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Effective leadership training, tool for national devt — MRDC chairman, Popoola

Effective leadership training has been identified as imperative to national development and instrumental towards enhancing the life of the people and realising the goals of good governance.

The Chairman, Development Resource Development Center (MRDC) Elder Abiola Popoola, who made this assertion during the 14th convocation lecture of Joseph Ayo Babalola University, (JABU) said leadership training is a necessary tool needed by leaders at all levels towards achieving leadership excellence.

According to him, there is a need to be committed to enhancing leadership competencies, saying more importantly, the need to be committed to what leaders have learnt during training.

He said “train the leaders to enhance their leadership effectiveness and watch their impact on organizational performance grow thus enhancing the cumulative rate of achievement of the national development agenda.

“The quest for excellence is an ongoing process rather than an endpoint. It involves continuous improvement, so to know is not enough, but we must apply.”

He listed some of the attributes required to enable leaders to carry out their roles effectively including conceptual capability, and the ability to cope with uncertainties, ambiguities and uncharted territories.

He said other attributes include, passion for goal achievement, people orientation, and result orientation, which refers to the extent to which a leader is focused on results.

He, however, noted that the combination of competencies and character is what makes a leader’s influence most effective and consistent over time.

He said, “character, in the context of leadership, refers to the set of traits and moral principles that defines a leader’s ethical fibre, the inner core that the leader is made of. The components of character include Integrity, congruence, courage, discipline, humility and preparation.

“It is the character attributes of the leader that act as the base of support upon which the leadership competencies rest.

“Much as strong character supports the impact and effective deployment of the leader’s competencies consistently over a long period, a weak character rapidly erodes and eventually renders the leader’s influence ineffective.

“Trust is the most important ingredient in building healthy and sustainable relationships with the followership. The progressive actions and decisions of the leader determine whether the trust relationship grows and grows.

“To keep building on the level of trust with team members, the leader requires to keep growing his competencies and strengthening his character thus building his/her credibility with the team.”

He, however, maintained that “competencies and capabilities are readily teachable attributes and so, training interventions can be undertaken to remedy deficiencies and enhance leadership performance.

“The more important and critical character attributes are less readily teachable/rectifiable as they take much longer in forming; they also take much longer in effecting needed change.

“Changes in character deficiencies require a high level of humility and commitment on the part of the affected leader to accept the need for change and heartily commit to effecting same.”

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