As part of its Capacity Building programme, the WCO organized a Leadership and Management Development (LMD) workshop from 14 until 25 November 2016 in Pretoria, South Africa. Nineteen middle managers of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) were inspired to strengthen their leadership and management capacities, as well as their personal effectiveness to drive reforms within their organization. The workshop was made possible with the support of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

During a meeting with a delegation of executive management at the end of the LMD workshop, participants were invited to not only implement their newly acquired skills and insights in their own units, but to also continue learning and developing themselves as well as the whole organization. A first follow-up meeting to that end was immediately planned.

In the LMD workshop participants learned that knowing yourself and self-awareness, managing strategically, people management, outstanding communication skills and change management are very important to address SARS’ future challenges. The participating managers were extremely participative and showed a strong motivation and commitment to know, improve and manage themselves, in order to have a great and positive impact on others, as well as on the organization. With personal testimonies at the end of the workshop participants demonstrated their motivation to bridge the gap between policy making and organization-wide implementation of changes.

In the near future SARS will implement its own Leadership and Management Development programme. For further development as a regional centre of expertise in this LMD domain SARS and WCO plan to strengthen their cooperation.

For more information on the WCO Leadership and Management Development Programme, please contact Capacity.Building@wcoomd.org.