Senior Lecturer Presents Paper

In October 2011, I was given the opportunity to attend the Value Driven Leadership "Train The Trainer" course in The Netherlands with colleagues from other Stenden campuses. The training was a real life-changing experience and an eye-opener for me to see why the first world is first. The course enabled me to understand John Gardner‟s statement in Steven Covey‟s book: The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness when he said, “Most ailing organisations (and people) have developed functional blindness to their own defects”. The Value-Driven Leadership course enables people to have a deep sense of purpose and a demonstrated commitment to life-affirming values; such as honesty, integrity, excellence, courage, humility and trust. This includes caring for people as well as social and environmental responsibility. It also entails understanding other people‟s values and understanding how and why other people behave the way they behave in life, their relationships and leadership positions. All in all, seeing the world in a different way. In this training I learnt that leaders have an opportunity to dive deeply into the underlying values, behaviours, competencies and skills that are necessary to lead others in an empowering and compelling way. 

This transformational program provided a series of experiential activities, case studies, practice sessions and opportunities for reflection that not only builds individual capability, but develops a greater sense of responsibility, both directly and indirectly. Each participant, I believe, was equipped with a set of practical tools to help them to lead more effectively “through others” to produce significant and sustainable business and personal results. I also learnt that great leaders are great teachers, great learners and great story tellers. 
 
I have come to believe that the best economic systems are those that are built by value-driven leaders. They stand in bold contrast to those who would sacrifice the public good for private gain. Stenden gave me the chance to see how people can make a positive difference in business and societal thinking. 
 
After the training in The Netherlands I headed to Croatia, Dubrovnik, to present a research paper at the 2011 EuroCHRIE conference. The paper entitled: The challenges of Kwam eMakana. This Community-based tourism home stay initiative in South Africa offers an insight into the drawbacks of the initiative while providing an understanding and guidance for enhancement of future community based tourism home stay development initiatives in South Africa. The Kwam project is a government pilot poverty reduction initiative which was established in 2004 by the former Eastern Cape Premier, Nosimo Balindlela, as a Local Economic Development (LED) strategy and has been adopted by Stenden South Africa as one of its community Development projects. This was in line with the conference theme: Tourism and Hospitality: Drivers of Transition. 
 
The theme is a framework to show how the hospitality and tourism industry have acted, or continue to act, as an economic and societal driver for changes which have occurred or are occurring in transitional regions of the world. In Croatia, I was happy to see colleagues from other Stenden campuses who were also presenting at the conference. We were all very proud to be part of the Stenden Family. I believe one of the major differences between Stenden University and other Universities, including some that I have worked for, is that at Stenden we are family.
 
Written by Juliet Chipumuro