OPINION; Electoral Season; Precautionary Advice to our upcoming student-youth leaders in Uganda – Samuel Lukanga

By Samuel Lukanga

Dear Young Leaders,

First of all, I would like to congratulate you for reaching this far in your career. You’ve managed to go through all the struggles of someone who is fresh out of university, entering the corporate world and experiencing what it is like in the “real world”. You’ve probably even managed to bypass and overtake others in this Ugandan setting of leadership – some who are even more tenured than yourself – in reaching where you are right now. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy task and I’m sure countless of hours of yours were put in special meetings and the like for you to reach where you are. For some, it might have been an intensely fast uphill climb. For others, it might have just arrived at the right time. Again, congratulations!

However, I would like to give you precautionary advice since most of us get lost in our first few months “on top of the corporate ladder”. It’s quite inevitable for us to find ourselves in these slumps and let me be the first to tell you – it’s okay, it’s not the end of the world. My advices are here so you could be better prepare for the challenges ahead.

My First Advice: Prove Your Worth Everyday

The crucial thing you have to do every day as a young leader is to constantly prove your worth because people will, more often than not, not give you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to your skills, strategies, decisions, etc. You will always face people who will second guess what you want done or what you want to do simply because they still don’t have confidence in you – and you can’t expect that from them early on. The confidence of “upper management” is different from the confidence of the people who you are going to be working with and the latter’s confidence is what you should be banking and investing on at this point.

In order for you to gain this much needed confidence you have to constantly prove yourself to the people who you are working with. How do you do this? Don’t hide behind the people you work with, be the one who takes things head on and work with them to find solutions to tensions that arise.

A lot of senior leaders would opt to hide behind their people and solve problems while sitting relaxed on their arm-chairs. As young leaders, let’s put this practice to rest. As young leaders, we’re expected to LEAD upfront and we are expected to use our exceptional wits, talents, work ethic to solve tensions that arise.

By being that kind of leader, your teammates see what you’re made off. They observe the kind of a person you are and what you show them is what they’ll know of you. If you show them genuine good, then that will be who you are to them. If you show them otherwise, then that’s on you. From this point on, it’s up to them if they would like to follow you or not.

My Second Advice: Step Back From the Spotlight – Make Someone Else Shine

One thing that Young Leaders fail to do is learn that their time in the sun is over or nearing its end. Don’t worry, it’ll come back soon just as long as you let someone else enjoy it first.

Now, what you have to do is to, at least, share the spotlight with your team. It’s time to make someone else shine by giving them genuine help, teach them what it takes for them to get where you are (but don’t shove it down their throats, you should show them), let them gain all the compliments from people (even when those are for you) and when they screw up in some way, step in and take the blows (but never “count the costs”) then explain to them how to do it better next time or even better, ask them how they could have done better.

This will be one of the most difficult things to do as a young leader because most of us are excited to do more with our new positions. We often forget that the expectations to us has changed – from individual greatness, you are now expected to share and teach others how to be great!

To make the change, you have to work through your teammates and constantly influence them to be better. Never force any of your ideas on them because this might be detrimental. Ask the right questions and have them find the best answers and when the time comes that they run out of answers, that’s the moment you step in. Remember, it’s all them when things are good, but it’s all you when things are bad.

As you slowly fade into the background, the “upper management” that recognized you when you were a blossoming star talent will now notice your team. They’ll notice that your team has become better – individually and as a unit. They’ll notice that your teammates are showing better performance and are delivering better results. Don’t worry, as they take all of these things in, the last that they will notice is you. Whether good or bad, the last person they will look at is you – everyone is your responsibility. This is where you’ll get your spotlight back because you are now a People Manager and you are now entrusted with a core leadership process (ex. from being a recruiter, you are now in charge of a recruitment team) – the performance of your people and the performance of your team is what you are expected to do.

My Third Advice: Never Stop Learning and Improving

Most Young Leaders settle after getting there. They somehow step-back and “enjoy the view” from the top. Their mindset is that of a really gifted athlete who shuns practice – they’re already confident in what they have that they stop sharpening the saw. Sure, it will get you wins in the short-term game, but in the long-term game, you’ll regret it.

When you choose this path, you’ll get overtaken by “competition” and it will hurt. You’ll get affected and that confidence that brought you wins will be tested and eventually shattered. Evolution will catch up with you and those that choose the path of evolution wins every single time. They are the ones that adapt to change and improve along the way and these people always wins.

Never stop learning and improving – it’s how you evolve. No matter what your craft is, you have to do this. You have to continue building yourself and if need be, you have to continue reinventing yourself. You have to do that to remain relevant and useful to the organization that you belong to but most importantly, your team needs that.

Whether you like it or not you will have to do this. It’s tough at first but you have to make it a habit so it gets easier over time. Don’t take it as something you should do to be better than anybody else in your team, do it to be constantly improving so you could be of better use for your team. Remember, a lot of the things that you do from now on is for your team and doing this process is part of it.

My Fourth Advice: Set Aside Time for Reflection – Look at the Bigger Picture

In my first advice, I told you to lead upfront and don’t hide behind your people. Basically, I want you to work with them and help them solve day-to-day problems with them so you get to understand what tensions your team faces. This would help you better strategize your activities moving forward.

However, one of the useful tools that you should also use is stepping back and looking at the big picture. This might be something that you were waiting to do once you got the position and you should definitely do this.

I had experienced this through a one-on-one coaching. It was a time where pressure to perform was really mounting and the expectations from my role of a ground-based youth mobilizer was increasing. At first, I thought of it as a complete waste of time, but after my first session, I realized how important it is to do this.

Think of this step as your “rehab”. This is the time you learn a lot about yourself (how you are as a leader, your goals, your dreams and aspiration.) and being a great leader really requires for a person to know himself. You might even learn other things when you step back – you’ll realize that your problems are easier than how it appears to be, you’ll see other angles to solve your problems, you might even have crazy ideas that might just work!

My Fifth Advice: Choose a Mentor

My last advice is for you to look for a mentor. The popular choice is someone with a higher rank than you in the same field of work. However, you’re not limited to this. You’re free to choose anyone who you are comfortable with. The most important thing in choosing a mentor is looking for someone who you could be honest with and who you respect both in accomplishments and skills/talents.

When you have chosen a mentor, set a regular meeting with him/her and don’t stop learning and learning. Absorb what you can and ask a lot of questions. This will be one of the best ways you could learn and evolve. You have to concede to the fact that the elders have wisdom that you’ll never know since it will be rare to experience the things that they experience and the things that you are experiencing. Those experiences are valuable and you should treat them as gold. Be humble enough to accept that and having a mentor will be a very valuable tool for you as you become a better leader.

After all of these advices, I would just like to leave with you that now that you’re a leader in the making, everything that you do should be for your team and for your teammates. Regardless of what it may be, you have to do it for them and be with them when they face their challenges. It will be a grind at first, but as your team improves, you’ll experience that it will become second nature to you.

The writer is an Ambassador of Humanity and a Social Development Enthusiast.

+256 785 717379

[email protected]