Executive and Personal Assistants (ASC)

• Entry Requirements: Tertiary Certificate, Diploma, Degree or Higher Qualification and Two or More Years Work Experience or Entrepreneurship Practice.

• Pre-Course Assessment (Belbin Individual and Team Roles Behaviour Online Assessment): The participants must undergo the Belbin Online Assessment and participate in the debriefing workshop before they take their chosen course. Belbin is concerned with behaviour – what others in your team see and experience. Belbin’s team role theory provides a common language that crosses geographical and cultural boundaries and enables us to articulate our behaviour and the behaviour of others. The Belbin Team Roles identify people’s behavioural strengths and weaknesses in the workplace. This information can build productive working relationships, select and develop high-performance teams, raise self-awareness and personal effectiveness, build mutual trust and understanding, and aid recruitment processes. The tool assesses the following: (i) Social Oriented Roles: Resource Investigator, Team Worker, and Coordinator; (ii) Thinking Roles: Plant, Monitor Evaluator, Specialist; and (iii) Action-Oriented Roles: Shaper, Implementer, and Completer Finisher. The Belbin Profiling Tool is commonly applied in the following areas: Personal Development, Individual Coaching, Team Building, Team Coaching, Career Development, Talent Management, Management Development, Conflict Management, Enhancing Psychological Safety in Teams, Creating Project Teams, Internal and External Recruitment, Job Evaluation, and Restructuring of Departments and Organisations.

• Delivery Base and Mode: Physical Venue-based (Face-to-Face) Presentation, Webinar (Virtual/Online) Presentation, Hybrid (Face-to-Face and Online) Presentation, or eLearning (Self Study)

• Modules

• Module 1: Getting Started
• Module 2: Working with Your Manager
• Module 3: Administrative Soft Skills
• Module 4: Effective Time Management
• Module 5: Meeting Management
• Module 6: Tools of the Trade (I)
• Module 7: Tools of the Trade (II)
• Module 8: Being an Effective Gatekeeper
• Module 9: Organizational Skills
• Module 10: Confidentiality Guidelines
• Module 11: Special Tasks
• Module 12: Wrapping Up

• Facilitation Methodology: We use the LEKGOTLA Way Learning & Development Methodology in delivering our courses. This is the African methodology for creating an environment conducive to active thinking, dialogue, conversation, engagement, learning, development, and resolving conflicts. The hosts, facilitators, co-facilitators, guest presenters and speakers, and course participants collectively create the knowledge from each other’s perspectives. The participants are inducted and introduced to the life-long learning culture. We encourage the course participants and all the role players to appreciate and value the notion that one grows by sharing their knowledge and information with fellow participants. The more we share what we know with others, the more we become knowledgeable. That is growth through the application of knowledge. Through the knowledge exchange, the participants enrich and expand their capacity to deal with the complexities in their personal and professional situations. Real growth happens in the field, at the offices, and within our communities and families as the participants apply and practice the new knowledge and skills they acquired during the workshops and lectures. NB: We have developed the LEKGOTLA Way Learning & Development Methodology Manual, which is obtainable from the COMETSA office. Our facilitators learn using this manual in becoming facilitators – the LEKGOTLA Way.

• Course Duration: Module per Week over 12 Weeks

• Class Size: Maximum of 10 Students per Course

• Participants Support (During and After the Course: Coaching, Mentoring and Mentor-Coaching Approaches):The participants can enrol for Coaching, Mentoring or Mentor-Coaching Programmes during and after their courses.

• Coaching Approach: This approach requires you, the participant, to be open-minded, creative, innovative, imaginative, and progressive in bringing the content into your coaching conversations. The coaching approach provides a framework for exploring opportunities you deem fit for your growth. The coaching approach will amazingly lead you to discover it. Be patient, take your time, and allow it to evolve. The coach will leave everything to you to determine your agenda, informed by the course content and personal and professional challenges. So, the coaching approach is not prescriptive but imaginative.

• Mentoring Approach: The reason for using this approach is the complexity of specific skills that the participant would like to acquire for his or her personal and professional performance. Such skills are initially developed through the mentorship approach and later entrenched through the coaching or mentor-coaching approaches. The development mentor is the most sought-after professional in human capital development. Their experience is what we need, especially in the earlier stages of our development journey. You must be comfortable that such a development mentor will be instructive and handhold you through personal and professional development. This approach will not guarantee that lasting knowledge, skill, and competencies will be imparted to you, even though it might eliminate all the hurdles you face. You still require practising under observation, supervision, role-playing, testing, reflections, and assessments to embed the knowledge. The mentor-coaching approach best delivers the above interventions.

• Mentor-Coaching Approach: This approach borrows the best coaching and mentoring approaches. They are brought together through action-oriented knowledge transfer methodology. Depending on where the mentee (participant) is in their development journey, the mentor-coach will orientate towards a coaching or mentoring approach in his or her intervention. The mentor-coach does not necessarily disclose to the participant the approach he or she is applying at a particular time. His or her tactic is to create and hold the space for the mentee (participant) to show up through thinking, feelings, doing or reflecting. He or she makes available all possible resources, equipment, tools, models, books, and materials that could be needed by the mentee (participant). The mentor-coach only gets involved on request from the mentee (participant) or when he or she realises that the mentee (participant) is stuck and needs help figuring out the way out. The first preference is that the mentee (participant) consults colleagues for help. The first step in helping the mentee (participant) is to challenge him or her to think through the problem, reflect on what he or she might have done wrong and try again. The approach encourages the mentee (participant) to think, reflect, act, resolve, commit an error, and learn from successes and failures. The outcome of the mentor-coaching approach is removing the obstacles and resolving challenges while, at the same time, there is deep learning and knowledge transfer to the mentee (participant). The mentor-coach achieves two outcomes: the development results and learning that leads to the mentee’s growth (participant).

• Coaching and Mentoring Reference Book: Holistic CAREER Development COACHING and MENTORSHIP Perspective! The Insights from My Personal and Professional Development Journey! by Sam Tsima, published by Amazon Direct Publishing and distributed by Amazon Online Store,

• Hardcover Edition; https://a.co/d/2JjQL3m;
• Paperback Edition; https://a.co/d/gMeIxcl;
• eBook Edition on Kindle, https://www.amazon.com/Mentorship-Coaching-Philosophy-Perspective-ebook/dp/B09Y4299TL.
• Author Page: You may subscribe to and follow the Author Page at Amazon, amazon.com/author/coach-samtsima-2023