On Monday 5 February 2024 me and Lerato drove to the village of Skimming, I was a little nervous and the closer we came, the more uncomfortable I got. I am about to address the leadership of the Skimming community, a 34-year-old umlungu that does not understand the complexities of the village culture, addressing a 69-year-old traditional community leader.
And even though I tried my best to relate by dressing appropriately and trying to greet everyone in the village language, I found myself in front of a group of twenty traditional community leaders looking at me with an intensity I have never felt from an audience before. In those first five minutes I thought to myself ‘this is going to be a long three hours – God help me’.
So, I started. “Today we are going to look at leadership. The first aspect we will look at is self-belief, then we will cover character and ethics and lastly, we will look at levels of leadership”. One or two heads nodded, but it was tense, and you could cut the atmosphere with a knife.
I must admit I have been in many tense lectures or coaching sessions and what I have learned is to trust your preparation and sow the seed with confidence. So, I started with my first mind grenade.
“The lion is not the biggest, the heaviest, the tallest, the fastest or the smartest animal in the bush, why then is he the king of the animal world?”
And just like that. It was as if a light was switched on in the minds across the floor. In a moment, I collectively saw heads lifting as if they have never been educated on what leadership is. It was the most beautiful moment of the entire week, it was one of the most relieving moments I have ever experienced, and it was a conformation of what I believed to be true – knowledge drives out ignorance and can change a traditional mind even at 69 years of age.
After this moment the conversations started flowing, the minds started opening and the light started to penetrate the ignorance. It is a moment that I will never forget in my entire life.
As if my nerves could handle more after this, the cycle repeated itself almost identically with the leadership group of Leruleng.
Me and Lerato presented the leadership course on Monday, 5 February, and Tuesday 6 February. I was the messenger, and she was the interpreter. And what a team we made, Lerato got stuck into the translation like I have never experienced before. Relating and using examples and together we lead the community leaders to a moment of enlightenment.
The leadership course was created on three pillars:
#1: The foundation of leadership
#2: The character of leadership
#3: Leadership growth
The concept that struck a chord in the hearts of the leadership across the board was the idea of vision. It is impossible to lead if you have no direction. The definition of vision I used is one that I made up and it reads as follows, ‘vision is the roadmap that provides the direction in which you need to go to reach your end destination’. This idea of vision consists of a purpose, a strategy, and an implementation plan. As with the parable of the lion, I could see how the concept of vision enlightened the leaders from both communities.
The second and third modules were executive writing and phone call procedures. I used these practical applications to focus my message on how a leader should communicate.
The feedback from the leaders were incredibly humbling, I’ll list a few that still rings in mind:
“I blame you for not coming sooner, you should have hurried to bring us this knowledge”.
“It is as if I was there with them during their struggles to communicate a message to the community”.
Molale the chairman of Skimming frankly addressed his leadership team and said they are far of from a leadership group.
And the majority leaders mentioned the lion concept and the practical layout of vision was an eye opener.
