21st March, 2017
Kazeem Ugbodaga
Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode has warned civil servants in the state against indiscipline as it will hamper productivity.
The governor spoke at the opening ceremony of a two-day workshop tagged: “Leadership Success through Synergy: Maximizing Performance in Public Sector Management,” held in Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
The governor said that if civil servants must maximize their potentials, they must embrace discipline which is the ability to continue to work toward a goal regardless of the circumstances.
According to him, discipline required commitment, courage, resilience, and drive to achieve a goal, while also stressing the need for public servants to embrace common interest.
“When people share common interests, they align their individual efforts toward the same goal. More specifically, they find personal affinities that help them work together, seek opportunities to leverage each other’s talents, and measure the results of their collective efforts with respect to their common goal.
“When people share common values, they can forge strong, long-lasting alliances. More specifically, I have found that people who share the values of humility, honesty, trust, and discipline achieve the highest synergies,” he explained.
The governor, who was represented by the Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Dr. Benson Oke also harped on the need for public servants to embrace humility as it had the capacity to acknowledge one’s own truth.
“This allows every team member to have a clear image of the self and address all personal growth and professional development needs in a timely fashion,” he said, adding that honesty was another value that workers must embrace to excel.
“Honesty is the capacity to share one’s own truth with others. This allows team members to know each other more closely, develop trust, help each other, and carry out team improvement initiatives with further reach,” he added.
Ambode further said trust was also needed for effectiveness in leadership as it allowed for team members to check up on each other to make sure all tasks remained aligned with the common goal as well as led naturally to loyalty and solidarity.
The training was organised by the Lagos State Ministry of Establishments, Training and Pensions in conjunction with Messrs. XLS Consulting.