The Everyday Leader podcast features inspiring individuals building and leading teams across Africa. Listen to episodes on your preferred podcast platform here.
About our Guest
This episode’s conversation is with Krista Davidson based in South Africa. Krista is the Executive Head at Injini, Africa’s EdTech Accelerator & Think Tank, and part of the Cape Innovation & Technology Initiative (CiTi). Krista leads the team at Injini, focusing on the organisation’s business development and strategic direction. She has spent her career working in and with social impact enterprises and has a particular passion for tech startups using their innovations to positively impact accessibility and quality of education, healthcare and financial services for vulnerable and under-resourced communities.
Everyday Leadership in Action
Here are a few highlights from the conversation with Krista:
With new teams, use early and frequent sessions to align around working styles and values: In the past year, Krista has set up a new team of 8 staff to pursue a new expanded mandate at Injini, which now includes an edtech startup accelerator, ecosystem development initiatives, and a think tank. She has kicked off things by encouraging a practice of monthly 1:1’s to specifically create an open and safe space to reflect on everyone’s working relationship and share feedback. She says it provides an opportunity to be vulnerable and to also create a clean slate each month.
Identify and remind yourself of your top strengths when facing challenges or experiencing imposter syndrome: During the transition period of redefining Injini’s mandate and focus areas, Krista would sometimes doubt herself or feel anxious. At this time, she was working with an executive coach through CoffeeChat. The coach introduced a framework of identifying and leaning into one’s top 3 strengths, and so during challenging times, Krista found it helpful to remind herself of this list as a way to not only build confidence but to strategize on how she could overcome a particular challenge.
Be intentional about making the most of hybrid work: Krista’s entire team in based in Cape Town. While they continue to work remotely most of the time, they still have an office they can all access. To ensure there are opportunities to build team culture and strong working relationships, they have so far closely coordinated in-person working days and organized specific team-building sessions. Meanwhile, the team continues to adopt new asynchronous tools to optimize their remote work.
The Everyday Leader is a podcast featuring conversations with leaders from across Africa’s companies, organizations, and governments about their experience managing teams and projects throughout their careers.
Know of an “everyday leader” in your company or network? Nominate them here.
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