Nokukhanya – who is the Programme Manager at the Social Change Assistance Trust (SCAT) – is dedicated to sustainable, community-centred solutions that drive change. In 2020, Nokukhanya completed the DGMT Innovation Fellowship. Here, she reflects on the personal and professional impact of the Fellowship, and what it has meant for her own trajectory.
Applying to the DGMT Innovation Fellowship
I had the pleasure of being part of the DGMT Innovation Fellowship in 2020. When I applied for the Innovation Fellowship, I was new at SCAT and in the intermediary grant funding space. I was not too sure of myself as a practitioner in the NGO sector, and I thought the Innovation Fellowship would help me not only to interrogate my practice but also help improve and connect me to a network of other people working in the sector with similar challenges.
When I joined the Innovation Fellowship, I was in the most challenging yet exciting period in my professional journey. Having graduated as a town and regional planner, I had worked in both provincial government and civil society sectors largely as a community development officer. In 2019, I joined SCAT in the position of Programme officer.
Exploring and developing my abilities
The Innovation Fellowship was a life-changing experience both on a personal and professional level. Being part of the fellowship allowed me to stretch into parts of myself and leadership abilities I otherwise would evade. I think I evaded things that I found difficult to deal with. For example, I evaded challenging conversations with people who were white. It was through the Fellowship’s coaching process that I found out why this was so difficult: largely, I saw white people as people with power and authority. I felt I shouldn’t question them. That, in turn, was because of my academic history; fortunately/unfortunately, all my teachers were white people, and in the schooling sector, you don’t get to challenge or question your teacher.
Tools and skills to manage situations
The Innovation Fellowship offered me tools and skills to deal with and manage situations I would otherwise not be able to handle. The Fellowship had monthly coaching sessions with an ontological coach. The coaching sessions played a critical role in understanding myself as an individual and as a professional and emerging leader in a complex sector. This was mainly because, through the year-long coaching sessions that were part of the fellowship programme, coaching sessions that I was able to discern my self-imposed blockages and how limiting operating with those blockages was. The coaching sessions also affirmed who I was and allowed me to work on the imposter syndrome, which was crippling.
The changes today
A lot changed. I started taking up roles and activities I otherwise would avoid. I did this knowing that it would be difficult initially – but it was a muscle I needed to start training. The more I put myself out there, the easier it became, and the more I have been able to stretch myself. I would not have been able to actualise some of the opportunities that have come my way had I not put myself out and challenged this old syndrome. My coach asked me a simple yet life-changing question to help me deal with this syndrome: “”What do I want to choose, courage or comfort”? I can say to date, I always try to choose courage.
The Fellowship was significant in allowing me to emerge as a confident, innovative, and trusted leader; I have since stayed with the organisation I was working for when I was part of the Fellowship, and the lessons and innovative ideas I forged during the fellowship have come to fruition in the organisation I work for. Part of my new job is ensuring that the organisation reflects and learns from our innovative work.
Post Fellowship and my experience with ontological coaching, all SCAT staff had the opportunity to be coached for a full year. This was all because of my experience in the Fellowship and with the coaching sessions. I have had the opportunity to coordinate essential processes for the organisation, like strategy evaluation and the development of the new strategy; I have also had the opportunity to hold a new position in the organisation, programme manager. I can safely say that my participation in the innovation fellowship contributed to this growth and shift in my career.
I have continued to draw lessons from the work done during the fellowship programme and apply them in my leadership journey. The alumni network has also been helpful as I now have a network of young leaders leading in the same space I’m in, whom I can contact when needed.
The fellowship allowed me to stretch myself into rather uncomfortable yet rewarding spaces.