Here’s what the youth need to be leaders
Hard work is the secret to success. Young people should set targets and motivate themselves to achieve those targets. FILE PHOTO
What you need to know:
- All young people should continuously tool and retool themselves in carefully selected areas that are relevant in the 21st century.
- If a young person is full of fear they are simply limiting themselves and locking their potential.
The Constitution of Kenya 2010 creates a special quota for women, persons with disabilities, youth and marginalised communities.
There has been an argument that young people in Kenya lack critical skills that prepare them to take up senior positions with wide responsibilities due to gaps between their training and the skills employers want to stay ahead of the dynamic career race.
We unpack the key areas of preparation that any young person looking to occupy a senior position should take seriously.
Thinking without the box: Young people should train to view themselves at the centre of the globe, think and make decisions with the entire universe in mind.
Days of thinking local around their wards and constituency are over.
WORK HARD
Think global and act local because the world is more connected, but relevant regional differences and personalised experience cannot be ignored.
Tenacity: One of the greatest African entrepreneurs said “to become a successful entrepreneur is not a day’s job. Successful businessmen all have a driving force and this motivation is what keeps them going in the face seemingly insurmountable challenges”.
Hard work is the secret to success. Young people should set targets and motivate themselves to achieve those targets.
They should also be hands on so that they can learn. The loose, detached kind of an attitude has never taken any person to greater heights.
FEAR
Confidence: Richard Branson advises young people to always say yes to any assignment given to them and then make an effort to learn on the job.
The opposite of confidence is fear and if a young person is full of fear they are simply limiting themselves and locking their potential.
Capacity building: All young people should continuously tool and retool themselves in carefully selected areas that are relevant in the 21st century.
Sitting in comfort zone is a recipe for making one irrelevant.
A skill that secures a young person a managerial position cannot sustain them in that same position because of the dynamism in the operating environment.
Say no to impatience: When we engage recruiters, their main complaint against young managers is that they are very impatient and most of the time they start looking for another job before even their probation, which is usually between one and three months, is over.
PATIENCE
This kind of impatience makes young people cease being lifelong learners.
The half-mindedness makes them loose concentration and paying attention to important things in their careers.
There are particular skills that require deep understanding and this can only happen through experience and coaching by a senior colleague.
Relationship management: Managers are most often responsible for a particular function or department within the organisation.
From accounting to marketing, to sales, customer support, engineering, quality, and all other groups, a manager either leads a team directly or leads a group of supervisors who lead the teams.
This kind of span of control is complex and therefore it takes tact and people skills.
Young managers should be very deliberate about equipping themselves with relationship and people skills because targets are delivered through and with other people.
Dr Kiambati is a management consultant and a senior lecturer at Karatina University. [email protected]. Dr Kariuki is a social scientist, management consultant and a lecturer at Karatina University. [email protected]
