Successful leaders globally craft ways of communicating directly with the masses, good communication skills are considered to be the most imperative skill a leader must possess.
Former United States President Bill Clinton often creates time out of his official schedule to visit cafes unannounced just to interact directly with ordinary American and take back direct and truthful opinions of his government.
It has been proven that for effective and result-oriented leadership to take place at any level, it is obligatory for a leader to ensure policy commitment, persuasion, responsibility, sound planning, creation and management of value system and to provide support and motivation to the people, and the only means of ensuring citizen involvement and buy-in is through participatory governance using effective and direct communication approach as a tool.
Leadership is an innate skill that is expressed through effective policy communication, as a leader Prof. Eleazar Uche Ikonne, is innovative, inspirational, and accessible, as the Vice Chancellor of Abia State University he introduced participatory governance and set up an effective communication structure that gave every student of the school direct access to him, he gave dedicated phone numbers for students to reach him directly through SMS only, in case they are in need of assistance at any time and that restored the confidence of the students in his administration, it effectively curbed victimization, harassment and abuse of students by some lecturers which unfortunately is a phenomenon in many tertiary institutions in Nigeria today.
Knowing the effectiveness of communication in leadership, He introduced the placement of suggestion boxes at strategic places where public opinions on specifics were collated and discussed in management meetings every Monday which affords the school management the opportunity to intervene in matters that require urgent attention, and public opinions were harvested and treated, it also made the entire university participants in the university administration, there are testimonies from staff and students how he would most often stroll into hostels, classrooms and staff offices without any security accompanying him for unofficial chats.
Prof. Ikonne instituted town hall meetings with students, teaching, and non-teaching staff giving every member of the university community the opportunity to be heard and their concerns addressed.
Many Universities today are still having problems between the university and the host community, under his watch as the Vice Chancellor, he set up a Relationship Committee as a proactive organ saddled with issues of ensuring cordiality between the university and Uturu, the host community, and the outcome was peaceful coexistence between the university and host community.
Prof. Ikonne is an epitome of administrative ingenuity at its best, he understands leadership and the effectiveness of citizens’ participation in governance and that is the beauty of Ikonne’s Participatory Governance.
Come 2023, under the government of Prof. Uche Ikonne, Abians will enjoy a government that will connect with the citizens, and everybody will participate and contribute to making the decisions that will guide governance.
For Participatory governance, experience, capacity, preparedness, and competence
Let’s Support Prof. Ikonne for a greater and more productive Abia
Uche Aguoru
Writes From Umuahia
About The Author
