04 Apr 2016

Botswana Press Agency journalist, Ms Calviniah Kgautlhe, says it is critical to realise one’s potential and nurture it at a tender age to avoid making wrong choices later in life.

Ms Kgautlhe, who was a guest speaker at the Highridge High School prefects workshop in Gaborone recently, said it was pertinent for young people to know who they were and examine the purpose of their existence.

She told prefects that leadership was not an easy role as it required one to possess certain traits that should be consistently honed in order to be functional.

Ms Kgautlhe, who is also former Botswana National Youth Council (BNYC) chairperson for Jwaneng district, emphasised the need for leaders to consistently seek knowledge and solutions to society’s problems. 

She said leaders should be catalysts of change, decisive, humble and fair at all times. 

Having occupied various leadership roles herself from elementary school years through to senior school, she said there was need for student leaders to understand their function in an education setting and execute it with diligence.

The young leader said the education system required prefects’ optimal input to maintain law and order in order to create a conducive learning environment. 

She told the young leaders that there was need to treat everyone with respect and equality irrespective of their status.

Furthermore, said successful leaders knew themselves, understood their environment and were able to assert themselves well. 

“You cannot lead if you do not know yourself and when you do not know what you stand for. Your potent self-identity and individual distinctiveness makes the self that you present to the community,” she said

Ms Kgautlhe explained to the students that there was need to have excellent emotional intelligence and understand where they fell in the four personality temperaments; choleric, melancholic, Sanguine or phlegmatic and how they could seamlessly relate with other students.

She also advised the students to study hard, dream big and make wise career choices. Ends