Justina on why budding leaders need grooming

Dodoma. “The benefits of mentoring are myriad.” These are the words of Justina Mashiba (pictured) whose first dream since she was in school was to become a nurse, but ended up becoming a lawyer.

Ms Justina is a lawyer and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Universal Communications Service Access Fund (UCSAF) since December 2019.

Talking to Rising Woman about her career journey and how she was able to attain success, she attributed some of the good deeds in her life to the mentorship she got along the way. As a result, she firmly believes in the power of mentorship and guidance because she is also a product of mentorship.

“I am in this position because of mentorship. Let me use this opportunity to thank my first boss Engineer Peter Ulanga (Peter Ulanga was the first CEO of UCSAF). He mentored me on how to be a good leader,” said Ms Justina. According to her, every leader has a responsibility to groom others through mentorship.

“Why I believe in the transformative power of mentorship. First is that, through the knowledge and experience of a mentor, the mentee can leapfrog the learning process,” she said. Justina said that if you mentor someone can learn to avoid making the same mistakes just by having a personal “guide” for life. She said that mentorship encourages people to take leadership and aim for the stars.

“I am fortunate to have engineer Peter Ulanga as my mentor. And the support of my husband,” she said. She also said mentorship builds confidence and she thanks her husband who gave her the support and confidence she needed to traverse trying times.

“You know, we [women] have a lot of challenges, we need to take care of our kids and cook for the family,” she said, further thanking her husband for supporting her even in her higher education, especially when she got a scholarship in Belgium.

“I remember in 2010 when I wanted to pursue my master’s degree, he told me ‘go and I will take care of the children’. Very few people can support you to do that,” she said.

“By having a mentor who believes in you, and who vouches for you, who is willing to take the risk to share her network, you know automatically that she will go the extra mile to give you a hand when you need it. “And this is very powerful. My mentor has pushed me to step up and make more things happen,” she said.

Ms Justina added that a good mentor needs to be more than just a successful individual. “A good mentor must have the disposition and desire to develop other people,” she said.

Who is Justina?

Ms Justina was born on May 7, 1974. She is the second born in her family and is married with three children.

Her education journey started at Oysterbay Primary School and later she was transferred to Makongo Juu Primary School.

In 1992, she completed her secondary education at Jangwani Secondary School and in 1993 she joined Msalato Girls Secondary School which is for talented students.

At Msalato, she took HGL (History, Geography and Language) and after that, she joined the University of Dar es Salaam to pursue a Bachelor of Laws.

Work experience

Ms Justina was employed briefly in the private sector and then she joined Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) from 2000 up to 2011. She then joined The Government Procurement Services Agency (GPSA). She stayed at GPSA for some months and in August 2018 she joined UCSAF. In December 2019 she was appointed CEO of UCSAF.

Her style of leadership

Ms Justina said that her style of leadership is based on something called the open door policy. That her office door is never locked.

“My office door is open to anybody. You know some places you cannot gain access to see the CEO. But, my office door is open all the time, people are allowed to see me direct,” she said.

She also said that she prefers to bring people together. “We always align together with the decisions we make. We will set and review the together performance. I am open to my people in my office and we discuss progressive issues together.”

Her role model

My role model is the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan. “We as Tanzanians didn’t expect to have a woman president and she is doing a wonderful job for our country.”

“Let me start by saying how lucky we are to have a woman President: we managed to get past a very trying time for our country, which saw the coming of the first female President of Tanzania. She is making all women in the country and Africa proud despite the earlier doubt and questions that people had over her capability to lead the nation.

“We are all witnessing what she is doing in terms of development and gender balance,” she said.