Allen Ingabire, on Leadership

Hospitality Management ’17 & Student Guild Speaker

“When you are a leader, you learn every day. You never know which new skills you need on a certain day — there are constantly new challenges. You need to stay firm so people keep seeing the potential in you that made them trust you with the position. Sometimes you see people in leadership positions performing well in the beginning, but then they get tired and stop performing after a while. It’s important to keep showing that you’re able, and keep doing what you said you would.

As Guild Speaker I am the voice of the students and the link between students, faculty and administration at campus. One of my most important jobs is to listen to others’ situations, put myself in their shoes and find solutions.

It’s tough but it’s making me grow so much. At the end of each week I try to go from classroom to classroom, asking if there are any issues I should bring up with administration. We are very lucky to have a Country Director who is always ready to listen to our concerns and work with us to come up with solutions that make Akilah a better place to study. We are working really well together as a cabinet, and we are living up to the action plan that we set up when we were first elected.

Being Guild Speaker has helped me to step up as a leader and use what I study in practice. I meet different people all the time at events and meetings where I represent the entire student body. I need to be aware of everything that goes on and stay updated on all departments so that I can represent Akilah in the best way possible. We recently had a visit from the Ambassador of Belgium and he asked me all these questions about our Information Systems Program. I don’t study that, so in the beginning I wasn’t sure what to say. But then I thought of all the things my friends from Information Systems tell me about their classes and I presented it to him in the best way I could. He was really impressed and said I was the best speaker Akilah could have hoped for. That made me feel really good.”