| Ambassador presides launch of SU's Degree on Leadership |
The Norwegian Ambassador to Kenya, Her Excellency Elizabeth Jacobson presided the launching of Strathmore University's Bachelor of Science in Leadership and Management (BLM) degree program at Hotel Inter-Continental on, Friday, 28th March 2008. At the launch was Vice Chancellor, Prof John Odhiambo; Mr David Wangombe, Acting Dean, Faculty of Commerce; Prof Gitile Naituli, the Program Lead; staff, students, alumni and friends of the University.
In her remarks, the Ambassador observed that "there may be some natural talents that are born to lead, but even such people must hone, develop and modernize their leadership and management skills according to the shifting environment they are working within. From my experience, good leadership and management is always a result of hard work and the constant ability and willingness to ask critical questions about the way things are being done in an organization. Without the leadership asking or accepting the critical questions – organizations are seldom successful. Rather they tend to become irrelevant." She emphasized the importance of accountability. "Of all the seminars I have attended since I came to Kenya, there is one I will always remember. It was a discussion among researchers and civil servants on the comparison between Kenya and Malaysia as regards economic development. After independence these two countries had approximately the same economic scores, but 40 years later Malaysia is far ahead and Kenya is lagging behind the Asian tigers. After having looked into many factors the seminar concluded that the reason Kenya is lagging behind is not lack of human resources, and it was not lack of development strategies and plans, but rather the lack of follow up to all the strategies, plans and reports that had been issues. In short there has been lack of accountable leadership willing to ensure proper follow up to strategies and decisions already made," she said. The degree aims to address management and leadership especially for sectors that have been neglected by existing programs. These include management in health sector, public administration, and not-for-profit organizations. The program aims to inculcate transformative leadership and thus people issues – human concerns in organizations will be central in the program. The degree is anchored on the University's areas of strength. These are Business, Ethics, and Information Technology. Thus the degree's key areas of focus are: change management, adaptation and use of Information Technology, and ethics. The degree will be offered both on full-time and part-time (evening) modules. 'Norwegian Ambassador's speech at the launch of BLM |
