“How do I, as a manager, develop my people for the long-term?” That’s the question I explore in this article. As a leader and manager, over my career so far, this has been one of the most important aspects, if not the most important. Indeed, it is why Protagion exists today – to multiply that positive impact of professional growth and evolution across organisations and countries as much as possible, and inspire more professionals to actively manage their careers.

This is the third article in the series prompted by The Six Conversations of a Brilliant Manager* by Alan J Sears. The first article covered my thoughts on the book overall and four of the six conversations: coaching, taking responsibility, addressing performance/behaviour, and performance appraisals. The second article focused on delegation as a manager, and applied that conversation framework to the employee perspective too. Read more for the rest of the third article.

Boniswa Dladla is a transformation coach who lives out her own purpose every day. She studied metallurgical engineering, and worked as a process engineer in the mining industry, in both coal and diamond processing, extracting value and beauty from raw materials. With excitement and passion, she shares her discovery of her own purpose: helping others to evolve. She’s a firm believer in personal development, and is currently in the midst of her MBA through Regenesys Business School. Boniswa helps her global coaching clients (including in Namibia, Botswana, Ghana and South Africa) to explore their values and beliefs, transform their mindsets and find the sweet spot of how they show up in their relationships. This is her story:

​​“My career journey started out with my 17 year-old self seeking an opportunity to study a critical skill which would guarantee me a job after university. The first time I heard of my soon-to-be-chosen degree was during a bursary interview organised by my career guidance teacher. The bursary company were clear they were looking for candidates with good mathematics and science marks who were willing to study engineering. I chose a field of engineering that I had never heard of or ever knew existed prior to that interview! I chose it because it looked hard as well as exciting and I wanted to see how it could challenge me to grow. That is how I found myself doing Metallurgical Engineering. The company sponsoring my studies was a coal mining company.

Mining Commitments
The bursary was my gateway to the mining industry. Entering it also seemed very hard as the mining industry was and still is a male-dominated industry - it has taken great strides to encourage more women into engineering fields to enhance gender transformation. In those times you signed a contract to work back every year of study with the company that paid for your studies. So, I had a four year contract to work back, which made our time at university as bursary students very serious. We knew that failing could mean paying back the money which we knew our parents could not afford, so the most responsible thing to do was to focus on our studies. Read more to follow along my journey in the mining, diamond and now coaching industries...