A leader at some point in time will need to come out of their comfort zones and provide a style that suits the organisation or group under their leadership was the message shared by Filomena Dokoni, while speaking on the topic ‘Women Leadership in Credit Unions’ during the Pacific Credit Union Technical Congress 2017 at Tanoa International Hotel in Nadi on Wednesday.

In this way, the Fiji Nursing and Associates Credit Union (FNACU) President believes that it could be an approach to bring out good leadership qualities.

This is the reason why she has held this post since 2009.

She is also a lecturer at the Fiji National University (FNU) College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Science.

“Mix your styles to suit the organisation or group you are leading, this is an ordinary process that brings out the best in people,” Ms Dokoni added.

She said that people were mistaken by management and leadership.

Ms Dokoni said these were two different roles which were very important for people to understand.

“A management sets its eyes on the bottom line whereas leadership sets its eyes on the horizon,” she added.

A leader, Ms Dokoni said put out strategies needed to successfully accomplish the aims of an organisation whereas management roles made sure that things were done.

“A leader is a significant role of a classic good soldier,” she added.

Ms Dokoni then shifted her message to women.

She told participants that females sometimes thought that they had all it took to be a successful leader but what they didn’t understand that they needed a male figure to complement them.

Ms Dokoni said the role of president for the credit union was quite tough especially leading an institution that was female dominated.

She then sought advice and mentoring from a male which was her own father.

“One of the attributes as a successful leader is choosing a mentor and coach that I will learn from and one that I will submit to, obviously I cannot do that with a woman so I decided to choose a male figure.

“I chose a male because I wanted that sense of balance, that is why I look up to my father for advice and mentoring, he stood by me throughout my career and one of the hardest task is to lead an institution which was female dominated,” Ms Dokoni said.

Sharing ideas was important in leadership; she said that it could help build a person’s leadership abilities to lead an organisation to succeed.

“We need to learn from each other because no man is an island,” Ms Dokoni said.

Oceania Confederation of Credit Union Leagues (OCCUL) Secretariat, Luse Tamani said the meeting consisted of 17 credit union representatives from the region.

The meeting had been held for the last 10 years and it was aimed to bring regional credit union representatives together where they shared ideas on improving their roles to the public in their respective states.