Leadership plays a vital role in one’s life; our personal life story is our personal leadership strategy. I have always considered myself an adult, as I have never had much experience of being a child. My childhood was very unique, it is what shaped my leadership style, it was based on deception and for that reason I had to grow up. At the age of seven, I had started Sea Scouts in South Africa, at first I was reluctant to attend, as there were only two girls, as Scouts was originally a movement for young boys aiming to create male leaders, and I rather wished to spend my Friday nights with my friends.

I was able to join the Scouts a month earlier, as they allowed entry to females. After attending the Scouts for a few weeks, I officially became a part of the group, which introduced me to my first leadership position where I was an assistant leader. Being an assistant leader did not give me much responsibility, but it did encourage me to work harder to become a leader of my group.

There are various types of leadership skills and each have a unique strategy in leading a team. However, one needs to remember that various situations require a distinct type of leadership. Throughout my life, I have used the following leadership skills, which helped shape the outcome of my decisions. During my time as an assistant leader, I was considered a Transactional Leader, which means that I was given certain tasks to perform and I had to be responsible for punishments or rewards due to my team’s performance. Transactional leaders hold the power to shape team members or employees in order to achieve a common goal. At the end of my first year as an assistant leader, my team won ‘Best Patrol of the Year’, which planted a competitive seed inside of me. Many people regard competitiveness as a negative term, but it is truly what motivates us to do better and shows us that there is always space for improvement.

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After eighteen months as an assistant leader, I finally became a leader. It was not an easy ride as the Scouts is mainly male dominated and the person I was up against was a man. The very night I became a leader, I went home and planned everything I wanted to do with my team, I also sat down piled a long list of pros and cons in our previous leader’s leadership style, and I was only nine!

After a long night of analysing various leadership techniques, I figured out that if I wanted to win again I had to change my leadership style to Transformational. Transformational leaders rely on communication and involvement in order to motivate team members to achieve goals. As a Transformational leader, I delegated smaller tasks to my team members so that they would have a role in our success and have a sense of belonging. I was a junior Scouts leader for three years and my team won every year; and I will admit that victory tasted as sweet as our celebration cake.

After junior Scouts, I joined senior Scouts, which was a whole new ball game. Once I joined the senior Scouts, I knew that I was just a team member no longer a leader, but that did not stop me from wanting to be the best. For the three years I was in senior Scouts, I was just a team member, never a leader even though I had attended countless leadership training courses and was the first female to represent my country on a leadership course in the Middle East. The long duration that I remained a team member angered me, as I witnessed males who joined senior Scouts after me become leaders while I was never considered a leader.

After years of numerous attempts to show my senior leaders I have what it takes to be a leader again, I was finally given the opportunity to lead an all-girls team in Scouts. My aim shifted from wanting to win to paving the path for future female leaders of my group. Leading an all-girls team meant I had to use a new leadership technique, thus I chose to be a Democratic leader. As a democratic leader, I consulted my team with regards to all decisions and also paid careful attention to their input. However, it meant that even though my team contributed to the decision making process, the final decision was left to me.

For many years, I was a leader and a team member, which allowed me to develop my own leadership technique. Although the technique took years to develop, it was coming up with a suitable name and that was the hard part; eventually I named it Commitment, Victory, Valery. I wanted my technique to have a personal influence, so I decided to use my name, as that is my identity, which makes me unique like my leadership strategy. My personal leadership strategy can be used in the workplace, at home, in the military, in school or even for team leadership.

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Commitment, Victory, Valery is a unique leadership technique that believes that commitment leads to victory. Victory comes in many forms but no matter how small, always show gratitude for your victory and you will see your victories multiply.  My personal leadership technique comprises of nine laws, as the technique cannot fully work if you do not follow all nine laws:

  1. A leader needs to lead by example: In order to gain respect from your team you need to form a unit, you need to become one. You need to show your team that you will always stand beside them and you will support them, therefore if they see you perform a task they will take responsibility and follow in your footsteps.
  2. Every leader needs to believe in themselves: You cannot expect your team to believe in you or your ideas if you do not believe in them or in yourself, as they will see doubt and lose trust.
  3. Deception towards the opposition is vital towards achieving your goal: At the age of sixteen, I became the captain of one of my sports teams and I knew I was the best player. However, it was my first time as a leader for my team, and we were up against our strongest opponent whom had never lost a game. We did not win by showing fear towards them, but by showing strength and deceiving them into believing we were stronger than them, which eventually caused unrest amongst their team members.
  4. Every once in a while a leader needs to think like his opposition: In order to know what you are up against, you need to think like them in order to know which mind games and tactics to use.
  5. Having an approach to problems, that may arise amongst your team, is not enough: Each approach must comprise of a method, which will result in success.
  6. Every leader needs to learn to take risks: We learn from failure and mistakes, it is important to fail with your team as it brings you closer and once in a while it is considered moral to give someone else the slightest taste of victory.
  7. In order to win your battles you need to know yourself, from your strengths to your weaknesses and from what builds you up to what will destroy you.
  8. Planning is a key role to success: It is important not to have only a Plan A but also to have various back up plans. If you attend a competition with only Plan A you will lose because it is guaranteed that your opposition has a few more plans up his/her sleeve to crush you.
  9. Treat your team like you would treat your own children and they will remain loyal to you: Loyalty is an important characteristic to have amongst team members because once you have loyalty you know you already won every victory that lays ahead of you.

Leadership plays a role in our lives whether we like it or not. However, the most important advice to every leader and individual is be the best leader you can be, everyone is unique and has their own leadership style so find yours, exercise it and dominate in every aspect of your life.

By: Valery Pillay

Edited by: Engy Bahnas