Topic 1: Promotion Of Life Skills - Civics Notes Form 3
Meaning of life skills
Life skills are the means or the ways through which a person can live well in a society or can manage well his or her life and that of other people.
The importance of the promotion of life skills in modern society has been accelerated by scientific and technological advancement.
To survive in this competitive world of undergoing changes good leadership, teamwork, positive relationships, self-worth, and self-confidence are required from among the members of society or community.
Meaning
Leadership is the ability of an individual to influence motivate and enable others to contribute to the success of other organizations of which they are members.
Or
Leadership is the situation where by somebody is given a position to direct other people, groups, country or organization by showing the way to achieve stated goals.
Good leadership is that made by people for their benefits.
Who is a leader?
A person who leads a group of people or a country or an organization. A leader can either be elected by people or appointed according to the laws of the country or organization
Roles of a leader
1. To make decisions on behalf of the community and supervise the implementation of the community
2. To unite the followers so as to facilitate the achievements of the objectives
3. To formulate problem solving strategies to bring economic change to people’s life
4. To mobilize the community in creating and implementing various projects for the development
Types of leadership
There are 2 types of leadership known as
- Democratic leadership.
Where by the leaders are obtained through democratic processes i.e. free and fair elections
Also it can be through appointments as stated in the constitution
2. Dictatorship leadership.
Where by leaders come into power by using force and are supported by armed forces
Sometimes a dictator is changed after being elected e.g. Adolf Hitler got into power by election and he changed into a dictator even the democratic leadership can violate democratic principle by going against the constitution [ laws]
Good leadership
Any good leadership involves elements of vision. A vision provides direction to influence the process.
A leader can have various visions of the future and how to lead the people towards a successful end
A vision of effectiveness should alleged
i. A person as a simple yet vibrant image in the mind of a leader
ii. Describe a future state , credible and preferable to the present state
iii. Act as a bridge between the current state and a future optimum state
iv. Appear desirable enough to organize followers
v. Succeed in speaking to followers at an emotional and spiritual level
THE BEHAVIOUR OF A GOOD LEADERSHIP
The following are the behaviors and effects of good leadership
- Vision
An outstanding leader articulates an ideological vision with the deeply held values of followers a vision that describes a better future to which the followers have an alleged moral right.
2. Self-sacrifice
Leaders display a passion for and have strong convictions of what they regard as the moral correctness of their vision.
Outstanding leadership displays a high degree of faith in the attainment of the vision they activated.
4. Image building
Leaders are self conscious about their own image recognizing the disability of follower preaching them as competent credible and trust worth.
5. Role modeling
Leaders’ image-building sets for effective role modeling because followers identify with the values of role models whom they perceive in positive forms.
6. External representation
An outstanding leader acts as a spokesperson for respective organizations to external constituencies.
7. Expectations and confide in fellow outstanding leader
Communicated expectations of high performance from their followers and strong g confidence in their followers’ ability to meet such expectations.
8. Selective motive arousal
An outstanding leader arouses the motives of followers that the leaders see as of special relevance to the successful accomplishment of the vision and mission.
9. From Alignment
To persuade followers to accept and implement changes refers to the linkage of individuals and leader interpretative orientations such that some set of follower's interests involve beliefs as well as the leader's activities goals and become congruent and complementary.
10. Operational communication
An outstanding leader often but not always communicates their message in an inspiration manner using vivid stories, slogans, symbols and ceremonies.
IMPORTANCE OF GOOD LEADERSHIP
1. Helps in accomplishing a set of goals
2. It promotes community participation in development activities
3. It invites creation of projects for community’s development
4. It encourages the community to build trust or the leaders
5. It helps to maintain peace and harmony in the community
6. It promotes the national development economically socially and culturally
TEAMWORK
A set of persons working together with a team spirit.
A team spirit means a willingness to act for a group rather than an individual benefit
Hence teamwork means combined efforts or organizational cooperation
Why effective teamwork is good
It is a large measure of motivation that lies in being part of a team with a recognized identity where the members feel that they are part of a cohesive unit working towards a broad goal
Usually, the output of effective teamwork is greater than what would be achieved by the member working individually this tends to produce good quality output being at the school office Shamba army etc
TEAM ROLES
Effective is that their success is brought about by some of their technical abilities in mental activities drive humor communication skills and through a combination of different types of people.
There are four common theories which guide the effectiveness of the team roles
- Thinkers
- Doers
- Careers
- Leaders
- Thinkers
Are a set of people who tend to produce carefully throughout ideas and soberly weigh up the contribution of others.
They are useful planners and help to curb the impetuosity of the doers
- Doers
Are task-oriented and can be exhibited ‘’funnel vision’’ where all they can see is driving on and getting jobs they are useful as time controllers and keeping the team focused on the objectives.
Both thinkers and doers concentrate on the work in hand without necessarily appreciating the importance of the human dimension
- Carriers
Some people have a bias towards people and their needs.
They understand the importance of productive relationships between their member's and carriers members maintain harmony through smoothing cheering up people promoting humor, and helping people in difficult and easy tension within the group.
Hence carriers are needed to keep up morals to maximum effectiveness and to coordinate the role of a leader.
- Leaders
Are people who create and maintain an environment where people can make their contributions to maximize the effectiveness of the whole team. Hence they are like the conductor of the orchestra who through standing the experience and approach create the whole of which is greater than the sum of parts
HOW TO MAKE A TEAM WORK EFFECTIVE
A leader can make a team effective by paying attention to the following:
- Understanding the objectives
- Knowing the people
- Assigning the roles
- Communicate objectives
- Planning
- Delegation of power
- Listening
- Ensure balance of contributions
- Resolve conflicts
- Motivate
- Make decisions
- Learning from experience
- Analyze success and failure
Importance of teamwork
1. Makes it easy to accomplish tasks under given environments
2. Enables people in groups to perform work more effectively than single-handed jobs
3. It stimulates cooperation and positive relation among people in a given society
4. It enables individuals to gain more knowledge and skills from other people in the group
5. It develops positive attitudes towardof the importance at work and cultivates the awareness of accountability and responsibility to an individual
POSITIVE RELATIONS
The relationship is a way in which people group or countries behave towards or deal with each other, the relationship can be economical cultural political, group, or even social [including love affairs]
Positive relationships are the passionate and abiding desire on the part of colleagues two or more people to produce together conditions under which one can express his or her feelings of real self to produce together a climate in which each can flourish for superior to what one could achieve alone
Building positive relationships is very important because we depend on each other however one must start with building confidence within oneself we all want to build positive relations by forming bonds with different types of people i.e. bosses, colleague friends, and family
Many of us have made it in a wrong way it’s never too late to say we still have room to modify our behavior patterns by breaking our bad relationship habits and learning good interpersonal communication skills which are sending out the right message to others.
Trusting yourself in whatever you do to others and treating yourself as a respected individual the same kind of people will be drawn to you
Positive relations are very important we need two things in life
- To avoid loneliness
- To be appreciated and loved for who we are
We are brought together by positive relationships and loneliness reminds us that we are missing someone or something in life. We seek fulfillment in our relationships with others by loving just like the way we love ourselves.
We can only change ourselves by learning how to love and we should learn to accept ourselves just and you will be able to love and accept others
Importance of positive relationships
Positive relationships among people of a community are very important because they create an environment of cooperation accountability peace and security in the community.
Moreover, positive relationship has the following importance
Cooperation among people will be encouraged through trustworthinessbrotherhood that may develop from good relations
Crime will be controlled as good relationships will create peaceful situations or environments people will leave and believe in fraternity and brother hood
Unity will be created hence limiting individualism and cooperativeness
People will land their hands together in waging war against the common enemies for example poverty ignorance diseases etc in so doing people will plan their own strategies such as poverty alleviation projects i.e. introducing successful helping groups social matters
Self-worth and confidence
Self-worth
Is the feeling and trusting yourself in whatever you do that you are good useful and competent
Confidence
When you believe in your own ability and being successful the feeling that you can trust believe in and be sure about the abilities or good qualities you have confidence among individuals is a major cause of their success.
Adolescents sense of worthiness include who they have been as well as who they hope to be
Formulating their self-identity requires them to discover what they like what they are good at and what they believe in
Note
Things that indicate one’s confidence can be seen in many ways which are:
- One’s behavior
- One’s body language
- One’s speech[how one speaks]
- What you say
Difference between self confidence and non confidence
Self confidence | Non confidence |
| 1) Being willing to take risk and go extra miles to achieve better things |
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| 2) Doing what you believe to be right even if others criticize you. |
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| 3) Waiting for others to congratulate you on your accomplishments |
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4) Accepting accomplishments graciously Thanks, I really worked hard on that perspective am pleased you recognized my efforts. |
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Importance of self-worth and confidence
1. Self worth skills enable you and individuals to protect their lives by not engaging in dangerous things like drugs alcohol beverages and marijuana
2. It makes an individual to work hard value work and enjoy their achievements through their hard efforts
3. It stimulates accountability and creativity among people thus increasing the income to an individual family and community
4. Gives power and ability to an individual on how to defend their correct decisions.
5. Enables individuals to defend their rights and struggle for their violated rights
6. Gives power to criindividualticizing bad behaviors that affect an individuals or society