The Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, Prof. George K. T. Oduro has encouraged students to be the modern type of leaders in order to fit in any organization they find themselves.
Speaking at a leadership symposium organized by the International Youth Fellowship (IYF) and the UCC chapter of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS UCC), Prof. Oduro who chaired the programme mentioned that a modern leader is one who has focus, empathy and brings people together.
“Be people focused rather than system oriented because organizations achieve their goals through people. And one way of making people contribute towards that is making them feel belonging to the organization. You must also be willing to celebrate failure as well as success with your following. Try to ensure that you see mistakes as learning opportunities for your followers. The fact that someone commits a mistake in the process of transacting his or her business doesn’t make the person useless,” he said.
Hammering on the importance of communication as a modern leader, the Pro-VC made it known that effective communication make people understand issues and respond very well to those issues.
“You must communicate well. Some people think that if you hide pieces of information that makes you more respected because knowledge is power. But the modern leader doesn’t go by that principle. The modern leader believes that the more he or she shares information, the more respected he or she becomes. And so share information. Let people understand issues. When they understand issues, rumour lingering will be low and it will not be used as a way of finding more information.”
The Pro-Vice Chancellor also advised student leaders to effectively divide their limited time between their leadership role and their academic role, saying that student leadership is very complex and demands that people should be engaged in activities to support the leaders.
“A traditional leader wants to do everything by himself or by herself. A leadership where only one person does everything is obsolete. Now we need leadership that would be collaborating by nature. Leadership that will listen to the views of others,” he added.
Another speaker at the event Dr. Kim Sung Hwa, who is a Mind Specialist from IMEI South Korea spoke on how to have a strong heart and a strong mind. In doing so, Dr. Kim explained that the first dimensional thought and the second dimensional thought has to do with mindlessness and mindfulness respectively.
“Mindlessness is to follow the same way routinely without reassessing and also Mindfulness is to think that I am not always right and to think that there is a new way. If I am a group leader for this group, I am not always right. So if I want to decide on something, I can ask for someone’s opinion. If you think like that, you accept others opinions too. You can learn how you can open your heart to others in order to have great relationships with them.”
The Chairman of IYF West Africa, Rev. Young San Ban, also spoke on leadership from the Christian perspective. He said that a leader is not perfect or excellent and will need people to help him rule just like how Joseph in the Bible helped the King rule by interpreting the King’s dream and taking action.
“No matter how a leader is excellent, I still think he cannot be perfect. Sometimes, the moment someone becomes a leader, he or she becomes very stubborn. They don’t want to listen to anybody. You will need many people who may be better than you to support you. And with this, I believe that, everyone will be happy and there will be development in the society,” he stated.
The programme witnessed outstanding performances from Righteous Stars, Ayeyi Choir and a duet from Dinah Agyei and Albert Nuakoh.
Also present at the programme were the Provost of the College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, Prof. L. K. Sam Amoah; the Director of the Confucius Institute, Prof. Ismael Mensah, the SRC President, Mr Tony Henry Arthur; the Local NUGS President, Mr Prince Obour Mintah and his executives and some members of IYF.
Source: Doris Akpey | Choicism.com
