Most leaders focus on fulfilling the decided objectives within a given timeframe. As a result, they may achieve their set goals on time, but the quality of their accomplishments might not satisfy them. This is because they never even tried to figure out the purpose behind what they planned to achieve and in what way.
“Having a clear vision and transparent approach always makes strategizing the process easier,” Olajide says. “When goals are vague, effort scatters. Hence, we must have a clear destination map ready so that we frame a sound strategy for achieving the goals.” Such incredible ideology placed him on the 2026 list of ‘Top 10 Visionary Leaders Transforming African Business.’
When people have a purpose to resolve – the goals, the plans, the approach, and the outcome – everything moves in sync with each other. If the purpose is unclear, the outcome fails to deliver a sense of success, making all efforts put into achieving them worthless.
At Pan Ocean and the Newcross Companies, as Olajide says, the first thing he did was to set clear goals and frame transparent strategies based on the plans that the board conveyed.
Every Team Member Must Be on The Same Page
Olajide has always believed in building a team and environment that works toward the specific goals. Per his experience as a team member or his observation of the leaders he has worked with, he always felt that the worst case that could arise while working in a team is the lack of coordination or confusion amongst the team members. Hence, in his leadership, he has always made sure that every team member is on the same page.
As he puts it, “It is about knowing exactly where you are going and having the discipline to take everyone there with you,” he states. “I believe the strongest leaders create an environment where people can perform, risks are confronted honestly, and growth does not come at the expense of safety or long-term value.”
The journey, for Olajide, as a leader has been exciting, as he ensured the building of a workplace where people are free to present their ideas without hesitation and take their best foot forward in achieving their objectives.
In the team led by Olajide, there’s no one leader. Rather, every single individual in the team leads themselves toward bringing out the best in them without someone bossing them around all the time.
Ensure Using Every Asset to Its Full Potential
With his experience in multiple companies, including Shell Nigeria and Neconde OML 42, Olajide learnt that leadership ability in a person is not only about handling and managing people, but also proper utilization of assets without any wastage. His journey from an executive to a manager nurtured his leadership skills to a great extent. From understanding the significance of discipline to carrying out standards-driven operations, he became aware of performing well, irrespective of how favorable the working conditions of a place are.
“I took on the operational responsibilities and fully understood the realities of Nigerian upstream assets at close quarters,” he confirms. “Each stage taught me something about running an asset safely, efficiently and profitably in a difficult terrain.”
At Pan Ocean and the Newcross companies, achieving operational excellence is not confined to a slogan on a placard, but is followed as the core principle of the business, as Olajide says. “My role is to steer that: to make sure every asset in the Group is run to its full potential.”
Have A Value System That RISES & Evolves
For Olajide, his value system is uncompromisable, and he can never let go of it. Without values, a brand is a vacuum. Hence, they should not be carried as wall decorations, but must act as ‘decision filters’. Whether it is R for resilience, I for Innovation, S for Safety, E for Excellence, and S for Sustainability, each of them helps him find the right route to achieving goals and recording success.
Being consistent in performing well and producing the items even when the market is not favorable shows the determination of the brand and its leader. And when the leader is resilient, the team automatically follows suit. Through continuous innovation, the team finds routes and solutions that may go unnoticed by the competitors.
Safety is the third virtue that Olajide has been serious about. For him, the people who devote their time and effort to the company or brand must have a safety-assured platform to work. “Operational excellence means nothing if people, environment, assets, our reputation and license to operate are not protected,” Olajide explains.
The fourth value – Excellence – is what the company tries to deliver so that the customers turn to Pan Ocean and the NewCross Companies as their first choice. Last but not least, sustainability is the next virtue that specifies that what “we create today does not come at the cost of tomorrow.” Hence, as a leader, Olajide has always tried to build the future while retaining the quality of the project, procedure, and purpose today.
Every Problem Should Be Solved & Not Endured
In his decades-long career, Olajide saw how so many leaders chose endurance over resolution when it came to handling challenges. For them, accepting the condition and moving on with what was already in the process seemed easier. Cut to today: the Group COO at Pan Ocean and the Newcross Companies refuses to settle for anything less than finding a solution to any kind of challenge he comes across. He shares the crude evacuation challenge where moving production to the market seemed next to impossible, as it involved both financial risk and reputational damage.
“The instinct in that situation is usually to wait for conditions to improve,” he affirms. “But we did not.”
Olajide and team did not give up on the situation and decided to work on the problem and find a way to keep production flowing. “I stopped seeing constraints as reasons and started seeing them as design problems,” he proudly shares.
He further adds that a good leader is never the one who waits for issues to come under control gradually, but rather the one who builds robust systems to handle them. “It is this mindset that now runs through how I lead the whole operation.”
Stranded Asset Equals Lost Business Value
For Olajide, operational success is not simply about producing more; it is about ensuring that every asset created has a clear path toward realizing its value. In the oil and gas industry, pipeline sabotage and other operational constraints can leave assets stranded, preventing products from reaching the market and, in turn, freezing the value that the business has already created.
“For me, leaving an asset without a route to value is equivalent to leaving business potential unrealized,” he remarks. “And I take the greatest pride in having no stranded asset across Pan Ocean and Newcross.”
Every asset has a route to value, and every molecule of gas produced has somewhere to go. Achieving this required Olajide to look past production alone and bring evacuation, monetization, and offtake together as one connected value chain. To him, this integrated approach represents how strong business performance goes hand in hand with protecting people, realizing the full potential of assets, and strengthening the company’s future.
When Purpose & Demand Are in Sync, Balance Remains Maintained
When one finds purpose in doing something, specifically in the product or service delivery sector, demand gets automatically met. Purpose and demand are complementary terms. When production is passion, products become purpose, and hence, fulfilling the demands of the customers by offering the required products becomes an effortless task. Hence, when purpose and demand move in parallel into a business, balance is achieved.
As a leader, Olajide offers an environment where people work passionately towards a purpose of feeding the demand and supply chain through an effective structure. “You cannot personally manage everything in a complex organization, so you must build capable teams, delegate with confidence and create systems that sustain performance,” he confirms. “Purpose is what makes the demands sustainable.”
Trust Those Who Work With Us
As a leader, Olajide knew that whatever system he developed or the channels he created, the outcome would depend on how the team collaborates and works. Hence, he delegated tasks to the best people based on their respective skills. He trusted them with their abilities and built a team that always has clarity on what to work on, how to work on it, and what innovative tricks they may deploy to come up with the best and out-of-the-box ways to solve a challenge.
“Growth is what happens when a capable team is pointed at the right goals with the freedom to reach them,” he believes. “Of course, growth is important, but disciplined growth is what creates a stronger business.”
Olajide always encourages people to identify risks, discuss them, take ownership, and learn from the experience, using the learnings to resolve other challenges as and when they come their way.
Adapting Builds Trust & Creates Opportunities
When a business stops adapting to the changing dynamics of the market, it starts lagging behind. Whether it is the crude evacuation situation or the Petroleum Industry Act of Nigeria (PIA) changing the regulatory domain. Olajide has always stood out as a leader whenever it came to transforming with the evolving business scenario. He made efforts to understand the regime and align the operations at Pan Ocean and The Newcross Companies to it.
Most of the energy operators today are found to be bothered about the relationships they share with the stakeholders, including host communities, regulators, government, and partners. Olajide has been very particular about his business relationships. He made sure that none of them ever felt left out. “I have learned to treat stakeholder engagement as core operational work, not a side activity,” he admits. “Getting it right is often the difference between a project that moves and one that stalls.”
Develop Systems That Drive Societies
For Olajide, looking at the whole system together, including safety, production, costs, people, and partners, and ensuring that every part moves in the same direction is most important. His responsibility, as he sees it, is to establish that direction and then build an organization capable of delivering on it. But what makes this responsibility particularly meaningful is knowing that the systems being built eventually touch lives far beyond its operations.
Through gas-to-power, electricity reaches homes and businesses. Liquefied Petroleum Gas and propane bring cleaner cooking fuel to kitchens and cleaner energy to vehicles, making everyday life easier for families. Crude oil exports to refineries, meanwhile, create value for Nigeria and contribute to national development.
Olajide wants this impact to extend beyond today’s needs. Commercializing gas instead of flaring it, reducing dependence on diesel, expanding clean-energy access, and investing in host communities are ways of creating value that can outlive individual assets. His larger ambition is to demonstrate that an African-operated energy company can meet world standards, solve difficult problems, and contribute meaningfully to society.
Build Character Before You Build A Brand
A successful career may begin with competence, but Olajide believes it is character that determines how far a leader can truly go. His advice to young professionals comes from a place of experience: lead with honesty, integrity, and empathy. He also wants the younger generation to look beyond building impressive careers and learn the business, understand the people and communities connected to it, dare to face difficult realities, and never allow quick or short-term results to be the reasons for compromising safety or integrity.
What matters in leadership, he believes, is not simply what one manages to accomplish today, but what one leaves behind. “Our work is not just about barrels and margins,” Olajide reminds. “It is about energy that powers lives, revenue that contributes to a nation’s development, and operations that leave the communities they touch better than they found them.”
