The Centre for Integrated Health Programs (CIHP) is working to be able to successfully respond to the changing landscape in the healthcare sector and donor environment in order to achieve greater impact, through the strengthening of the organization. To accomplish this, the Academy for Health Development (AHEAD) was invited to facilitate a Site sustainability and Close-Out Strategic meeting for her staff. The goal of the meeting was to build competencies of her senior-level managers in the Lagos and Nasarrawa branches of the organization.
As there is a difference between leadership and management, the meeting served to expose the managers to the different skills required for each, the convergence of both and how to deploy significant and effective leading and managing strategies in organizational practice in order to be better equipped healthcare professionals.
The objectives of the meeting as set by CIHP were to:
- improve the knowledge of senior level managers on key leadership and management issues,
- facilitate the ascension of new managers to management,
- assist CIHP Managers to be well-rounded executives, and
- develop the skills of managers in the areas of managing people, organizing teams, supervising and delegating.
The themes explored at the meeting include ‘Leadership-Management soft skills’, ‘Leadership Management hard skills’, and ‘Leadership dynamics for effective growth and change management’. PowerPoint Presentations, case-studies on real life scenarios, role plays and team-building activities were some of the tools employed by the seasoned health leadership and programme management specialists from AHEAD to further explain and dissect these themes.
While participants were able to fill out an evaluation form on the last day, daily evaluations were taken and reported and on the last day, a session was allotted to discussing feedback.
The 34 members of staff from both locations who participated in the training were very satisfied with its outcome based on their assessments, and suggested topics like ‘Team Dynamics’, ‘Performance Appraisal’ and Financial Management amongst others be included in subsequent trainings.
