Leaders are expected to be disciplined — Opoku Onyina
Leaders must be disciplined so that they will be able to exact discipline on their subordinates who go wrong, the Chairman of the Church of Pentecost (CoP), Apostle Dr Opoku Onyina, has stated.
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“Discipline is an aspect of the leader’s role in creating an excellent service-delivery culture. If you overlook it, things will get out of hand and eventually institutions and companies will die.”
“So when you see that institutions and companies are dying, it means the managers are not doing the right thing. Once you do the right thing, God will also come in,” Apostle Onyina said.
The CoP Chairman was speaking as the guest preacher at a thanksgiving service to round off a five-day leadership conference held for management staff of subsidiary companies of the Zoomlion and the Jospong Group of Companies at Gomoa Fetteh in the Central Region last Friday.
The conference, which was attended by about 1,000 management staff of the 47 subsidiaries, was on the theme: “Creating an excellent service delivery culture: The service leader’s role.”
Need for discipline
Urging the leaders not to take the issue of discipline lightly but to see it as a way of effecting needed change, Apostle Onyina said: “When somebody goes wrong, you should be able to use the conditions of service to commit the person and once the person is committed, then discipline will follow up.”
“So you don’t discipline just as if you are punishing somebody. It is a way of correction and a way of making that person know that he or she has gone wrong and, therefore, he deserves what you are administering to him or her.”
He cautioned the management staff to be careful with any steps they took, as they would eventually have to pay for whatever they did. “Whatever you do, you will pay for it. It is very good for a person to do the right thing at the right time. It is not important for us to dodge and manipulate issues and cheat one another, lie to one another and then have our ways through.”
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“You may have your way through but in the final analysis judgment somewhere awaits you. Something may happen to you that nobody may understand but somehow you alone may understand it,” Apostle Onyina stated.
He, therefore, urged the leaders to be very transparent in whatever they did and said: “The service leader’s role is to motivate, rebuke and exhort in such a way that people will begin to act and do the right thing.”
Gift of exhortation
Preaching on the gift of exhortation, which he said every service leader needed, Apostle Onyina said it manifested itself in three ways, which were: the ability to throw a challenge to people to act, rebuke people to do the right thing and also encourage weaker people to discharge their God-given talents.
He told the staff not to make money their focus, but instead focus on the well-being of the work assigned them, which would yield dividends when done right.
“If you are working and always thinking about what you will eat and not about the work, you have got it all wrong. If money becomes your first choice then you have got it all wrong.”
Aggressive customer service
The Executive Chairman of the Zoomlion and the Jospong Group of Companies, Mr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, told the management staff that this year the companies would embark on aggressive customer service and also mark the 10th anniversary of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, at which staff and subsidiaries that had dedicated themselves to excellent delivery to the group would be awarded.
He reminded the staff that they were all to develop a customer service charter by the end of January 2016, for management of the various subsidiaries to re-examine pertinent issues, review their internal processes for efficiency and better internal customer service and also retain and maintain their staff at all levels.
Mr Agyepong also appealed to the staff to rely on God and ask for mercy and grace in their work.
Benefits of conference
Commenting on the significance of the leadership conference, a Senior Officer, Sales and Marketing, Subah Info Solutions Ltd, Mr Paa Grant Appiah, told the Daily Graphic that the five days had been an eye-opener to them because they had been able to know all the subsidiaries that exist in the Jospong Group.
“I have also been able to learn about what the subsidiaries offer and what we can also do to assist them,” he said.
For her part, the Corporate Affairs and Branding Coordinator for Union Savings and Loans, Ms Yaa Fosua Gyamfi, said her company found the conference as a good opportunity and platform to market its products and services to the other subsidiaries and also know what they have to offer.
Exhibition
An exhibition was also mounted by all 47 subsidiaries, as part of the conference, to showcase their work to participants.
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Writer’s email: edmund.asante@graphic.com.gh