Leadership plays a huge part in realizing effective organizational performance and in building harmonious rapport among those within the organization to achieve success. With this said, the Department of Agriculture – Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) Project Support Office, through its I-REAP Component, spearheaded a training on effective leadership in Morong, Bataan from October 17-21, 2022.

With the theme “Leading the Way, Bridging the Gaps and Working Together Towards Enterprise Sustainability”, the leadership training initiative aimed to equip the key officer and staff of PRDP PSO and RPCOs with the basic tools, mindset, and framework for becoming potential leaders in their respective units or field of expertise.

Likewise, the training intended to foster cooperation, teamwork, and camaraderie between and among components and unit members/representatives of the group for the smooth and effective implementation of the existing and future PRDP enterprise subprojects.

The invited speaker was the Director of UP Institute for Small Scale Industries, Professor Melanie Moraga-Leano. Some of the topics she presented and discussed included the fundamentals of leadership, styles, principles of effective/organizational leadership, and the essence of leadership in team building, among others.

As part of the activity, a series of workshops was conducted wherein participants were grouped and tasked to present their outputs on topics focusing on styles for effective organizational leadership, strategies on conflict management, persuasion and negotiation, and strategic planning for I-REAP operations.

SES Unit Associate Officer, Rachel Ann Oruga, shared how the training workshop helped her be aware of the aspects of leadership and of being a leader, and how to become an effective member of an organization.

“With this leadership training, I learned the right attitude, mindset, and skills of a real leader that can impact the performance of an organization in effectively implementing projects. In the case of PRDP, leadership is important in building strong cooperation among the components, units, and partner LGUs and PGs to attain the Project’s development objectives for the best interest of the farmers and fisherfolks in the cluster,” Oruga said.

As of September 30, the cluster has a total of 347 approved I-REAP subprojects (SPs) amounting to 1.37 billion, 316 SPs, or 91% are already completed amounting to Php 738.6 million pesos, 21 SPs (6%) worth Php 406.3M are on-going, and 10 SPs (3%) worth 222.2M are in pipeline.

Out of the 347 total enterprise SPs, 340 (Php 1.9B) are under the OL, and 7 (Php 275.4M) are under the AF2. (Ericson Guiao, PSO A InfoACE)