“Unity is strength. Synergy is might. Teamwork is power.”Matshona Dhliwayo
Haramaya University to build Synergy in Managements at Various Levels
Haramaya University College of Social Sciences and Humanities organized training under the theme “Effective Leadership and Followership: the Importance of Team Synergy” for leaders at various levels of the college on June 14, 2022 at the resource center.
Dr. Adenew Tadesse, Dean of the College of Social and Human Sciences, in his opening speech, said that leadership has no meaning without followers or employees, and management should involve understanding the art of working together and leading employees to achieve their common goals.
Dr. Adenew also said, “Good leaders and followers must coexist in order to create a good synergy. Synergy is when two forces come together and do something much greater than they can individually do. Synergy occurs when leaders and followers collaborate to make a greater impact than they would separately do. Synergy leads to increased performance, efficiencies, and accountability.”
Stressing the importance of synergy (“the whole is greater than the sum of each part”), Dr. Adenew added that the goal of the training is to help the leaders in the colleges build the necessary synergy in the college to achieve exceptional performance in the core activities of the college in particular and the University in general.
Dr. Mulugeta Deme, Project Manager of Haramaya University African Center for Excellence and who is one of the discussion paper presenters on the training, said that the basic skills that a leader should have are knowledge and experience, initiative, honesty, self-efficacy, self-responsibility, vision, and responsibility. Effective leaders are people who have the ability to develop and implement plans to work effectively with the staff and have effective leadership with an understanding of team synergy for the overall growth of their institutions.
According to the participants of the training, they have widened their understanding of what leadership is and how leadership can be effective when there is mutual understanding between leaders and followers, doing the planned work, and working harder to be more effective. They also noticed that similar training should continue to be given to develop effective leadership skills of the leaders.
Group photo
By: Aweke Ayalneh
Camera: Fuad Ahmed