Turkey needs more qualified leaders, businesspeople say

A leadership workshop organized by a nongovernmental organization in Istanbul over the weekend heard demands about Turkey’s need for more qualified business and political leaders.

“Turkey needs qualified leaders who are socially responsible for the events surrounding them,” İzzet Karaca, CEO of Unilever, the world's second-largest consumer goods maker, told 2,000 leader candidates. “The country will be able to keep up with rapid developments in this century only if it gains social leaders in the fields of business and politic.”

The future leaders were chosen among 17,000 students from 93 universities. They attended the leadership workshop in Istanbul’s Lütfi Kırdar Congress Center by Young Guru Academy, or YGA, an NGO based both in Turkey and the United States.

Sinan Yaman, one of the founding presidents of YGA, drew attention to the fact that the conscious-awareness quotient is more important than the intelligence quotient for the future’s leaders.

“The young leaders already understand the importance of defining socially responsible leadership,” Yaman said. “The future’s leaders will arise among the young people who have a high conscious-awareness quotient.”

Mustafa Çağan, acting CEO of Microsoft Turkey, emphasized the need for strong and responsible leadership in Turkey. “We need more leaders in every field to have a stronger Turkey,” Çağan said.

“I am hopeful for Turkey’s future because I am delivering a speech to thousands of students who are the future’s socially responsible leaders,” Çağan said.

Members’ experiences

A member of YGA also shared his experiences with those who attended the workshop and said YGA’s main goal was to introduce Turkish understanding of the leadership all over the world.

Gökhan Meriçliler, who joined YGA while studying in the mining engineering department at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University, said he suspended his master’s program in oil engineering and resigned from his job with an aim of meeting at least 1 million future leaders and opening 5,000 creative libraries in primary schools on the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Turkish Republic.

His first task was in the southern Anatolian city of Adana, where he tried to explain to hundreds of young students how to be good leaders. “I went to Adana to teach primary school students as part of a project titled ‘Read-Think-Share.’ I was teaching 806 students in the sixth and seventh grades. Later, I returned to Istanbul after handing the mission over to students from Çukurova University,” he said.

Meriçliler is resuming his master’s program at Istanbul Technical University. He also teaches social entrepreneurs at Istanbul’s Özyeğin University.

Another YGA member, Erin Güray, said he visited several universities along the east coast of the United States during a leadership camp. “We exchanged views with MBA students at Columbia Business School,” Güray said. “We also visited the U.S. Congress and met with several congressmen.”

Özyeğin University Rector Erhan Erkut said the main goal of his university was to give a globally known entrepreneur university to Turkey. “We added a lesson to teach social entrepreneurship in our curriculum as part of a program that we jointly held with Young Guru Academy,” Erkut said. “The academy’s leadership program is as important as an MBA program.”

After the workshop, 1,000 young leaders will fill out an application on YGA’s Web site. As a result of face-to-face interviews, 400 of them will have the opportunity to join YGA’s international leadership school and leadership camp in the United States.