BECOMING A SUCCESSFUL LEAD(ER)

May 11, 2020

This is an excerpt from the online session held on YouTube with Erica Hanson and other five different DSC leads across the world. The discussion was based on Success and Challenges faced and how the challenges were conquered. In this epistle, I will be highlighting some of the points and methods mentioned and how they worked out. The following are the few points and methods implemented by leads and success was recorded.

1. SEEKING HELP He who seeks help will never miss the way (Africa adage). Seeking help has been the solution to every problem since time immemorial. As a lead, it is an advantage for you to reach out to your core team members, other DSC leads, your institution staff and also your region program manager. Many of the obstacles that comes the way of a lead are always solved by seeking help from one of the listed above as SODIQ discussed how his region program manager Auwal MS had helped him in various occasions.

2. CORE TEAM MEMBERS Show me your friends and I will guess who you are! (Yoruba adage).The success of every leads absolutely rest on the core team members he (the lead) chooses to work with, the core team members are the foundation and the deciding mind of how things work out in every community at the institution level and they are always a group of students always in the range of 1 - 15 in number including the lead and the co-leads. SODIQ AKINJOBI and JAMES VALLES discussed how this made their success a huge one they can’t believe.

3. SETTING GOALS Eagles are never affected by side attractions. Another crucial thing to be conscious of is Setting a perfect and a realistic goal, goals should be in line and in accordance with the laid down calendar of the year by the community. JAMES discussed how working with calendar alongside with the goal was a point of success for him. Goal to be set should be SMART. S - Specific M - Measurable A - Achievable R - Realistic T - Time Bound Your goals can be best measured by (I) Rate of attendees of community event - increasing or decreasing (ii) feedbacks (are they encouraging, good or bad) (iii) Project built at the end of workshop or at the end of the time set out for the goals

4. FEEDBACKS FROM AUDIENCE. Feedbacks either push or pull the receiver but it should be a means to improve. Getting feedbacks from the participants of every events should be another greater things to be given priority. Feedback was one of the things that pushed and add to the success of Amita after gotten an encouraging feedback from participants of the CloudJams session she organized in her campus.
5. PARTNERING WITH STUDENTS ASSOCIATION. A tree can not make a Forest. Coming together with each department or faculty or schools association is a means to relieve the community from the heavy load of every events as they stand to gain various important materials and support from their partners - like venue, megaphone, power and only what is left to be provided by the lead is the facilitator. Lobatan. Shikena. Sephini lapae. AKINJOBI Sodiq Aliyu Aboubakar ALIYU MUHAMMAD Abdulqudus Abubakre Abdlmujeeb Adeoye Auwal MS Developer student clubs-DSC AGI DSC Futminna