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My Ten Year Journey in the Nigerian Labour market 4



Last week I talked about my appointment as principal and the challenges I faced.

Today let me talk about how I handled them.

For the gross indiscpline and late coming, I made sure there was some punishment for late coming. It wasn't there before.

Wasn't something harsh, no flogging but strong enough to send the message across. And it stopped.

I now also decided to make the assembly time an interesting one. I had some outlines from my church Bible studies then that had stories of people in history who made some mark like Abraham Lincoln and the rest.

So each day after the regular assembly i read those stories to them and insipired them. That also helped reduce the late coming as they were always eager to always listen to those stories.

Then school fees owed.

It was tough. I worked hand in hand with the headmaster on this. We sent them home and also met with some of the parents who told us why they had challenges paying. We designed a system for those of them who were small scale business people and low income earners to be able to pay installmentally till the debts were cleared. Long story short, debt recovery for the first term was around 80%  and for the second term about 70%.

Then the difficult teacher I had. 😀. Well we never had any avenue for tempers to fly.  I didn't allow it
I was patient with her even when she tried to provoke me because I already  knew the reason she was like that.

It keep on till during the close of term where we had meetings with parents. At that point she tried to discredit me publicly but I handled her. Envy is terrible. I addressed the matter she tried to use to blackmail me there and then. And that ended it.

She never did that again.

I spent just two terms there and resigned. I had this feeling that my time was up and so I left.

Lessons.

1. Life always has a starting point. And sometimes it will be small. Don't despise days of small beginnings.

2. When the opportunity to serve comes, accept it and use it to grow.

3. Remember that leadership is a call to responsibility. You're to provide solutions not just occupy a seat.

4. You will face oppositions. Especially when you're promoted. Expect it and make allowances for how to handle it when it comes.

5.Never be apologetic over your promotion. You earned it. Don't feel guilty. Be nice to people but don't let anyone bully you especially where you're younger. That was part of my issue. I was the youngest staff. And it didn't go down well with some people.

6. Leadership is not a function of age, it's a function of capacity.

7. Learn to collaborate. When you don't know what to do reach out and learn from those who know better. That's what I did with the headmaster. He was more experienced and I leveraged on that. It made my work easier.

8. Do your best. Don't leave a place same way you met it. Leave your footprint there. Let them miss you when you leave. I didn't stay long but I left a mark.

9.As a business owner or head of an organization, learn to spot the stars among your staff. And give them the opportunity to give what they have.
 
Never choose leaders based on sentiments. My boss didn't do it and he reaped the benefits.

He got his monies recovered at least. 😁

So this ends this part of my career journey.

I'll talk about another phase in my next post.

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