Recap of Gender & Leadership Session.

25 of us (Mentees) kicked off our 2^nd ELF session with a lot of zeal, power and energy.

“Leadership and taking initiative are two things that go hand in hand, while all leaders are born, good leaders are made.” Those are the words from Dada Power – Stella as she welcomed us to the session.

My take home:

Leadership is about value proposition. It is all about making an impact and empowering

someone/touching a life. Leaders have the following characteristics: they have

followers, they don’t remain static, they are made, they must initiate, they must have clarity,

they must have a balance, they must give back to their communities and they are shaped by circumstances. Why is leadership important? Human beings tend to be led. That

is the reason you hear the phrase – ‘you are a sum total of your leader’. The whole purpose of

leadership is accountability. As a leader, if you want results, participate.

Leaders have to be accessible, available and valuable. They bow out and are not edged out.

They negotiate and define their purpose. They learn from other people mistakes. As a leader

you must be vulnerable to be ready to learn. One must know that self-sufficiency is not a

virtue at all. There are 4 styles of leadership: Authoritative, autocratic, democratic and

transformational. Be aware of them and when to apply them because all of them borrow from

each other. Leaders must inspire and give hope.

Summary of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:

“We crawl before we walk. Fix yourself first before having a meaningful impact.”

. Habit 1 – Be proactive: Effective people are response-able. They take responsibility

of their lives. They focus on their circle of influence rather than circles of concern.

. Habit 2 – Begin with the end in mind: Effective people know that the most important

work is always ahead of them, never behind them. They focus their time and energy

on things that can be controlled.

. Habit 3 – Put First Things First: Effective leadership is putting first things first.

Effective management is discipline, carrying it out. Effective people execute on most

important priorities. Habit 1 + Habit 2 = Habit 3

. Habit 4 – Think Win-Win: Learn to work effectively and efficiently with others to

achieve optimal results. Think win – win is not a quick fix. It is a character based

code for human interaction and collaboration.

. Habit 5 – Seek first to understand, then to be understood: Most people do not listen

with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply. Effective people do

the opposite and communicate effectively.

. Habit 6 – Synergy: Effective people understand that ‘synergy is better than my way

or your way. It is our way’. Don’t mistake uniformity for unity and sameness for

oneness.

. Habit 7 – Sharpen the saw: Effective people understand that they must never become

too busy sawing to take time to sharpen the saw. Renewal is the principle – and the

process – that empowers us to move on an upward spiral growth and change of

continuous improvement.

ELF Cohort 5 elections:

Eventually, the time we had been waiting for eventually reached – to elect our ELF Cohort 5

officials i.e. the President, Deputy President and the Secretary. Being an aspirant of the

Deputy President seat, I was prepared for it with my massive campaign strategies. We were

given 10 minutes to do the last campaigns before pitching our manifestos in 2 and a half

minutes.

The Election Process:

The exercise was conducted in a free, fair and credible manner which was very impressive and the following were declared winners:

1. Mr. Dennis Leiyan – President.
2. Ms. Catherine Njeri Gathuru – Deputy President.
3. Ms. Faith Wachira – Secretary

Lessons Learnt:

This was the first time I lost an election and I learnt that sometimes you have to lose to win, I also learnt that, failure is greatness waiting to happen. The more you dream at work, the

more you raise your standards, the more you say ‘I want to play world-class’…you are going

to get blooded/discouraged. The more you innovate, the more you are going to get stumbled.

Even in your personal life, the more you dream, the more you reach, the more you dare, the

more you are going to get hurt. That is just the price of ambition. The secret is to turn your

PAIN into POWER, turn your SUFFERING into STRENGTH and FAILURES into

FORTUNES. We don’t grow when things are easy. E.g. when things are falling apart, that’s

the chance to learn empathy; when someone has wronged you, you can blame the wrong doer

or learn forgiveness; when someone has lied to you, you can learn boundaries etc.

Edward Kipkalya

Emerging Leaders Foundation Cohort 5 Mentee