12 Gondwana leaders successfully completed a coaching and mentoring program, after 1 year of attending the Go4Gold Academy.
“Leadership with heart and soul” – Ume Goldbeck is the leader of the Go4Gold program, who has been working on different pedagogical approaches and leaderships styles, created to allow people to optimally develop in a social and heterogeneous structure.
She works on this project together with Manni Goldbeck, who is the founding member of Gondwana Collection and was the Managing Director for 21 years. As Manni handed over the reins of Gondwana he decided to focus on protecting Gondwana’s values and sharing his knowledge and experience as one of Namibia's greatest tourism pioneers with upcoming leaders in the service and hospitality industry.
Go4Gold is a customized program which emerged from Gondwana’s identified human capital and leadership needs, and devotes itself to coaching and mentoring these employees in order for them to become mindful leaders. It is comprised of six modules across the period of 12 months, where employees work on specific topics, such as self-awareness, strategy planning and personal leadership styles. Every two months a new module is introduced, which is then run for five days. Five "on-the-job" projects have to be completed by the employees between the modules and one final year project has to be concluded successfully in order to be certified at the end of the year. Go4Gold is about changing the mindset of either winning or losing in life and building up confidence.
“There is no losing in life only learning and we call it Win and Learn. Go4Gold is a process oriented learning program, where everyone achieves their individual best”, says Ume Goldbeck. “We do not look at a certain standard that has to be achieved at the end of the training, but rather look at the progress that every individual is making throughout the training year.” Her main focus is to encourage the development of individual and unique potentials and to assist in creating positive, longlasting teamwork experiences.
Magaret van Wyk, who participated in the 2019 program, says: “I am glad that I learned to communicate and instruct clearly, so that my colleagues can understand what I mean and what needs to be done as a team.”
For this year’s award ceremony, the final year projects were presented to Gondwana EXCO on Thursday, the 28th of November. The managers could choose between either presenting a data-based project, consisting of innkeeper reports and a conclusion, or presenting the results of implementing a project at work and documenting the change management process. According to Ume Goldbeck these project outcomes were brilliant.
Now, 12 managers are mindful and confident leaders, who have the skills to successfully lead their teams into Gondwana’s future, and are the CEO’s of their own life: Creator, Experience and Opener of new doors and opportunities.
Maria N Mvula says: “The quality of the course is very high and gave me the opportunity to interact with and learn from my team, but also to be more self-aware on my lifestyle and to be open minded, in order to be able to lead others and to improve myself on a daily basis.”
The Go4Gold Academy is situated at Moonraker Outdoor adventure camp just 20 km east of Windhoek. For further information regarding the Go4Gold program and Academy please contact Ume Goldbeck: 081 2302 775