Objective & Accurate

By: Temilade Odedele (Shakespeare)

It’s emotional-intelligence, leadership & hard-work in action, An Opinion Article by Odedele Temilade Damilola, A campus Journalist and the Former Editor-In-Chief of Namacos Editorial Board, Osun State Polytechnic, Iree.

This article is opined to open the eyes of the aspirants who are vying for the position of Student Leader to what’s necessary for them to achieve their set goals

(1) Be very clear on why you want to be President.

What are your top 3-5 reasons?

(2) Leadership is about providing value and serving your members.

People will vote for you (assuming it’s a vote) if you can provide more value than anyone else. What are your 3 unique strengths (or unfair advantages) that make you the best possible choice?

(3) Value comes in lots of forms, but primarily by either (A) Solving Problems, (B) Realising Ambitions.

After all, decision making is driven biologically by PAIN & PLEASURE aka Problems & Ambitions

Therefore, I would take the time to get to know students intimately by asking them about the problems they face and the ambitions they strive for. A framework I use is, “What do you want to achieve by the end of next year?” [ambitions] and “What do you believe might stop you from achieving that?” [problems]

What are the top 5 problems that you want to help ‘fix’ as President?

What are the top 5 ambitions you want to help students achieve?

(4) How are you the best person to serve?

Once you have examples of real students with real P&As, I’d be putting a case together for how you are the best person to serve them. What events/services are you going to run to solve/reach the P&As, what products are you going to promote, launch etc.

What are the 5 most beneficial events you’ve ever attending?

What are the top 3 SKILLS/MINDSETS/Pieces of new KNOWLEDGE that you got from those events?

What are the 5 most beneficial products that you’ve purchased in your student lifetime? What benefits do those products give you? How can you provide new products to students to help them alleviate problems or reach their ambitions?

(5) Once you’ve done this self-reflection and research, you need to build a team to help you campaign.

I’d be aiming for 5-10 close, trusted people who have widely different skills (project management, marketing, communications, design etc.) and working backwards from the date that the election is and counting the days.

How many days is it?

Say it’s 50. You need to be doing 1 thing every day that is new and valuable to show people why they should vote for you. This should then be shared on social media (90% on Facebook).

Don’t just brag, but split content into:

(1) Share Wins
(2) Educate – share your knowledge,
(3) Collaborate – interview key people on campus,
(4) Manage Up – show that you’re working with staff,
(5) Inspire – share your vision and wisdom,
(6) Testimonial – have friends on camera or in quotes say why they’d vote for you.

Have your team help you by taking photos, teeing up interviews, speaking with students, doing email/facebook outreach, speaking with community businesses about how you can create win-wins etc.

(6) Mindset is everything.

From the second you read this article, you need to believe, if you think you would be a good fit and can genuinely help people, that you are the person for the job.

You are going to be President.

You have to KNOW that, and then work backwards from there.