by Aminat Abubakar – Tuesday, May 16, 2017

My journey to becoming a thought leader in the second term of the doctoral program started with Emotional Intelligence. The course taught me about self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management towards becoming a successful leader in my decisions and actions.

Taking a course on the Leadership Challenge exposed me to the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership Model composed of Model the Way, Inspired a Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. I learned skills needed to successfully overcome future challenges as a leader.

Then came the Strength-based Leadership course along with the StrengthsFinder assessment. The assessment provided a better perspective on my strengths as a thought leader of the future. In addition, understanding and investing on the strengths of individual employees on job performance and organizational growth.

My “Aha!” moment came during the Leadership Challenge project assignment, with the realization that the bane of the leadership challenge in Nigeria, my country was in the failure of “Model the Way” a disease that seems to infect many weak leaders as being witnessed by the massive exposure of corruption.

Dr. Sehba Husain is a great instructor and was very patient with the cohorts. She continued with the inclusion of visual aids in her lectures, as well as made class discussions easy to follow.

Just like the first term, the tradition continued with Dr. Michael Petty, and Dr. Sheb Bishop joining in class lectures, and providing us with their different perspectives; quite enriching indeed.

As for my fellow cohorts, it has been an interesting class as we continued to support each other. I enjoyed the class picnic, thanks to Dr. Husain and Aric Easterling.
Still, my appreciation goes to the core instructor Dr. Sheba Husain, as well as Dr. Michael Petty, and Dr. Sheb Bishop.

I look forward to the third term class as I journey into becoming a future ready and future smart thought leader.