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13 August 2024
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Story Anthony Mthembu
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Photo Sibahle Dayimani and Amandla Kulu
Prof Peter Roseel, Managing Director of Management Consulting and Research – a spin-off of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium; and Prof Nicolene Barkhuizen, Director of the UFS Business School.
The Business School at the University of the Free State (UFS) hosted Prof Peter Rosseel, Managing Director of Management Consulting and Research – a spin-off of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium – for a guest lecture during his visit to the UFS Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS).
The guest lecture took place on 19 July 2024 in the Business School Auditorium and was attended by academics from the UFS.
Reflecting on the lecture
The lecture presented by Prof Rosseel focused on how combining strategy, strategy implementation, culture transformation, leadership, and learning successfully leads to sustainable growth, creates engagement, and delivers tangible results. Throughout the lecture, Prof Rosseel spoke about how experts tend to make bad leaders and therefore stop change from happening within an organisation. In fact, he highlighted that, “Experts stop change from happening within the workplace because experts, by definition, look through the eyes of their expertise, but you cannot reduce the world to different forms of expertise, as it is holistic.” As such, he argued that to change an organisation, one must see things from the point of view of others.
Furthermore, Prof Rosseel delved deeper into the hierarchical operating model within organisations. He indicated that the above model should be one community within organisations; however, unfortunately it is not. This is because organisations are made up of several departments such as finance and human resources. As such, he regards these departments to be silos that could prove to be detrimental to organisations, as each silo can create its own culture as opposed to an organisational culture. These are some of the points he discussed throughout the lecture.
After the lecture concluded, the audience had the opportunity to engage with Prof Rosseel on his viewpoints. In fact, Lyle Markham, Academic Head of Department and Lecturer in Industrial Psychology at the UFS, was one of the audience members and described the lecture as insightful.
SRC outlines direction for students at the UFS
2009-09-29
This week, the Student Representative Councils (SRC) of the Main and Qwaqwa Campuses of the University of the Free State (UFS) announced the direction that the student community would follow during their term of office.
Following various difficult situations in the process to diversify the student body and to foster integration among students during the last term of office, the student leaders firstly engaged on prevailing stereotypes among students.
They considered shared values that would assist the student community in building a united spirit and healthy student life on the campuses.
The SRC reached consensus that all students should strive to realise and inspire the following values in student life:
- Excellence
- Innovation
- Respect
- Counter-cultural leadership
- Equality
This year the SRC will focus the attention of the university as a whole, but specifically that of the student body on:
- Growing international competitiveness
- Promoting continuously meaningful leadership
- Rolling out broad-based leadership development of all students
- Social integration of all and diverse groups
- Developing academic programmes with a broader perspective
The SRC wishes to contribute in building an institution where students grow to maturity through meaningful leadership and total student development.
They seek an environment where students are continuously intellectually stimulated through research-based activities and where student skills development is maximised by evolving a common curriculum.
The student leaders furthermore resolved that they want graduates of the university to differentiate themselves by their distinctive leadership ability
They expect that the university community will exhibit a human-centred focus on reconciliation and on the transformation and integration of diverse groups and that all stakeholder groups will receive equitable opportunities.
In the final instance they envisage that the university will continue to grow as an institution that is respected and internationally recognised.
Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Deputy Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za
25 September 2009