Name: Shibeshi Kassa

Title: Consultant

Organisation: Private

I am mr. Shibeshi Kassa an Ethiopian citizen. I have long years of work experience in Administration, Human resources management, Project administration and Advisory services. As related to my educational background I hold BA in management and master of Public Administration (MPA). Currently I am working as an independent consultant.

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

We’ve gone through the interviews and asked the best of the best to come back and answer 7 MORE Questions on Leadership.

I hope Shibeshi's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. As a leader, how do you build trust with employees, customers and other stakeholders?

A leader can build trust with his team, customers and stakeholders through effectively communicating with them. Effective communication is about understanding the problem of our team, customers and stakeholders and solve their problems or address issues on time. Effective leaders should be aware, and empathic about outstanding problems, needs and concerns of the people they lead and alleviate the problems.

2. What do 'VISION' and 'MISSION' mean to you? And what does it actually look like to use them in real-world business?

Mission is the reason for existence, of an organisation while vision what it would like to be or achieve over the coming years

3. How can a leader empower the people they're leading?

The leader can empower employees through several ways. The leader could empower an employee through delegation through participation in an important decision making and enhancing capacity of an employee from time to time.

4. Who are some of the coaches or mentors in your life who have had a positive influence on your leadership? Can you please tell a meaningful story about one of them?

Though there are several leaders that influenced me and I consider as role model. Dr. Eduard Sanders my project manager at Ethio- Netherlands AIDs Research Project is an important person whom I learned a lot of lessons from him.

5. Leadership is often more about what you DON'T do. How do you maintain focus in your role?

Focusing in my role starts from the passion and purpose I develop towards my role. Whether I am a leader or not I need to develop habit of loving and respecting what I do. I have to understand what my role requires from me and accomplish it on time and accordingly. I have to focus through collaboration and cooperation with my team members, or customers or stakeholders. I have to accomplish my role through ethical and discipline the job requires from me.

6. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Everyone plans differently. How do you plan for the week, month and years ahead in your role?

Basically planning is our intention what to do in coming days, weeks, months or years. It is about ambitions how to accomplish our objectives in a successful manner. Hence we start the function of planning through obtaining and compiling all the necessary information and data, organize, process and interpret it to what we have to accomplish and when. Planning as to related to its horizon could be long term, say five, ten years etc. Also it could be mid term three or two years and short term. Long term planning is usually known as strategic planning while short term planning is known as operational planning.

7. What advice would you give to a young leader who is struggling to delegate effectively?

It is advised any leader has to know the very well the person whom he is going to delegate. Understanding the person's ability , willingness to the delegation must be understood. The person's attitude, intelligence and some other important emotional and psychological behaviors need to be taught and developed in to the man that should be delegated.