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Research And Archives Leader Zubenathi Ngqikiza
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Being a leader means that you have to be tolerant, because you meet different personalities from different people. You have to possess leadership skills. Some of those skills involve openness, focus, strategic thinking, high energy level and the Ability to influence and lead others. One of my favourite motivational speakers and behavioural specialists Dr John Demartini told me that a leader does not stray away from challenges but rather look for challenges.
My name is Zubenathi Ngqikiza. I am a Public Relations intern at ABZ Holdings, an organisation whose vision is to innovate business solutions for sustainability. Its mission is to provide professional services that benefit its clients. ABZ Holdings is divided into three departments, Strategic Management, Customer Care and Research And Archives.
I am a leader of the Research And Archives which is the team that plays a crucial role in this organisation. Its main role is to store information of the organisation for future reference, ranging from the background information to all the events that an organisation has held.
This is a very effective team that consists of intelligent individuals that challenge you intellectually. These are the people that require you to think critically before you convey a message. When I came here I didn`t know anything about leading people but as the time went by I became familiar with effective ways of leading people.
When you deal with intelligent people such as the ones that I`m working with, you must be able to manage conflict because they come up with conflicting ideas which some of them are hard to judge. A huge challenge comes when you have to face a destructive conflict as we know that there is constructive and destructive conflict. Destructive conflict arises when your team members make an argument personal, which has nothing to do with the work. That is the most difficult moment for a leader because people show different sides of themselves and you have to deal with it.
It`s hard dealing with people especially adults because they have personal problems which lead to poor work attendance. You usually have no say when your team members tell you that they won`t make it on a particular day and that becomes your problem because in the end it seems as if you do not do your job as a leader.
There is also what I call constructive conflict. This type of conflict is positive because it strives to find a solution on a work related issue. It actually motivates me because it actually shows how eager people are to find a solution. It also shows that people are competitive in their ideas. These are the kinds of challenges that grow me as an individual whether they are positive or negative, in the end they teach you different things about different people and how to deal with them.
By: Zubenathi Ngqikiza
