Jacques Terblanche

As a mentor for Pieke PSO, we had the opportunity, in some sense, to be able to have a positive effect on someone’s life. This is something that I would love to continue and I believe that the position of HK will allow me to exactly do so.

I have served Pieke PSO as a, now defunct, section panel member and as previously mentioned I am currently a mentor. I’ve personally grown a lot, and I truly believe that Pieke has been a large factor in this. I have also served my high school as Deputy Head prefect, where I obtained experience in general event hosting, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

My leadership style basis would best be described through a simple analogy: I believe that a leader should be like a captain of a ship, only steering the ship in the correct direction rather than micromanaging smaller activities. It would also be the responsibility of the captain to ensure that the ship stays on course and ensure continuous communication. It is important to note though, that the captain isn’t necessarily one person, but can consist out of the whole crew.

Throughout the years, we have all discovered many problems in university leadership structures. Often leaders act out of naivety, not fully understanding the situation, and thus becoming frustrated with how the events unfold. I believe that it is our duty as potential future leaders to educate ourselves and to stay open-minded to these changes but also to always react as objective as possible.

Communication is essential to any organisation, but I believe it is even more so in a PSO. It will be our responsibility to improve on it and to make it as interactive as possible. To achieve this, I believe that we should put more emphasis on our social media platforms, create more events surrounding software such as discord/teams, and in general to focus on our online presence as an organisation.

A major goal I have would be to decrease active member attrition, this is not an easy task, but I believe that through properly advertising the opportunities we offer as an organisation and restoring structures such as the section panels (i.e. allowing even more opportunities) we would be able to incentivise more members staying and contributing to Pieke PSO. It also important to understand what our community wants from Pieke as an organisation and if we will be able to meet their needs. I am personally a massive proponent for anonymous surveys and would love to see them utilised more.

A personal dream I have would be to implement a small scale event similar to toastmasters, where individuals can improve not only their public speaking ability (which directly correlates to self-confidence) but also allow individuals to educate each other in a safe environment within Pieke. I believe this can easily be integrated within the leadership development and critical engagement sessions. (Important nuance is that it should be done similarly to toastmasters)

I truly see Pieke PSO as a structure that encourages individuals to grow socially, emotionally, and ultimately assists individuals in discovering their real self. It would a great honour to be able to help build on this, and if given the opportunity, I will do everything in my capacity to do so.