BNPC to train about 500 council leaders
The Botswana National Productivity Centre (BNPC) plans to train about 480 council frontrunners on leadership and mind-set change.
The national training commenced with about 30 senior council management at the Selebi-Phikwe Town council in July and will end next financial year.
In an interview with Mmegi, BNPC consultant, Oarabile Lesole explained that the project is aimed at developing a leadership and productivity programme that brings about real mind-set change in the public and private sector.
He said the training on leadership and mindset started with the council secretaries and the town clerks in line with the country’s Reset Agenda.
“Most importantly, the training comes as a result of a work ethic investigations report, which was carried out in 2018. The study recommended that the government has to capacitate council leaders amongst others,” said Lesole.
The same work ethic study stated that people are promoted to management positions without being trained on leadership skills, he added. Lesole said the training also assesses the participants’ leadership skills and whether they are up to the required standard.
This week, the BNPC trained about 30 council leaders from City of Francistown Council (COFC), Sowa Town Council and Tonota Sub District Councils respectively. The programme structure and style covered modules such as leading self, people and the organisation.
The presentations by the BNPC consultants were based on real time issues, group coaching and feedback, problem solving facilitated in small groups. The first module of the training was to increase self-awareness and personal development.
“The other objectives of the module is to encourage openness to challenge and difference of opinion, avoiding blame, demonstrating consistency and reliability to engender mutual trust. To increase participants’ repertoire of leadership styles and self-awareness and encourage confident, visible and collaborative leaders,” added the BNPC consultant.
The BNPC also trained the participants on emotional intelligence, which entails self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social ills. Elaborating on the elements of emotional intelligence, he said council leaders should be able to be realistic about strengths and limitations, show initiative and seize opportunities.
The participants were also educated on the six leadership styles thus coercive, authoritative, afflictive and democratic, pace setting, coaching and their impacts on the climate. The next training which will be targeting about 30 leaders from the North East district, will be held on October 30 to November 4 at the same venue.