Throughout my professional career as an educator and a citizen who is passionate about community development, I now and then meet leaders who come across as truly authentic, leaders with a high degree of confidence.
Authenticity and confidence can really create a movement for leaders in Namibia. Confidence is about trusting processes that work, and at the same time leadership. To be a confident leader you have to trust leadership that really works. This presupposes doing this over and over again.
To be an authentic and confident leader requires building a track record of creating a successful movement over and over again.
This is possible through working on projects across the various regions in Namibia, and meeting citizens with different cultures, behaviours and attitudes. It could boost your confidence and reputation and trust from others.
Once you become a well-known entrepreneur or leader in Namibia, people usually have an expectation of what they want from you. Trust me this is a very powerful position to be in. However, the world of business is forever evolving as leaders seek career change and progression from one day to the next. It is also important to take into cognisance that changes in society happen at a fast pace, and finding authentic and confident leaders is getting harder.
Authentic and confident leaders possess courage to make themselves vulnerable, because they have learnt over time to manage and destroy their own egotism. They also believe they are lifelong learners and admit if they do not know something or when they make mistakes. At times it is not easy, but they accept when the viewpoint of others is not in line with their behaviour. They are also quite comfortable engaging with staff at all levels. When an opportunity arises, an authentic and confident leader will always have the hope that they can make a contribution, learn and grow as an individual.
If we want to be authentic and confident in leadership we have to buy into the truth that human beings are driven by deep-rooted values.
As a leader you will be able to fanatically drive those values into your business, while striving to remain true to your own values. If you are a business owner in Namibia it becomes important that you work with the bigger picture of matching the needs and values of your employees with those of the organisation. This comes back to the value of having respect for others and understanding the various ethnic groups (tribes) in Namibia. We have to reach a point where we apologise to staff whose values are not similar to ours.
Authentic and confident leaders achieve greatness because they usually care relatively little about what others think about them. They are driven by what is right, rather than by how others perceive them. They do not act to seek approval but rather for success. They do not just change things for the sake of changing things or to satisfy their ego.
They move in with the people’s ideas, listen and do what needs to be done.
• Dr Wilfred Isak April has a PhD (Entrepreneurship) from New Zealand. He currently lectures in Entrepreneurship and Management at the University of Namibia.