Africa-Press – Lesotho. Despite global efforts to advocate for women empowerment in the economic and professional world, women are still hesitant to take leadership positions as they feel inferior to lead.
Informative Newspaper reached out to a Mosotho woman who has over a decade experience of leadership, Basotho Enterprises Development Corporation (BEDCO) Chief Executive Officer
(CEO) Idia Penane, to draw motivation from her journey with climbing the leadership ladder. Here is an excerpt of her interview.
Please take us on your leadership journey within BEDCO I joined BEDCO in February 2020 as the CEO. When I arrived there was a draft strategy that had been developed which,
working with my team, we adjusted quite a bit to ensure that it provides direction to address the challenges that BEDCO is faced with. My journey, which
is now just over one year, has been to work a lot at shifting the culture at BEDCO towards one that executes more and improves on accountability. I have
also started some work towards building the leadership team and ensuring that they understand their role as a collective in ensuring that we succeed as an organization.
What motivated you to choose this career? It is probably better to talk about my leadership journey to be able to respond to this question which started out in 2003 when I became an Information Technology (IT) manager at the Lesotho
Revenue Authority. This was after a very short period in technical positions. To be honest I never chose the managerial career, I believe it chose me.
In 2004 I became Chief Information Officer, a director position which really commenced a very interesting leadership journey for me as I eventually became in charge of
strategy, research and projects, business process management, in addition to IT. When I left the Lesotho Revenue Authority (LRA) in 2017 I reflected on the
valuable experience and lessons that I had learnt from the LRA, my strengths and weaknesses and the value that these had prepared me to add. I then developed a strategy for myself and one of my aspirations was to turnaround a
small (well smaller than the LRA) struggling organization. The bible tells us that God put a dream in Joseph’s heart and it materialized. I want to believe that is what happened to me as well as I found myself as the CEO of BEDCO two years later.
What advice would you give aspiring woman manager about climbing the corporate ladder? One of the first things that I always tell young women who ask me for advice is that we need to believe in the
attributes that God has given us as women which are not necessarily similar to men. From this I have learnt that one can achieve the same level of success as a man
without necessarily trying to be one. Leadership is also about managing several aspects: your subordinate, colleagues, superiors and stakeholders. All
of these have one very critical success factor which is being able to manage the self. You need to understand yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, your
triggers and commit to a self-improvement program. I have seen several leaders who have not embraced this well and have unfortunately struggled to manage relationships which is a big part of leadership.
How did BEDCO contribute to your professional empowerment? Being given the opportunity to lead the organization has provided me with significant professional empowerment.
It is a very different scenario from my former experience as an executive and I learn each day. I draw in a lot on the experience and capacitation that I got from LRA. With each new challenge that I face I turn into one of my leadership lessons which I will hopefully one day write a book about.
As a woman, what potential traits contribute towards sustaining in your position? The one thing that I have always thought has helped me throughout my leadership years is not trying to be like a man.
I believe that as women we have inherent traits that can potentially make us good leaders. If one looks at leadership requirements such as providing a clear
vision, compassion, mentorship, communication, influence, these are inherent traits that we naturally have. Think of a mother and the role that they play to
shape their children. These include having time for our children, nurturing them, being supportive and patient, setting boundaries and correcting wrong
behaviors. These come naturally for us, and I believe that if one can reflect on them as a leader they can succeed and sustain their leadership position.
Another important one is continuous improvement both technically and importantly as a person. I can tell you today that this Idia is not the same one that started out in 2003.
How did you reach your level of success, given the gender gap in the corporate world? Funny enough I have never considered the gender gap. This is probably because my leadership career started in IT and
at the very beginning, I did not have females in my team. The one thing that I usually tell my teams is that I am the least knowledgeable person technically
and rely on them to fulfil the direction that I provide. This has therefore never made me feel that I needed to compete with them and has really helped me
focus more on growing my leadership skills. As I have mentioned before self-awareness has also helped me a lot. I also invest adequate time in understanding the personalities of the teams that I work with to enable me to manage them more effectively.
What
are the challenges that women face when climbing the corporate ladder? I think that the requirement to balance between one’s duties as a wife and mother, and the leadership
requirements are some of the major challenges that I have seen. Unfortunately, we cannot deny the fact that the corporate world is predominantly made up of
men who at times unfortunately do not understand these dynamics that women face. This can potentially discourage young upcoming female leaders. Another major challenge I feel is
thinking that one must be as aggressive as a man for people to follow them, if not even more. I have often heard very disheartening stories about how female
leaders can be worse than male ones. Leadership in my opinion is not about how harsh you can be but about how you can achieve results through your people. That requires followship which means that you need to be able to win the hearts and minds of your people.
As the C. E. O, what are your main duties? My main responsibility as a CEO is to provide leadership to the organization towards achieving our mandate as BEDCO,
which is very important in the economic development of Lesotho. This entails setting and ensuring execution of a strategy, ensuring that required resources
are available, managing risk, engaging with and managing various stakeholders, managing, and developing the BEDCO executive team and providing communication on what is happening in the organization.
How do you navigate between the family and professional life? This is a tough one as a single mother and I have found my children at times complaining.
I am not sure if I have mastered it, but it is an area that I am growing on. I have worried that my professional life tends to sometimes look as if it has taken priority.
To mitigate this, I try not to bring work home especially over the weekend. Another one is ensuring that I have a strong support system on the family side. I also try set aside time for myself to rejuvenate and to spend some quality time with my children.
What advice would you give women in commemoration of August – Women’s month and beyond? I believe that we have a very important role to play in the development of our country as women.
My advice is that we need to do it from a “women’s” strength perspective. This might sound a bit controversial, but the bible says that we need to be submissive as women.
I have had conversations with a few women on this including my daughter and they have negative opinions about it. I however, feel that this is an area of strength
that God knew that if we harness it well, we can achieve a lot. I have found that it can achieve influence without the aggression that will make people
defensive. I also believe that we need to stop putting ourselves down as women or thinking that we need to reflect men to succeed. I believe that God had a reason to make us different and we need to take up that position and use it.
