Sang Mendy blev leder uden tidligere erfaring, og det betød, at han måtte stole på sin intuition og ofte søge råd fra andre. Det er i dag 10 år siden han blev medieakademiet MAJaC’s direktør, som er en både anerkendt og populær uddannelse inden for journalistik, kommunikation, film, fotografi og digital medieproduktion.
Af Marie Svane
Sang Mendy, der er direktør ved MAJaC, har for nylig deltaget i et kursus i Transformational Leadership på et kursuscenter i Tanzania, der hedder Training Center for Development Cooperation (TCDC), og det har efterladt et stort indtryk på ham. Kurset gav ham mulighed for at reflektere over sine 10 år som direktør hos MAJaC og inspirerede ham til at skifte til en ledelsesstil, der skaber værdifulde forandringer blandt kolleger.
Sang fortæller, at han fremover vil have mere fokus på at hjælpe sine kolleger med at udvikle deres evner, så de sammen kan skabe positive forandringer i MAJaC. Han understreger også, hvor vigtigt det er at styrke samarbejdet og relationerne med sine kolleger. Han vil arbejde mere med både sin egen og deres evne til at forstå og håndtere følelser i hverdagen og samtidig gøre en indsats for at skabe mere tillid gennem blandt andet coaching- og mentorprogrammer. Derudover vil han kigge på nye idéer og systemer, der kan gøre MAJaC endnu stærkere i fremtiden.
Samtidig ser han et stort potentiale i at styrke samarbejdet mellem MAJaC, GAMES og TCDC – ikke mindst gennem fælles projekter og kapacitetsopbygning. Hvis midlerne tillader det, anbefaler Sang, at MAJaC og GAMES regelmæssigt sender deltagere til TCDC for at skabe et stærkt fundament af ressourcer og viden, som kan komme begge organisationer til gode i fremtiden.
Du kan læse Sang Mendys fulde hilsen på engelsk her:
Taking a Transformational Leadership course at MS TCDC was one of the best decisions GAMES board made. It was truly a fulfilling professional training. The two-week course exposed me to learning leadership styles. The 21st century leader needs to be able to inspire, motivate and lead a team to achieve organizational goals and to get them to perform beyond expectation.
The lectures, discussions and interactions availed me the opportunity to reflect on how I led and managed MAJaC for the past 10 years and how to shift to transformational leadership style, a leadership style that creates valuable and positive change among colleagues at work with the end goal of developing them into leaders.
Having become a manager when I had no prior managerial experience, left me with no option but to use my intuition and oftentimes through consultations to run and manage what is today a very respected and go-to school for journalism, communication, filming and photography and Digital media production courses.
I have now resolved that I will focus a lot more on developing the capacity of those working with me to create change which in turn will bring change at MAJaC. I also realize that I need to create a much stronger bond with my colleagues, work on my emotional intelligence and that of my colleagues, invest in coaching and mentorship to build trust. Also on my to-do list is to continually invest in systems and innovative approaches to outshine our competitors in the market.
On the sidelines of the training, I met and networked with trainers and staff of the TCDC about possibilities of partnership, study tours and or running joint tailor-made courses or projects. I and Jesper, a GAMES Board member who was at the centre for a three-week course met and discussed partnership possibilities between MAJaC and TCDC. We met, Doris Mdewa the Head of Learning and Training and discussed possibilities of capacity building initiatives.
I recommend MAJAC and GAMES should pursue these opportunities because both Jesper and I agreed that TCDC and MAJaC have something in common and that MAJaC/GAMES partnership can benefit from how TCDC do things especially when it comes to selling courses to individuals CSO members as well as people interested in activism and good governance, something they did for over half a century.
Where funds are available, I recon every two, if not every year, MAJaC to send someone to TCDC to take a course. This way, we can create a pool of resource persons to offer some of these courses back home. As stated above, there are numerous courses that would benefit both the Senior Management, admin, finance and training staff. But also a Training of Trainers for MAJaC and GAMES members in a few areas would go a long way for MAJaC and GAMES partnership.
Sang Mendy
