my skills and experiences
I believe a leader must have initiative. I had the opportunity to do my national service (a compulsory one-year service) as a teacher in one of the rural areas in my country. During my stay there, I realised one of the challenges students over there faced was lack of parental guidance. This was due to the fact that most of the parents over there travelled to the neighbouring country to trade since they were closer to the border. The students were left to make their life's decision on their own without any guidance from their parents and or guardians.
I came up with a weekly open forum between teachers and the students where the students would ask questions on how to improve their lives, how to take certain decisions and, also seek for guidance in their career path. I informed other teachers who also showed interest in the idea. I drew a program outline to be followed and assigned teachers to each program.
I had the opportunity to share my life experiences with the students and other teachers did too.
Initially, most of the students held back from opening up on the challenges they faced, with some of the reasons being lack of confidence and also trust but, with persuasion, they finally did. I had a lot of them confiding in me even with their personal issues and I was glad I earned their trust.
I realised the initiative also helped in building their confidence and self-esteem. It also helped me discover how vocal and influential I was. I was glad to make such great impact in my short stay over there.
Also, during my time in my first employment, I was opportuned to be selected as the organisations representative for all trainings and seminars due to my vocal personality. As the representative for my organization, I was responsible for training other senior staff on whatever was been taught during the training, and also organizing training sessions for junior staff too.
I also had the opportunity to chair the welfare committee during my few years of working with the organisation.
I believe if I am given the opportunity to build on these leadership skills, I will be a great asset to my country in the near future.