Employability: Parents Urged to Instil Leadership Capabilities in Children

The Head of Year 10, Greensprings School, Lekki Campus, Mr. Samuel Olasogba has called on parents to inculcate leadership skills in their children so as to succeed in the corporate world.

Speaking at a two-day leadership training programme of the school recently, he argued that children are better off if they acquire the skills at their younger age.

“It is an open secret that employers hire and promote candidates who are great team players, who communicate excellently, who are goal-getters and have other exceptional leadership skills. Nevertheless, many children grow up or graduate from tertiary institutions without acquiring these skills, and this is likely to put them at a disadvantage in the job market,” he said.

To prepare children for the real world after graduation, he said: “Parents need to invest in building the leadership capabilities of their children. They can do this by helping them develop their self-confidence, allowing them to creatively solve personal problems, and making them take responsibility for their decisions.”

Olasogba added that schools also have a role to play in instilling leadership attributes in children, saying that Greensprings School has done a lot in that regard.

“Children spend most of their days in schools, so as parents do their parts, schools must also support them. For us at Greensprings School, we organise intensive leadership training for our year 10 students annually. This training is activity-based, and it is facilitated by our teachers and Project Summit, a team-building service provider based in South Africa.

“In the course of this training, our students were engaged with presentations and group discussions on leadership and teamwork. They also took part in team-building activities such as minefield, traffic jam, warp speed, tower building, among others. From the training, our students learnt empathy, resilience, emotional intelligence, transparency, delegation and empowerment, creativity and innovation, and other excellent leadership attributes,” Olasobga stated.

He stressed that when parents and schools do their parts in instilling leadership capabilities, the job market can expect to see more candidates who are employable.