“The biggest challenge as a leader is to consider when you are at the point of failure. Failure is not a communication of who you are or an affirmation of your general trajectory into your future success. Every time you fail, you gain the courage to start viewing failure differently.”
John Njunge, the Principal and Head of Academics at Zalego Academy doesn't only handle students' affairs at the tech recruitment institution. He also helps to make sure the Academy produces the very best talent while maximizing growth opportunities for the company and the students. We discussed what it takes to fail upwards, achieve success, and use your flaws to sharpen your strategy as a leader. Read on to find out about his experience building the tech talent pipeline for Africa.
So what does a day in the life of the Head of Academics at Zalego look like?
My day is quite busy if there is a word summing up what that day looks like. It involves a lot of meetings with stakeholders like employers because I am the one handling training and would be the one to integrate with them.
Stepwise, our mother company, is a champion for inclusion so we actually target persons with disabilities to ensure that we create opportunities for them. If there's a program we intend to run in special needs schools, we have to reach out to the Ministry of Education to get permission, with which I also have a lot of meetings.
As Head of Academics, I also double as a Principal and I interact a lot with students and parents. This is to mitigate issues around student life and also the interests of parents regarding students at Zalego. I also get very interesting queries coming from parents, even on matters that might not involve Zalego like disciplinary issues at home.
For a 20-year-old who’s interested in building a tech career, why should they join Zalego?
At Zalego, you can upskill for two to four months, or do a Diploma of up to 2 and a half years under a training matrix that includes 3 levels: Training, Attachment, and an Internship at Zalego.
The training process integrates skill mapping, which includes showing students what specific skill set to train for in certain roles. After training, students get a 3-month attachment within the Stepwise family of companies where they are absorbed and mentored to become more skilled. We also reach out to private companies to absorb the graduates and trainees since they are trained to easily transition into the job. After the attachment is a paid, 6-month internship where students get the same work exposure as a company employee. This really builds an intern and we absorb almost 100% of them.
This means the talent that we are training is producing very good results.
Finally, we have job placement within or outside Zalego. We give priority to our trainees who have done Zalego Training, but the first priority for incoming opportunities goes to persons with disabilities or from any underserved communities.
What’s the most challenging part about working with techies?
Talent gap. This is something that I see as an opportunity for aspiring techies. For one challenge, it is challenging for companies striving to strike a competitive advantage in the market. The opportunity we have at Zalego is to support in building tech talents and help in gaining the necessary skills to help academic institutions, hiring managers, and resource talent development teams deliver on the promise of providing adequate requisite skills such as software development, programming, data science, machine learning (ML) and AI. The key is also to let go of the “intense focus on the technical” with less or no consideration to people skills. Having a good people radar is harder to teach than technical, and that’s why our curricular is skill-based, created by practitioners, and not academicians.
What’s the biggest failure you’ve experienced as a leader, and how did you handle it?
That's a tough question. (Laughs)
I have found out that the biggest challenge is improving diversity and inclusion within the technology function. And even as we emerge from the blight of this pandemic, it is still imperative for us to create jobs and career opportunities for those who most often lack opportunities, especially women, young people, and persons with disabilities.
For one, we have made Zalego Academy the most accessible school in Africa. Our mandate is to improve the lives of persons with disabilities through the creation of accessible assistive technologies.
We are providing in-person accommodations for students with disabilities to attend class; for example, by providing sign language interpreters, ensuring that we provide a wheelchair-accessible space, and intentionally building our online for students of all abilities. Even more, our training is designed to accommodate multiple learning modalities including, in-person, on-demand, hybrid on-demand as well live teacher instruction.
Have you ever held yourself back in leadership because of fear of failure?
On those occasions, I took it from a point of view where it was either wise to proceed or better to hold back and wait for a change of circumstances. I don't think it's good to hold back because of fear of failure. If there is anticipation that the direction that you are headed is tantamount to failure, then it is wise to stop, rethink, re-strategize, and take a different direction.
I've had a scenario where I was given more responsibilities and was wondering whether I was ready or had the capacity to handle it. I feared that I would not be able to deliver in the new role but my wife was very supportive in that area. Furthermore, I shared this with her and she asked me what specifically I thought I couldn't do. I told her I felt I was lacking a specific skill and she told me that I should invest time in learning that skill to get the confidence for it. I took some time off work and upskilled online 24 hours a day for 4 days, then I understood what I was about to get into. So when I came back I was like, “Bring it on.” (Laughs)
What are your thoughts on expressing vulnerability as a leader?
We recently had a similar situation with our senior leadership team. We were doing our strategy presentations in front of the executive leadership team, which is consists of the company directors and investors including two top members of the leadership team handling our entire company ecosystem.
In the strategy, we developed a SWOT analysis which involved exposing the weaknesses and threats of different departments and brands. We were telling the senior-most person in the company our vulnerabilities and it was very scary but I liked what he said after that presentation. He told us he was very impressed by our vulnerabilities and that we were comfortable enough to share them with him. One comment that really stood out for me was, “People call them vulnerabilities, but if you can be able to communicate what they are then that is a strength.”
From a standpoint where you are reaching out for help, it helps you continuously cover your weaknesses. With growth, more threats and weaknesses show up. There is always an opportunity to build on that if you're willing to communicate or be open about your vulnerabilities.
How best can leaders embrace failure?
Embracing failure is one of our biggest challenges in the corporate world. (laughs) It's a very tough thing for a leader because in most cases failure is caused by not doing things earlier that would have eventually led to success, even from a personal perspective.
For me, failure communicates the things that I have not been doing. If I fail then, I need to revisit the approach and see where I dropped the ball then figure out what else I need to do to succeed. It's an opportunity to build my efficiency and improve my chances of success. There is always a system to success.
However, the biggest challenge as a leader is to consider when you are at the point of failure. One thing I always say is, "Failure is not a communication of who you are or an affirmation of your general trajectory into your future success." Every time you fail, you gain the courage to start viewing failure differently, so every time it happens you can assess whatever didn't work and what will. If you fail even after succeeding, that just means you are not applying your system and doing what you are supposed to.
Lastly, is there is anyone you look up to for mentorship or inspiration as a leader?
I consume a lot from some renowned motivational speakers and there is this guy called Jim Rohn. I believe that in terms of the principles he communicates and some of the truths I have implemented in life, this guy just gets it. In terms of leadership, he has been very influential to me.
But at the same time, I also say that my principal guidance is the Bible. It has a lot of people who messed up and corrected their mistakes to guarantee success.
