John Mahama shares Leadership experiences at Academic City College’s ‘Leadership Seminar Series’

Former President John Dramani Mahama on Friday, December, 9 delivered a speech on “Taking critical decisions in decisive moments as a leader” as part of Academic City’s “Leadership Seminar Series”.

John Dramani Mahama, who was the keynote speaker of the event, shared his knowledge from real life leadership experiences at various stages in his life; from the educational to the national level.

John Mahama cited critical moments where vital decisions he had to make were life or death, and in some cases, greatly affected the lives of quite a number of people; from deciding what to do when the ‘DUMSOR’ situation arose in 2014 to the world financial crisis in 2016 that saw Ghana seeking external help in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the issue of an increment in petroleum prices. All the decisions he made in those events met the displeasure of a good number of people as according to him, “people don’t like change,” but “it took firm decisions to be able to reach that point”, the point being overall successful outcomes.

“Whatever decision you take impacts somebody or other in a certain way,” he said with regards to considering factors when arriving at a decision.

Read also: John Mahama is a grandpa! Son, Shafik welcomes baby with Algerian wife

Speaking from his lifetime experiences as a leader, he advised that when forming any decision-making committee, whether the advisory team, the fact-finding team, any team that will influence the final decision, it must be a solid committee because in some cases there is no room for errors.

As a leader, former president Mahama, said no matter the situation, good or bad, one must be ready to accept responsibility because it is in acceptance that courage is found to face the problem head on and find the right solution.

He left the students with the final advice, “Don’t be afraid to fail. Failure is not the end of your life” as there are lessons to be learnt from failure and it doesn’t diminish who you are as a person or take away your knowledge but rather adds to it.

Academic City is a premium STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) and Entrepreneurial tertiary institution set to define modern tertiary education in Ghana and throughout the African continent. The University seeks to be a world-class centre for teaching, learning, innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship that nurtures future African leaders.

As part of the university’s efforts to nurture the next generation of African leaders, “The Leadership Series” course has been designed to ensue that knowledge developed in the class is directly applied to address contemporary societal problems.

It is expected that this course will provide the platform for students to interact with renowned African leaders who have transcended from political, innovative, educational, and industrial realms through sheer force of will and have impacted many lives.