Effective synergy between UMP and AKEPT in promoting leadership for a sustainable organisation

The Higher Education Leadership Academy (AKEPT) has intensified its engagement programme with all public universities in matters relating to leadership and governance that would support the sustainability of competency-based talent management.

Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) and the academy jointly organised a programme, ‘Leadership Cafe and Individual Leadership Advancement Plan (ILeAP)’, that focused on personnel profiling and measures taken towards the making of a sustainable organisation.

It was pertinent to identify the right and capable talents to be groomed as future industrial leaders.

More than 30 participants comprising the university’s top management attended the programme which was held at Ancasa Royale Hotel in Pekan on August 1, 2019.

Among them were AKEPT Director, Professor Dr. Nordin Yahaya, AKEPT’s Centre For Leadership Profiling (CELP) Deputy Director, Associate Professor Dr. Ismie Roha Mohamed Jais, Chairman of UMP Board of Directors, Dato’ Sri Ibrahim Ahmad, UMP Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ir. Dr. Wan Azhar Wan Yusoff and Chief Operating Officer/Registrar, Associate  Professor Dr. Mohd. Ridzuan Darun.  

According to Professor Ir. Dr. Wan Azhar, only a leader could take the lead towards a positive change.

“On this, UMP has taken the initiative of having a competency profiling among its staff based on their posts and roles. It is done in a structured and systematic way to ensure that the pool of talent formed are those with leadership qualities, the front-runner at the university level and the national level, he said.

Professor Dr. Nordin said he was pleased with the commitment showed by UMP and UMP Advanced in cooperating with AKEPT to come up with an Executive Diploma programme - Professional Diploma in Competency Based Talent Management (CBTM).

He added that it was a step forward that would further enrich the existing leadership talents in the country’s institutions.

“AKEPT plays a role too in providing reports of candidates to be selected at the ministry level.

“The report includes leadership score, information on academic achievement, publication, research and responsibility at the international level and partnership as well as networking,” he said.

He said the report would only entitle the candidate for consideration and an interview session would assess the candidate’s suitability for a post.

He also suggested that the university’s top management to attend leadership module that had been put in place and to get information and participate in activity to be carried out since the process was to be conducted systematically.

The programme also focused on the mechanism that had been applied by AKEPT in profiling the education’s leadership and sharing the result, in a move to enhance the individual’s leadership competency.

In the process, it helped the individual to identify his or her strength and make the necessary improvements to improve their leadership competency by participating in development programmes provided by AKEPT.