School of Business and Entrepreneurship under the College of Human Resource Development (COHRED) has organized a six-day leadership workshop that aims to build capacity of participants to innovatively develop and manage people in their organizations.
This year’s leadership conference whose theme is “Make a decisive difference with the people around you, the future of Kenya, Africa and possibly the world” will run between 7-12 November, and has attracted both local and international stakeholders from countries like Ethiopia and Ghana.
To be consistent with visions, values and strategies of most organizations, leadership training and development is important as it strengthens a leader’s capability with essential managerial skills which in turn boosts better decision making hence achieving the company’s goal.
The workshop entails training on fundamental principles and issues in transformational leadership among them integrity, authenticity and the effective exercise of leadership.
Speaking during the official opening of the workshop, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Victoria Ngumi said the training is important, as leadership is the engine and a transformational tool that moves the world as well as the means through which societies are changed for the better.
“Leadership for me, is the process of getting things done and making an impact, and I’m glad that this is a crucial underlying tenet of this particular workshop and training, Prof. Ngumi said in a speech read on her behalf by the Dean, COHRED, Prof. Elegwa Mukulu.
Quoting John Maxwell, the renowned America author and a world authority on leadership, Prof. Ngumi urged the participants not to belong to the category of pessimists and naysayers, those who only see impossibilities and roadblocks but to be the architects of sustainable solutions to our world’s greatest challenges.
Prof. Ngumi also lauded the organizers of the event saying the training which lays emphasis on the important foundations of leadership, was an embodiment of real leadership which she noted is crucial for the success of the University, the nation of Kenya and Africa at large.
In her welcoming remarks, the chairperson of the workshop, Prof. Margaret Oloko of the department of Business Administration (COHRED), said the event, the second of its kind in JKUAT and the fourth in Africa is aimed at helping those in leadership positions to think pragmatically and identify strategies and techniques to encourage effectiveness, and productivity of an organization and its members.
One of the trainers, Prof. Seri Echeverria, from California State University System said the Being a Leader (BAL) course aims at teaching one to be a leader and effectively exercise leadership. She further added, occupying a leadership position does not necessarily make one a leader but the effectiveness and impact of one’s leadership is what makes one a great leader.
“There is a massive difference in the effectiveness of one’s performance when it is the result of being in the world of leadership, contrasted with when one’s performance is the result of knowing about that world. That is a conceptual grasp of that world which this course aims to change,” Prof. Echeverria observed.
Source: Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology