By Ustaz Mark Bang
Had it been known to us that all our resources—sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers—would have been missed for these sufferings, we would have surrendered to the Muslim north.
I feel naive if my people happen to see my heroes wounded soldiers suffer yet their generals and land, fearlessly sacrificed their lives and turned blind eyes to them. I sometimes put my hands deeply into digging for the little things I have in my pockets, yet there is nothing I can offer as help.
Nothing is as good as paying back for what someone has done to you. Let’s learn to appreciate the little service others did for you, or else try to protect their little lives left. Our resources—sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers—were dying in the 1998 starvation that drastically hit all regions of South Sudan except areas where Arabs occupied their throne, not knowing that this region would be given as South Sudan, a country that deprived us of our own people and resources.
Inasmuch as we continue to develop the country, we paid for its struggle over days and nights. Just to take a little math, after 7,686 days full of suffering, my civil population ran as quick as their legs could carry them to escape death. Now we can see that many of my people who helped defeat the enemy continue to be abandoned, others given weapons to finish themselves. No, I can see the future we all want our sons and daughters to pass through; the future looks vast, clear, and straight.
Pay Back
This could simply be connecting all regions of the country by constructing roads and bridges. I mean to make contracts with outstanding companies of the most renowned nations, which include Germany, Britain, America, and Russia, so as bilateral relations remain strong. This nation had helped in making our country an independent country among the 193 UN member states; with this, all grievances would simply go away, and we definitely smelled the scenes of freedom. My argument lies in the long suffering of our people. There is no country where human resources are disregarded; the lives of all the country’s inhabitants’ matters, whether human, domestic, wild birds, animals, or plants. My people should have been paid back if roads were connected, if weapons were collected in the hands of civilians, and if unity was a priority. Just in a year, we will never ask for security apparatus to be set in place if all civilians remain, just like when we were at war.
However, the more we give chances to freedom and the life-saving process, development will take its cost. Never lose hope; ”Rome wasn’t built in a day”, the fact is that there would be gradual change as a nature and as a civilization, building us schools, hospitals, maintaining security, and constructing more roads.
Last but not least, Johnson Jock, the local artist, sang his song, which literally means, ”Na che beny yin che beny yin che beny”. If one thinks that person isn’t a leader, then he himself isn’t a leader either. I can see no one could think of himself as a great leader; if others don’t see that, then you are not a leader.
Successful leaders demonstrate the following five leadership qualities in their personal and professional lives, inspiring others to take action and set a course for future success. Strong leaders also practice key behaviors on a regular basis in order to strengthen the positive impact of these qualities.
A good leader is self-aware.
Effective leaders focus on developing their emotional intelligence. Leaders that work to refine this quality are more adaptive, resilient, and accepting of feedback from others. They are also effective listeners and open to change.
The following behaviors will help you focus on your self-awareness and personal development to develop this important leadership quality.
Set goals, prioritize goals, and take responsibility for accomplishing them. Also, take responsibility for falling short of your stated goals or making mistakes along the way, avoid distractions, and don’t get bogged down by small, tactical details. Practice these behaviors to promote effective management of your time and attention.
Set boundaries between your personal and professional lives. Remember that your organization will follow your lead if they see you working long into the night; they will assume that they have to do the same.
Retain awareness of your strengths and weaknesses and any potential sources of bias that may impact your thinking and decision-making. Conduct self-assessments, seek feedback from your team, and set improvement goals with measurable targets in areas where you have room to grow.
Accept that things can and will go wrong. This anticipation will help you respond in a thoughtful way that does not make a difficult situation even worse.
These behaviors will help you demonstrate leadership ability by developing others within an organization.
However, recruit and develop a team with diverse skills and backgrounds, and give the team members both the tools and the space to build trust among each other.
As a coach, show empathy as well as strength. Delegating responsibility can be harder than completing the task yourself, but this allows you to see what a team is capable of doing. Accomplishing difficult tasks helps a team build confidence and continue its path to growth.
Make genuine connections with those outside your organization. Actively seek out people who will make your team stronger, even if their expertise doesn’t perfectly match the needs you have at the moment.
Make training a priority within your nation and balance it with a culture that allows team members to thrive. Train people well enough so they can leave, but treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”
As a leader, you have to look forward. You have to think about where the country is going. Leaders must consider internal organizational factors, such as product roadmaps and staffing needs, as well as external factors, including government regulations and technological advancement, when making strategic decisions.
Emphasizing the following behaviors will help develop leadership qualities related to strategic thinking, innovation, and action.
Maintain a flexible mindset and be willing to try new ideas. This is especially true for leaders at startups, where company goals are frequently changing and rigid plans may be hard to follow.
Take a genuine interest in your company and the business it operates in. Your team will feed off of your enthusiasm for what you do, or else take the wrong cues from your apathy.
Focus on the future, understand that change is occurring all around you, and maintain a positive outlook.
Encourage creativity and innovation in your team through exercises such as brainstorming or prototyping. Let business lines explore new ideas based on the output of these exercises.
Make informed decisions. Leaders often have to make risky decisions, but you must be able to justify the course of action you are taking. Your team will take notice if you are making reckless decisions, and they will be likely to follow your lead.
Strong leaders consider the ethical consequences of the decisions that they make for both their customers and their teams.
Taking these behaviors into account will increase your awareness of ethical practice and civic-mindedness, which reflects personal concern for the benefit of your entire organization and the community as a whole.
Use your power and authority appropriately. Remember the old saying: Honesty is the best policy? They reciprocate this trust, and the entire organization operates with integrity.
Be open, transparent, and authentic. Your team should know what it is getting from you, no matter the circumstances.
Recognize the emotions that your team members are experiencing. Praise those who are succeeding and encourage those who are struggling. Never berate team members, publicly or privately.
Take responsibility for your mistakes, and expect that of others on your team. But don’t stop there. Take the next step and make things right, even if it will hurt your organization’s bottom line. In the long run, the benefits of protecting your organization’s integrity and reputation will outweigh any short-term costs you might incur.
Respected leaders are able to clearly communicate with individuals, business units, the entire company, and stakeholders outside the organization. In an increasingly global economy, leaders must also acknowledge and respect different communication traditions, Goode says.
Practicing these behaviors will help leaders increase the effectiveness of their communication.
In conclusion, explain everything from national goals to specific tasks and objectives in concise language. If anyone on the team is unaware of your expectations and falls short of meeting them, you are at fault for failing to express those expectations. Communicate these goals and targets frequently so that everyone in the organization knows what you and they are working toward.
Understand the nuances of communicating over the phone, via email, and on social media. Identify your strengths and weaknesses for each mode of communication and work to improve where necessary.
Embrace enthusiasm, confidence, inspiration, and excitement when you say that you value team members’ contributions to achieving that goal.
Adapt your communication style to different cultural traditions when necessary. Some cultures expect explicit, specific messages, while others tend to rely on context between the lines. Some cultures also show emotion more readily than others.
Remember that listening is just as critical to communicating as talking. Take the time to hear what others are saying and make note of what they are not asking. Follow-up questions if you don’t understand what they are trying to convey. “PUBLIC STAUNCHEST ALLIES”
The writer of this article is a human rights activist, writer, and professional teacher.