The Managing Director of FBNBank Ghana, Mr. Victor Yaw Asante, has stated that every organization needs executives with effective leadership skills in order to build a winning team.
Mr. Asante who was speaking on the Money Hub Show on Happy 98.9 FM said, “every business owner or leader certainly has a plan and vision to achieve their goals and objectives. However, it would take a team with the required skills to achieve those goals. This is because at the workplace, there are people who come from all walks of life; some need a coach to guide them on the job whiles others do not need any hand holding, just clear direction and they are able to deliver on their own.
“Everyone needs some training no matter their background or skillset in order to improve on what they already have. In addition, it is necessary that people are placed where they can function better because of their skillset, attitude, training and personality. People must be allowed to work with their areas of strength. All these require leadership skills to unravel.”
According to Mr. Asante, creativity and innovation play a major part in this world and in our day-to-day activities. He explained that to improve an existing product or service, one must first be very conversant with the core product functions and the exact value it delivers, before setting out to try to improve on them. He cited the example of new innovations and how technology has changed the world as a whole.
These include how big brands like Kodak and Nokia disappeared because they failed to embrace innovations; to add more features to their respective products and to change to adapt to changing consumer needs and preferences. He indicated that innovation is not needed all the time for every product or service, you just need to keep what you have and make little tweaks to it as in the case of the popular ball point pen brand, Bic.
“One must have a framework and a systematic process to track their own innovation process. With the advent of COVID-19, most banks for example, resorted to accelerating the deployment of their online platforms which were made accessible to their customers. Digital platforms therefore made banking easier and convenient to customers and they prevented the need for physical presence in banking halls,” he added.
Mr. Asante also spoke about how the workplace always has people with different personalities and traits. He encouraged the accommodation of diversity and mentioned that some would prefer to work on their own but each one must learn to work with people in an environment in order to achieve a common goal.
On the issue of motivation and reward, he stressed the need for employees who come up with innovative ideas to be rewarded and encouraged to introduce more ideas so others can tap into them. He further stated that employees must be rewarded for their contribution and hard work and there must be some differentiation for hard work or high performance such that a culture of performance is created and nurtured in organizations.
He urged leaders at the workplace to ensure that such reward and motivation processes are transparent and fair in order to be attractive to all staff. Most importantly, such schemes must be well managed to ensure that staff who are on the lower rungs will see that as a motivation to improve their performance, and not a demotivation to throw up their hands in despair.
The Money Hub is a 30-minute show on Happy FM which discusses financial literacy and wealth creation in a simple and easy-to-understand fashion for most Ghanaians irrespective of one’s educational and social background.
