For Lilian, it's all about knowing who you are

Journalist

Mwananchi Communications Limited

What you need to know:

Lilian Makau says the most important thing in life for women to understand is that they need to frankly know themselves: who they really are, not what others tell them that they are

Dar es Salaam. There are certain things which a woman needs to learn in her life. It doesn’t matter if it is now or later but they need to have something that can help them succeed, by making them grow in their business.
The most important thing in life for women to understand is that they need to frankly know themselves: who they really are, not what others tell them that they are! They need to find for themselves who they are so as to make the right decisions that would result in achieving their goals.
The Head of Human Resources (HR) at Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania, Lilian Makau, tells the Season-2 of Mwananchi Communications Limited’s Rising Woman Initiative that women must learn to know who they are, because it creates a lot of energy and confidence to be able to stand and make decisions.
Lilian is an experienced HR professional with a demonstrated history of working in the manufacturing - and, more recently, in the banking industry. She is skilled in the areas of management, succession planning, organisational development, recruiting, and development.
She holds a master’s degree in Human Resources Management and Business from Aston University in Birmingham, the UK. She also has qualified in Industrial Relations and Human Resources supplemented with Social Psychology obtained at the University of Kent, also in the UK. Furthermore, she is a Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Practitioner, who has the knowledge, skills and tools to help others improve their self-awareness and make constructive use of personality differences.
Lilian is also a wife and mother of two children, who’s passionate about hiking and reading but mostly audio-books, doing those stuff helping her to be up to date and knowledgeable.
According to Lilian, she always knew where she wanted to be in her life, the career of Human Resources brought her back when she was 16, because her mother was in the curse of Human Resources, she found interesting on the way.
“My mother was doing some Human Resource courses when I was 16 years old, so because my mom was slow at typing, she always asked me to help her. That was when I found that Human Resource is the most interesting subject, because I love helping others,” says Lillian.
She is the kind of leader that has the collaborative leadership style from the team she leads, for her it doesn’t matter if it is good or bad, she always supports them to work together.
“We always work together to move, a more collaborative type of person because that is what I am – helping people, guide them to grow and develop their inner potential that they want to unleash so as to become someone’s in their life,” says Lilian.
Having mentors in our life is one of the things that everyone needs to have so as to grow and be guided. Women who are just starting their careers or changing careers, they need strong people and effective ones to help them.
Lilian explains that she was lucky enough to have positive mentors that most of them are bosses, that they have never stopped making her believe in what she is supposed to do in her life.
“Journey of my career was blessed with both male and female mentors, I was lucky enough because most of them were guiding me by giving me different challenges that make me become good at what I’m doing,” narrated Lilian.
She also says that, got inspired by mentors because they were always looking ahead of time, they used to tell her that, in order to move forward in life you need to read and keep yourself updated.
In narrating what helped her the most to make a career as a woman, Lilian says that great support is one of the key things that helped her from growing, she was lucky enough to get both parents’ support.
“Stemming from growing as a girl child with support from both parents, to working as a woman in organizations that looked at my growth as valuable as anyone else’s. I have always known what I wanted to do, and I must say that having a good support system makes a big difference,” elaborate Lilian.
According to Lilian, factors that impact women’s abilities to lead, women need to have their own voices and be confident enough to stand tall in a decision making environment where women find it so challenging.
“I believe that different women go through different paths in life and may be impacted differently. For many, it starts with lack of confidence, the environment in which we work also makes a difference. If you work in an organization that truly believes in diversity, then you may be surprised at what that partnered with confidence can do,” narrates Lilian.
They used to say that, if organizations have women at the top management level, they can change the way organizations work, because women will implement systems like home, which will let everyone feel safe to share their feelings.
She says: “Having women in your leadership is great for business. Apart from the skills (soft and functional) and expertise that women bring on board, it is proven that women bring about ethical leadership, collaborative ways of working and critical thinking amongst other things.”
Having a leadership team is great for business because it paves way for diversity of thought which essentially leads to greater decisions making and ultimately brings on success.
In addressing if Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania has policies that create gender balance at managerial levels, she says the banks have family friendly policies that range from parental leave policies to flexible working practices to standards on how to support colleagues that may be suffering domestic abuse.
“Maternity leave for us is 140 days and men receive 14 days. In addition, flexible working practices that enable our colleagues to be at their best as employees and as primary caregivers. We believe that by creating an environment through which our colleagues can grow and feel supported whilst being their true selves, will create great long term benefits achieving our objectives,” says Lilian.
Despite being the head of human resources and having experience that lasted for years, Lillian narrates that she didn’t want to be the head of HR, rather wanting to be someone who is influential and supportive.
“I want to help people and organizations to grow, have been in human resources for almost two years now, but because I am here today, I am willing to do more and provide opportunities to people,” says Lilian.
According to her, what keeps women not being able to shine at the top management, is because they don’t want to find who they are when it comes to showing their potential powers.
“There are no barriers at Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania, but in other situations I think that barriers are there because people don’t understand who they are – and they wait for other people tell them who they are,” she says.