My Chevening Leadership: Leadership Skills that I Developed

I acquired leadership skills from early adulthood based on my experiences in church and my family. I developed organisational, resilience and other leadership skills which have been honed over the years.

My leadership skills continued in secondary school when I started volunteering and campaigning against poor child upbringing in my local community, the group (Higher Spirit of David) consisted of over 50 children both male and female whom their parents and the community had condemned wayward. I taught them musical instrument; I was responsible for making decisions on different affairs of the group and my impact on the children was remarkable as all of them got transformed and became useful to their families and the society at large. The children got scholarships to study in the university because of the dexterity they displayed playing various musical instruments, as well as made earnings from music and gave back to their various communities.

As an undergraduate of Oduduwa University, Ipetumodu. I spare headed the formation of NACOSS (Nigeria Association of Computer Science Students) and eventually served as the general secretary of the association. The formation of this association was very necessary because we were lacking out on benefits and opportunities it entails. The formation process involved me and my colleagues meeting with our lecturers and the school authorities. Our efforts paid off when we finally got approval and several opportunities were opened to students.

In 2018 I Started an IT company called Kematim Concept. Though we deal with both software and hardware, but the company had issues meeting deadlines on software projects. I discovered my software developers needed to be trained. I organized an intensive training on Software development and part of the facilitators was a senior colleague I had met during one of the NACOSS seminars back in the university, he gave tips on how to swiftly get familiar with various IDEs in order to speed up software projects. My initiative boosted the company’s revenue, increased our knowledge and developed our skills.

Where I work currently, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), I had earlier discovered that staff lack computer literacy which slows down their office activities with high rate of system malfunctioning reports. I set aside 2 hours daily for 1 year to visit each department to train the staff on Microsoft office package and basic computer ethics, which drastically reduced staff complaints regarding systems malfunctions, and today 95% of staff are computer literate. As a result of my proactiveness my boss nominated me to attend a two-day Galaxy Backbone training on web development and networking while other staff offered some monetary compensations for my efforts.

In conclusion, my overall experiences and skills have enabled me to develop strong leadership skills and abilities which as a result I won numerous success stories in my life. The Chevening Scholarship will further enhance my leadership skills and prepare me for senior managerial positions upon returning home – as I look forward to transitioning into a global IT leader.