My Leadership Style And Skills
The ability to lead is a dynamic trait that cannot be taught, as it conveys skills that captures individuality. Great leaders and influencers pervade a sense of positivity and lead others to reach their full potential.
Over the years, I have built on my perceptiveness and communication skills to influence the lives of the people that I work with and serve. I began to develop these skills as a youth advocate on United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) radio where I co-hosted youth programs on sexual and gender-based violence, peer pressure, health education and child abuse amongst other topics. I solicited the views and life experiences of young people around the country on our one-hour platform. We had grown up in a society where young people didn’t feel safe to express themselves or given the opportunity to be heard; when we began, it was difficult to engage our peers to participate. As a youth advocate who was passionate about having young people’s voice being heard by the society, I was challenged to emanate strategic topics and select guest for the radio program to attract the attention of my peers. More importantly, I worked with my co-presenters to create a safe environment for young people to participate. At the end of this experience, I developed the ability to use active communication skills in engaging people, and inspired positive change in people’s knowledge, and behaviour.
My communication skills help to encourage participants to speak their minds and engage in community service outreach. I trust in using my medium and voice to shape my peers and young people in my country towards a brighter and better future. People have expressed that I am a resourceful, empathetic and respectful team player. I go the extra mile to make people feel valued and motivated. I engage in small but impactful advocacy activities. For example, I am lead on fleet management and logistics as an Operations Assistant at Tony Blair Institute (Liberia). The organization had to undergo some regional fleet layoffs at the beginning of the year. As manager, it was my responsibility to handle the transition. Breaking the news to the drivers was not an easy task being that we live in a country with an increasing rate of unemployment. I was open in my communication, I calculated driver’s severance and disbursed evenly, I prepared letters of recommendation for each redundant staff for future endeavours. I worked with them individually to ensure that their resumes and work profiles were upgraded for new application and rendered all the support they needed through the process of obtaining employment at a new organization.
Being selected as the top two and only female out of eight hundred applicants to represent Liberia at the Big Brother Africa (BBA) tv show in South Africa was a stepping stone for me. Not only did the experience expose me to a global platform, but I was able to serve as an influencer and represent my country through a wider medium. In the house, I created activities through presentation, games and jingles, as a passageway of allowing Africa and the world to view my culture, history and the way we live through a simpler glance. The platform and my presence on the show was a boost for Liberia’s growing entertainment industry and I was proud to represent my country. I believe in communication and being open to the views of everyone around me; from colleagues, schoolmates, friends to family.
Team building is important to a leader: everyone deserves to be heard, respected, informed and engaged It is significant to consider others view and expertise contributing to an idea or a workstream. Living in an environment that has frequent changes in the way of life, my style of leadership offers a great deal of flexibility in adapting to better methods of accomplishing goals. I embrace the idea of newer and better ideas in decision making.
