BY DAVID MUJUNI
Ms Hannah Hanifa Nagoya, the Project Manager, WeTrain4Health at Enabel, embodies the value of loyalty.
This passionate development professional, whose leadership style revolves around transformation and service, has been with Enabel since 2010.
Ms Nagoya describes herself as a passionate development professional with a particular interest in education development issues. Emphasising her love for her country, she obtained most of her education in Ugandan public schools, with university education from Makerere University and the Uganda Management Institute.
The passionate leader held this interview a few minutes after graduating with a Masters in Institutional Management and Leadership from Uganda Management Institute.
She also holds a Bachelor in Development Studies from Makerere University, attributing her choice of courses to the love/passion for her career.
“From the course, I learned two critical issues about leadership styles: I greatly identify as a servant leader and transformational leader. This is because I believe at a transformational level, people haven’t only changed but they have also transitioned most likely to a better version of themselves and the country at large. As a servant leader, I have grown through the knowledge of serving people or solving problems through others because local problems require local solutions,” she says.
“I work a lot on education development issues. In the past years, I have been focusing on teacher education and development in national teachers colleges but I’m also working on education issues around education for health,” Ms Nagoya adds.
She add; “I’m also an innovation enthusiast. I like new things because I know there’s nothing static in the world, and because of that fact, I like being dynamic and making sure that we are not lagging.
Ever since I finished school I’ve been working with Enabel. I graduated with my first bachelor’s in 2010 after which I was concerned that I was retaining my skills by staying at home yet I wanted to expose myself to knowledge but also to contribute to my country.“
Loyalty is everything
After two and a half years as an unpaid intern at Enabel, Nagoya finally secured her first job as a liaison support officer at the Embassy of Belgium. She later returned to Enabel’s technical wing as a management assistant. From there, she progressed through various ranks to her current position.
When asked why she has remained with one company since 2010, Nagoya says she is driven by loyalty and passion. She believes in focusing on one career and growing within it.
“It’s not that I did not get opportunities, my workspace is about loyalty and passion. At Makerere University, I did Development Studies and when I grew through the ranks I knew that I had to focus on education development because everything starts with what you know,” she explained.
Leadership style
According to Ms Nagoya, a good leader should not have a one-size-fits-all leadership style. She explains that leaders often need to be adaptable.
However, she prefers to balance being a servant leader and a transformational leader.
“I wrote a book in 2020 about change and it’s titled; The Change I see, Your Role in Bridging the Gap Between Where Uganda, is and Where it Could Be. Many people think that change is about other people but there’s a contribution I have to make to that process [change] and that is what I see and value the most, so my leadership style generally is about transformation and servanthood,” Nagoya emphasises.
“Even if you are serving people, you have to make sure their lives are changing because change is a fact of life and if people are not allowed to know that, they will keep thinking that where they are is the constant but things are changing,” she said, adding.
“Different leadership styles are required at different times and so a leader must be able to adjust accordingly to cater for the different societal needs.”
Ms Nagoya is committed to ensuring respectful behavior. She also values adding value and fairness. “I’m generally a very hardworking person, I’m committed and I like loyalty and I think by now you can tell because I have been working at Enabel since 2010 and it is now 2024,” she says, adding that integrity is very important to her.
Empowering women
She highlights that 50 per cent of the staff at Enabel are female. This is a deliberate move aimed at empowering and grooming future female leaders. She explains that they have implemented policies safeguarding women in the workplace, such as a policy against sexual exploitation.
On a personal level, Ms. Nagoya shared a story about how she supported a young girl in her community who couldn’t afford tuition to return to school after the Covid-19 lockdown.
The student, who had stopped schooling in senior four, was able to attend A-Level and pursue higher education thanks to Nagoya’s support.
“I supported her to go through school and she finished her school. She got very good grades (17 points out of the 20 available). For me it was a shock considering she started with a particular combination then changed to another one but still got 17 points,” she narrates.
Ms Nagoya says the girl, who is now pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Economics at Makerere University, secured a scholarship from an organisation that supports children and is now a promising future leader and turning point for her family.
The decision to support the girl stems from her own story when she failed to get tuition after completing O-Level. Her then financially struggling mother chose to first educate her sister who was studying sciences as she waited at home. After a period of waiting, she became a caretaker of her other sister’s children.
“I was fortunate enough that my mother bumped into former Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga, who made a recommendation to the Forum for African Women Education (FAWE Uganda). That’s how I ended up going back to school for senior five and six and later Makerere University,” she says.
Challenges
Ms Nagoya says her biggest challenge in leadership is building teams, saying the world’s most endangered species is good leaders. She explains that many things come the leaders’ way in the process of building teams. However, she says she has tried to overcome the resource challenges by being very technical.
Some people will look down on you because they think you are a young girl or woman, what can you do?” she laments.
However, she has since managed to maneuver through the challenges.
On barriers she has encountered as a female leader, Ms Nagoya said, “One of the things we always encounter or I have encountered is people will always want to use you [sleep with you”.
Advice to aspiring leaders
Ms Nagoya advises young girls to remain focused by making sure that they don’t forget their purpose. She explains that she never went out while at campus, something she believes should be emulated.
Ms Nagoya advises young girls to remain focused by making sure that they don’t forget their purpose. She explains that she never went out while at campus, something she believes should be emulated.
“In this country we have this issue called deals, everything is about deals but you cannot build sustainable societies through that. You have to take steps,” she says.
