Team leaders of three public institutions in the energy sector have been trained on organisational development and appreciative leadership to empower as change agents in the energy and resource management sectors.

A total of 16 team leaders, drawn from the Nuclear Power Ghana (NPG), Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA), and the Nuclear Power Institute (NPI) of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) participated in the programme in Accra.

They were introduced to a new global leadership model dubbed: “Executive Mastery for Organisational Development and Appreciative Leadership (EMODAL).”

The purpose of the EMODAL is to reorient leaders to adopt best practices and indigenous knowledge in managing the organisation and the system in which they operate.

The three-day training was sponsored by the NPG and was facilitated by the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS).

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Dr Gabriel Gbiel Benarkuu, an Organisational Development Specialist, and facilitator for the training, said the programme aimed at empowering leaders to adopt best practices in appreciating the system and people they worked with.

He said the participants were guided on how to create their own ideas and implement top directives with the full participation of their team members to facilitate the achievement of the organisational goals.

Dr Benarkuu said research conducted by the training team revealed that top executives and leaders did not know how to coach people to perform, a situation he said undermined the performance of the Organisation.

“Over 70 per cent of organisations in Ghana are not coaching people to grow and perform so they create a vicious cycle of leadership all year round and that is why this model is appropriate for leaders to begin to rethink so they can respond to realities on the ground,” he said.

Dr Stephen Yamoah, Executive Director, NPG, said the training was the first of a series of leadership programmes spearheaded by the Organisation as the country worked towards constructing and operating its first nuclear power plant by 2030.

He tasked the beneficiaries to fully implement the knowledge they had acquired and drive change in their respective organisations.

Mr Sulley Mumuni, Acting Manager, Engineering Development, NPG, described the training as insightful, saying, “it brought awareness to certain issues that we didn’t take too much notice of.”

“We went through how to identify your own traits, and weaknesses, and how to build on your strength. We were also trained on how to involve everyone in the team for decision making, especially when there is change,” he said.

Madam Afua Nettey, a representative of NPI-GAEC, said the training had empowered beneficiaries with the skills to resolve conflicts in the organisation and how to become team players in their various leadership positions.

Established in September 2018, the NPG is the project organisation set up to manage Ghana’s first Nuclear Power Project.

The Organisation has been designated to be the eventual owner and operator of the country’s first nuclear power plant.