Chronicle Editor
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
LEADERSHIP coaching, grooming, and etiquette are important aspects of the growth of any business, family, church, or organisation. While these are sometimes ignored due to other pressing demands, they form a vital cog of growth, investment, and profits.
The International Coaching and Mentoring Foundation (ICMF) trains coaches starting from being a certified life coach where one is trained in various areas, carries out practicals, has book reviews, and finally sits for examinations.
Mrs Hazel Chaibva–Zidyah from Bulawayo, holds the Zimbabwean title of being the Leadership Coach of the Year 2023 as she excelled in her coaching. Different topics are covered when one becomes a qualified coach such as leadership, family coaching, management team building, grooming, and etiquette to name a few.
She chose leadership coaching.
“My passion has always been leadership so I mastered that. This is because I believe in an author named John C Maxwell who wrote the book, Five Levels of Leadership and he explains that everything rises and falls on leadership. So for anything to be successful, whether it is family, church, or institutions, it thrives because of leadership. Being a leader and being a boss are two different things. I am passionate about leadership because I believe that a lot of things can be changed starting with training the leadership and when we get that right, that then cascades to the rest of the organisation, family or church,” said Mrs Chaibva-Zidyah.
She said starting the training was not what she assumed it would be, as she had accompanied a friend assuming they would spend just a few hours being mentored.
“In 2022, I graduated as a life coach, I started by default, I had seen an advert and attended with a friend thinking it was a one-day training course but that was just the introduction. I did not know that I was signing up for a year’s training. It has changed my life indeed. I am also passionate about grooming and etiquette so I met a friend who was an etiquette and grooming expert and I asked them to mentor me through that. I joined JS Group of Professionals which does coaching and I got an opportunity to train World Vision on leadership and from then on, I started reading more on leadership and that is when I became passionate about it,” she said.
As a Regional Manager for a national organisation, Mrs Chaibva-Zidyah said she took the lessons learned from her leadership classes to the workplace and trained her co-workers.
“I gave everyone the opportunity to research a topic and present it to the team and now I can see how they have developed, some are now confident. For someone who could not speak before a large crowd, now you can see that their confidence has now grown because of that opportunity,” she said.
Mrs Chaibva-Zidya said winning the Leadership Coach of the Year award came as a surprise when she was nominated.
“We had to defend the nomination as to why you feel you deserve the award so I shared what I was doing at the workplace and also different leadership training for different organisations and I came out tops. I was pleasantly surprised that I was nominated as the Leadership Coach of the year.”
She highlighted that it is important to train employees in organisations as the biggest asset in any company is human resources.
“It is not the cars or the machines because anybody can duplicate your business by copying your colours, your brand, cars, or machines but what you can’t copy are the people who work in your organisation. If you train and coach your people they can’t be copied into another organisation and that is your biggest asset. It can be in customer experience or leadership that already makes the organisation stand out once you invest in human resources. Some local companies are big on training and even have training centres and are doing very well. They do not stop training, it is the way to go,” she added.
Mrs Chaibva-Zidyah said grooming and etiquette are inseparable twins that organisations must be cautious of if they are to create a positive lasting impression on their customers.
“Everybody is at the interface with the customer, it does not matter whether they are the driver, security guard or receptionist so grooming and etiquette is something that seems very simple but it is not taught in school or university and some people do not understand its value.
“It is simple things like making sure you have taken a bath each morning, brushed your teeth, and worn clean clothes every day and are smelling fresh. Imagine meeting the biggest client of the organisation and you are unkempt, it can be a serious turn-off for the client,” she said.
The life coach highlighted that the area of grooming and etiquette is a sensitive one for many but it needs to be done to maintain a good reputation, keep clients, and also to have repeat business as one will have a well-groomed workforce.
“If you are foolish, you do not want to take any advice about your grooming and etiquette. One can tell you that your breath is probably not smelling too fresh, you may feel offended but it is important that you have been told and you can correct it. You would rather be someone who is helped than to move around with a problem that can be easily corrected. There are life topics that are not taught in school but are vital for our day-to-day living,” she added.
She said how people dress is important when representing organisations or institutions and organisations must invest in the grooming of their workforce so that when they meet other people outside, they represent the company well.
“Even the security guard at that gate that clients first meet when they come to your office must be trained on how to receive clients and must be dressed appropriately.
“Companies today are talking a lot about customer experience, what one experiences when they visit certain organisations. You can first meet a receptionist who will be wearing very tight or revealing clothing.
“If it is a man then maybe they become uncomfortable looking at her and fail to make inquiries.
“So these are the experiences customers face on a day-to-day basis, everyone in the organisation needs to ensure they are at their best so that customers have a positive experience when they visit your organisation from the beginning to end,” said Mrs Chaibva-Zidyah.
The Life coach said while organisations invest in leadership coaching for their managers, it must be done according to the various levels in the organisations as senior and middle-level managers together with supervisors serve different puposes. – @NyembeziMu.
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