Ms Yoliswa Mkhasi: Leadership is the hands-on execution of strategy

Ms Yoliswa Mkhasi (CEO, Film and Publications Board) and Ms Angela Vogt (Director, Regenesys)

A clear link between strategy and execution enables achievement of results

So says Yoliswa Makhasi who is an enthusiastic, self-motivated activist currently serving as the Chief Executive of the Film and Publication Board. She has key competencies in Strategic and Business Planning, Project Management, Stakeholder Relations, Event Management, and Employee Communications.

Ms Makhasi says that one of the challenges facing public sector organisations is that the critical link between promising and delivering is often missing. In her own experience in various public sector organisations she reflects that the link between strategy and execution is often missing.

Leaders in South African public sector organisations tend to be focused on the rights and privileges associated with their position and to promote permission-based cultures rather than focusing on results. She contends that employees and managers in these organisations forget who the stakeholders are and that the environment in which they are delivering is constantly changing.

She reflects that further dimensions of leadership should focus on people development and enabling respect of the “personhood” of people.

Ms Makhasi is a hands-on doer and believes that the role of a CEO in an organisation is to remove the barriers to execution. She says that one of the key tasks a person faces in establishing themselves in a new leadership position is to enable their staff with the necessary management tools to be able to create clear links between what people do on a daily basis and the vision of the organisation. She also believes that many South African institutions are focused on creating rigid organisational processes that suppress the ability of people to actually deliver on their goals.

One of the challenges which she says is prevalent in organisations today is that there is a lack of clear communication channels, a lack of focus on delivery and poorly trained managers. She says organisations are lucky if their managers can even focus on planning, as implementation skills are generally poor and this reality further challenges an organisation to create the correct governance mechanisms to achieve the objectives as set out by various stakeholders.

She urges managers not to just promote people, but to make sure that the person actually has the competency to fulfil their new positions.

As a manager and as a leader she feels that some of the key tools that enable a person to give direction to others is having a clear view of the performance of individuals and teams. This allows the leader to ensure that the delivery process is streamlined and the organisation achieves the goals and objectives that it has set out to do.

The Regenesys Leadership Exchange is a conversation between leaders in civil society and individuals seeking to learn about leadership. The Regenesys Leadership Exchange platform was created to enable networking and knowledge exchange around dimensions of leadership as a critical enabler of transformation. For more information visit www.regenesys.co.za/leadership or email leadership@regenesys.co.za

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