‘Show concern for those in your charge’
The Executive Director of the Salt and Light Ministry, Dr Joyce Aryee, has urged leaders at all levels to be deeply concerned about those in their charge.
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She said people followed leaders whom they believed genuinely cared for their well-being.
“Great leaders have a deeply rooted concern for those they lead. Effective leaders care about the success of others,” Dr Aryee stressed.
She was addressing the eighth congregation of the Ghana Technology University College (GTUC) in Accra last Saturday.
Graduation statistics
Two hundred and fifty-six of the graduands received postgraduate degrees in areas such as Supply Chain, Finance, Oil and Gas Engineering and Management, as well as Management Information Systems.
Seven other students were conferred with PhD in Telecommunications /Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
The programmes were run in collaboration with the Coventry and the Aalborg universities in the UK and Denmark, respectively.
Who is a leader?
Explaining who a leader was, Dr Aryee said the right to lead could only be earned and not gained by election or appointment.
“Having a position, title, rank or degrees does not qualify anyone to lead other people and the ability does not come from our experiences either,” she stressed.
The key to becoming an effective leader was not to focus on making other people follow you but make yourself the kind of person they wanted to follow, she emphasised.
She said every great leader had six major characteristics which made that individual exceptional and listed those characteristics as integrity, vision, concern, creativity, results-orientation and courage.
She said as technology continued to evolve at break-neck speed, global trade also continued to expand, while social, political and environmental problems threatened stability and safety.
She indicated that for those and other reasons, great leaders were needed most in business, government, education and health and challenged the graduates to be ambassadors of the school, the nation and the entire African continent.
GTUC President
The President of the GTUC, Dr Osei K. Darkwa, was highly optimistic that the graduates had received enough training to fit into the corporate world.
He charged them to be ready to serve and solve the challenges that might come their way.
“The GTUC has exposed you to a lot in terms of content and experience. You have added value to yourself and, therefore, much is expected of you. This is the time to contribute meaningfully to the development of our society and Ghana as a whole,” he charged the new graduates.