Africa needs selfless and transformational leaders — University Founder

Mr Patrick Awuah, Founder and President of Ashesi University, says Africa’s economic difficulty and corrupt political system can be overcome if it changes its way of education.

He said the transformational leadership, economic development and better standard of living Africans were yearning for could only be achieved if “we begin teaching and changing the mindset of children and youth on values of selflessness, integrity, responsibility and success.”

He made the call when he delivered an address at the media and legacy projects launch of The HuD Group’s 20th anniversary of inspiring and empowering emerging and established leaders across the globe.

Based on the theme: “Amplify: Inspired people Influencing Places,” the 20th anniversary aims to highlight the profound impact The HuD Group’s network of leaders have had on various communities around the world.

“Africa needs a different kind of leadership for its development. We need to transform the way we educate our children and radically change the way we educate people in our universities,” Mr Awuah said.

Citing excerpts from Prof Kwame Gyekye’s book ‘The Unexamined Life’ that talks about development as a central concern of most Africans and how Africans have been let down by their leaders through corruption and mismanagement, he said “we need people with a different mindset who tackle problems in different ways.”

He said to make a unique and excellent leader, one needed to prepare for difficult times by setting and meeting targets consistently and constantly learning.

He said the banking crises in Ghana could have been approached differently by allowing some kind of mergers where viable banks merged with the weaker ones, but noted that the crisis were characterised by low trust, low integrity, and high fear of parties involved.

He urged The HuD Group to mentor and train people with a mindset that would bring prosperity to Ghana and all the 24 countries the Group operates in.

Dr Yaw Perbi, medical doctor and founder of The HuD Group, said leadership was the bedrock of growth in all aspects of societal life and must not be left in the hands of the political class.

“Leadership is too important to be left in the hands of politicians alone. Leadership is not about political position, age, and gender but the skill of seeing a problem, mobilizing resources and people, and developing ideas and shared strategies to solve them,” he said.

The HuD Group over the past two decades has played a pivotal role in empowering young people to discover their purpose, unlock their potential and positively impact society through its transformative programmes, products, people, projects and places.

The Group also unveiled three significant legacy projects, namely Established Leaders mentoring Emerging Leaders, Outreach 20,000 which aims at spreading the message of holistic leadership to 20,000 rural youth and Read2Lead, a partnership with Perbi Cubs’ Kanéval to sponsor a public primary school and digitize The Mine library.