Obscurity As A Source of Power

Human beings are obscure as members of the outgroup within a large system designed for insiders, simply because the ingroup members create a system of wilful blindness. It is this system that seeks to deny the right of those that do not look like the dominant to belong, by denying their existence, when it matters most. The obscurity so suffered by the members of the outgroup has nothing to do with their lack of character, stature or presence. It is a deliberate attempt by the ingroup members to dehumanize all those whom they perceive not to belong. The ingroup members suffer a superiority complex that is predicated on a very weak soul, for they need others to fall off the radar for them to appear to be stronger, or as the only humans worth recognition. It is for that reason that outgroup members, collectively and individually, need to use their obscurity as a source of power, instead of succumbing to the insignificance accorded to them.

Through focused personal purpose, in relation to the system they serve, all humans can rise to the occasion of living highly impactful lives, despite limitations of a system, if and only if, we study the system dynamics and work it to the advantage of all. It is about being smart about what you LOVE, connecting that to what the world NEEDS, monetising it and then ensuring that you are GOOD at it. It is that being GOOD, that I would like to latch on, for it includes being able to WORK the system, intentionally, for the benefit of all. Anyone whom you exclude, it must be because you are protecting the integrity of the system.

As Dr. Chuba Okadigbo said:

“If you are emotionally attached to your tribe or political leaning to the point that truth and justice become secondary considerations, your education is useless, your exposure is useless. If you cannot reason beyond petty sentiments and tribal attachments, you are a liability to mankind.”

This message rings true for both ingroup and outgroup members of any tribe, sub-tribe, Board, Executive Committee or team. It is for that reason that I advocate for diversity and inclusion, even of the wilfully blind members of our society, unless, otherwise, of cause, all that has been tried has failed.

Seeing self, the collectives (as complex as they are), the chosen purpose/ikigai and the lenses through which all the seeing happens, is a first step towards using obscurity as a source of power. For some, the concept of ingroup and outgroup dynamics is more like a foreign concept, and what makes it difficult to understand is that these groups are not fixed, but dynamic in nature. Here is a basic description:

In sociology and social psychology, an ingroup is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an outgroup is a social group with which an individual does not identify. For example, people may find it psychologically meaningful to view themselves according to their race, culture, gender, age, or religion. It has been found that the psychological membership of social groups and categories is associated with a wide variety of phenomena.

The terminology was made popular by Henri Tajfel and colleagues during his work in formulating social identity theory. The significance of ingroup and outgroup categorization was identified using a method called the minimal group paradigm. Tajfel and colleagues found that people can form self-preferencing ingroups within a matter of minutes and that such groups can form even on the basis of seemingly trivial characteristics, such as preferences for certain paintings.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups

As birds flock and fish school, so do humans tribe, paraphrasing David Logan of Tribal Leadership, an essential book on the subject. Deep awareness of self and others, including their intentionality can only happen when we are intentionally focused. Eyes only, are limited and cannot see the depth of self as well as that of others, hence in our quest to understand, we may be fooled by what we see, and for that reason, I recommend seeing with the heart. Let us look at the diagram below, to understand the complexity of it all:

Ref.: https://integrallife.com/four-quadrants/

Trying to understand the individuals in the workplace, I (as in quadrant 1, the Subjective) without language and conversations, is akin to using the doctors’ stethoscope without medical school training, and thereby failing dismally to understand the symptoms presented by a sick patient. Where thoughts, emotions, memories and more are located, as illustrated above, is a mystery to all, for they sit inside all of us, and cannot be accessed without deep conversations. All can lay claim to any beliefs and values as their own, when in casual conversation; it is only when we have both, deep conversations and we observe behaviour, under difficult conditions, that we are able to draw a trustworthy link. Trust begins to emerge, with self, through reflection and observation, by drawing causal links between what we believe in and what we do, what others say and what they do. It is for that reason that I say we need to see and look at others with the heart, especially in the context of power dynamics. The eyes alone are inadequate, to see through masks and ill intentions of others, same applies to good intentions, and good people: we may just miss them, if we do not engage deeply and sincerely.

Professional intimacy becomes the key to driving powerful and human-driven growth for individuals, teams, business units and large-scale corporations. Many have given up on the quest to collaboratively exist with others, whether it be within the smallest organisation, as in couples, or large corporations. Trust is a real issue and most decide to just do me, to the detriment of collaborations. It is for that reason that I believe that a few things must fall for humanity to rise (#humanityMUSTrise):

·        #RacismMUSTfall

·        #SexismMUSTfall

·        #AgeismMUSTfall

·        #AbleismMUSTfall

·        #ClassismMUSTfall

·        #ElitismMUSTfall

Many would love to see a simple world where all just buy into the ideals of a world in which not one person or group seeks to dominate another, but that is not to be, for that is not how the world order is set, for it is in the hands of the wicked one, who wields great influence. Most people look out for the narrow interests of their self, or few people like them, and at most times, at the expense of others. Economic systems, blocks, countries, sectors, industries and tribes, are organized around these narrow self-interests. Abundance is not abundant anymore, for humanity and what we know as Ubuntu, is in scarce supply. The constellations of most systems are such that they exclude, and any talk of diversity and inclusion is met with disdain, especially when resources must be shared, because the few that have access, believe in scarcity. Hoarders! I say!

The WE (Intersubjective), as illustrated in the diagram above, is fragmented along the lines of all that must fall. This is more especially traumatic for the lowest in the food chain of discrimination, the Black Woman. Most, if not all that must fall rests on the shoulders of the Black woman who is under attack all their life’s existence. Men are not about to give up the privilege that they have, for in their narrow sense of self, women DO NOT BELONG, save for when their self-interests are at stake. It is the limited experience that I have as a Black man that I could speak to that intersectionality of adversity, which is why I am not qualified to speak to the full extent thereof.

Since the ITS (interobjective) flows from the intersubjective, toxic beliefs, values and more, result in toxic systems, networks, technology, governments and more. Our families, communities, business and other forms of organisation existence are reflective of what sits inside all of us in that hierarchy that we imposed on ourselves in the order in which prejudice exists:

1.      White Men

2.      White Women

3.      Black Men

4.      And Black Women as last, and most vulnerable.

I have nothing to offer to the Black women (in the form of intellectual understanding of their plight, and solutions to how they could mitigate against the risk of being downtrodden), from a position of privilege, where in certain instances, even the White woman and man, seem to be the underdogs. Privilege blinds me, and absolute privilege blinds us, absolutely!

It would be irresponsible though, to let the fear of being labelled to prevent me from finding my voice and expressing part-solutions, from where I stand, as a privileged Black man in a post ’94 South Africa. I love my country, I love Africa, and I love my people, in the collective sense, including those that have more privilege that I have bestowed upon them by a harsh system that dispossessed those that look like me from accessing basic human rights.

From a Systems Constellations point of view, if We (just below the White man in that hierarchy) seek to belong to the present system of things, we need to own and transcend all that comes with the political identity bestowed upon us through the subjugation of one by another. In my own guarded voice, I offer the following solutions:

1.      Be present, fully so, wherever you go, without being aggressive about it. Aggression is NOISE, and you cannot be obscure if you are noisy. Stealth is key, and I know it is difficult to be calm when one is angry, but then, that is when the angry Black man, or mad Black woman label becomes the alarm system that alerts the custodian of the system, to close the door in our faces. BE CALM, BE PRESENT, BUT BE OBSCURE… Own the badge of obscurity and transcend it like a Capoeira dancer that strikes when least expected. When all around you are losing their cool, trying to defend and protect the status quo, calmly claim your crown when they least expect you to.

 

2. Ask for permission to lead, to be and to belong… it is counterintuitive to ask for permission to belong from the very same people that are your tormentors. This is about finding where the power lies in the system, and using it to your advantage, for the benefit of the whole. Skillfully navigating the system requires you to have a full understanding of what it is made of, and a casual look at it and acting on on-the-surface information is detrimental to your career aspirations, so is it to the sustainability of the system for people like you who still must help you to take over the reigns for the benefit of even the antagonists of change and transformation.

Ref.: The Source

 

It is when you know the intricacies of the interconnectedness of the system you seek to transform, that you will be able to do so with finesse that will confound even the most avid of your critics, as the one that is seen not to belong. When we rise to the occasion and we operate at deeper or higher stages of consciousness (depending on your perspective), the system has no choice, but to let us belong- ask Nelson Mandela, or read up on him, and you will get the gist of my point. He knew the system so well! He had 27 years to study it, reflect on it and plot what his dance and blows will be like, and with precision, he executed, with those around him. Those that followed have only themselves for not reading the script of a movie that was written as it was being acted out and directed. The threat to his dream comes from the leaders that follow, as opposed to it being ill-conceived.

3.      Leading transformation of any system can only be performed through collaborativethought, acts, beliefs and systems. Find strength in collaboration. The prevalent and dominant systems across the world, thrive on autocracy, and their days are numbered. Unite with those that share the same beliefs, irrespective of how they look, and sound like. There is always strength in unity.

4.      Transcend the chicken and egg situation, or a case of who is going to blink first, and the bad news is… YOU should. The oppressor will NOT do it first for you.

5.      Appoint a Personal Board to look after you heart, mind and soul. The loneliest place to be in is being a Change Leader. Without a Board, you will run out of steam, and you will always have fewer options.

6. Do not wallow in you misery, and do not reject any form of assistance, however insignificant it may seem.

This article first appeared on www.linkedin.com/in/goodnews

Goodnews Cadogan is the Co-Founder and Convenor at the Centre for Courageous Authenticity in Leadership, a non-profit company that is focusing on courage and authenticity in professionalism and leadership, across all forms of organisation existence.

 

The elusive dream of post-’94 SA

An article in the New York Times in 2012: Unfulfilled Promises Are Replacing The Prospects Of a Better Life For All

I cannot fault the article, neither can I fault the expectation for government & the ruling party to make it easier for the likes of Mr Sello, on one hand (to provide simple government support & zero tolerance for fraud and corruption, including dispensing patronage to close associates, friends and family), and, on the other, sophisticated government support that can, through shrewd public policy design (and implementation), thwart the organised looting of our resources by the multinationals through illicit revenue outflows. The vehicles for this corporate plunder are thin capitalisation and transfer pricing schemes.

If sophisticated leaders in corporate, as well as multi-billionaire investors across the world, fear change, how much more is it for the multitudes of voters beholden to the ANC, for the inches of positive changes that happened since 1994? – Human beings are not good at dealing with change, and we see this in simple family or romantic relationships that may not be serving us well, but we remain attached, nevertheless. Learned helplessness creeps in, and the guilty party, unfortunately understands this, and they carry on plundering with oblivion. In this case, the ANC and alliance leadership ‘know’ that our people do not know better, and they know that the middle class does not have the ‘balls’ to start a ‘new’ party to drive into the new vacuumed space. We are paralysed, and it will take more than one generation to wake up from the slumber, dust ourselves up and drive self-serving leaders out of power. Just recently, one of my friends was saying that as we grow older, we stop looking beyond our small family units, in the hope that our national challenges will sort themselves out. There are very few people who are prepared to take up the proverbial arms and build something new, for there is a lot at stake, including personal safety, in some parts of South Africa. The end to the current state of affairs is not near, for we do not have untainted, young and old leaders from which we can choose, to make a national turnaround. The interconnectedness of the political elite means that whomever we choose within that pool, we are not going to be able to break the cycle of downward spiral. Business leadership has a hand in this, for they are smiling all the way to the bank, whilst the country is burning, literally and figuratively. As Mintzberg says (Governing Management, Managing Government), it is the concert of private, public, non-governmental and co-op leadership that makes democracy go round… Sadly, with us, all are from the same pool of selfish and egoistic leaders (government, politics and business), save for a few from the NGO movement & Co-ops, who lack the resources and the courage to challenge the status quo.

We need business leadership that has the vision of what a democracy in South Africa would look like, and then go and do what is required in their businesses first, to stop the exclusion of skilled and patriotic leaders who want this economy to thrive. They have to ensure that they go beyond the myopic quarterly results to monitor and evaluate leadership efficacy and to top it all, they have to reach out the NGO sector, to finance programmes that will increase the level of socio-political education of the 49m. This is the bridge that will create the union between narrow business interests and the wider societal agenda of driving both formal and informal education needed to shift South Africa in the right direction. A few hundred of millions of Rands, usually spent in 5 year terms, in the months preceding elections, sponsoring political parties, can be diverted to finance the bridge between business and society, through credible social programs.

Political leadership seems to be a passenger in their own political vehicles, just like a driver of a vehicle that has experienced a partial head-on collision with another. The dislodgement of the wheel assembly from the steering column renders both driver and steering wheel, powerless. No amount of logic, finger-pointing, or political reports is going to stem the tide of the challenges in this space.

If South Africa is to be better off than the average African state, after liberation, under the current system of things, it has to look to civil society for the answers (I include business leadership), for these are the ones who have a lot to lose. Political leadership has attained its political power in 1994, including access to resources, and therefore is not motivated to drive societal transformation with the same pre ’94 vigour. Most of the business leaders in South Africa lack a balanced view of the world, and therefore a double-edged sword of a narrow spectrum of consciousness and short-sightedness, is most likely to hurt the very assets they are stewards of.

Business leaders are content with serving the short term needs of the political elite, at the expense of the long term needs of the wider society, members of which are currently disadvantaged as a result of them serving the short term needs of the political elite of the old regime. It is sad state of affairs because it shows that they have a very short memory of what brought the South African economy to its knees in the early ’90s. South Africa’s indigenous businesses and multinationals operating within our borders, in the SADC region and in the rest of Africa, are crying out for leaders who have done a lot of work on their being. Otto Scharmer describes this internal work as the quality of the intention and attention of their leadership practice. Most refuse to go there, for they are afraid of what they might just awake to, as C. Jung states: ““Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

A good example of business and political leaders that are in the same slumber, is in the United Kingdom, and the disastrous manner in which they handled Brexit saga. Lack of foresight and an inability to deal with the complex needs of a diverse society resulted in a tumble of the markets across the globe, massive currency loss of value, as well as deepening of societal divisions along many ‘isms’: age, class and more. It also cost the Prime Minister his job.

Back home, we have been stumbling from one crisis to another, most recently, Nenegate and Tshwane burning. That dream, that Madiba magic that held the nation together at times critical from 1990 onwards, is running on reserve fuel. We run the risk of further crises on all fronts, unless, as in the late 1980’s, business and civil society leadership wakes up by looking within and questioning the attention and intention of their leadership practices, as individuals and collectives, at home, in organisations and in different sectors. We know as a nation that political leaders (when in power) are usually the last to actually see and feel the trend, with recent examples when they have been unable to predict Nenegate, Tshwane, and thirdly, the bigger one: powers of the public protector Constitutional Court judgement.

To all C-Suite executives, I appeal to you, not because you are not Immune to the required Transformation in South Africa, but because you are. My appeal is further motivated by the fact that you are not uniquely blind to the obvious, but your counterparts up in the UK share the same blind spots, including the belief that politics is not your responsibility. Furthermore, it is my belief that you have skills and knowledge to deal with the challenges we face, including the resources to look right in there in your hearts for the reasons why you have mostly been quiet. It is your quietness and your continued support of political leadership, under the guise of supporting democracy, that contributes to the elusive dream of a post ’94 South Africa.

I appeal to you to give that monetary support (hundreds of millions of Rands) to the deserving NGO and Co-Op sector organisations, so that the post ’94 as mapped out in our Constitution, can become a reality.

Most of all, I remind you that it begins with you. It is values-based leadership that will transform your businesses and thereby give you the currency to speak truth to power, for you will have none of the ‘small(anyana) skeletons’ that could tumble out of your closets, when you become true to our Constitution.

FW de Klerk- A Lesson in Values-Based Leadership, #RhodesMustFall, #RMFO

FW de Klerk’s Response to The #RhodesMustFall Campaign- A Lesson in Values-Based Leadership

His Leadership Life Lacks ‘Mae’ As Part of His Being

It is a sad thing to be writing an energy-sapping article, to caution a leader who ought to know better, when I should be inspiring others to be positive and upbeat about 2016. FW de Klerk as some of you might have gathered from various publications, most notably the BBC article entitled, FW De Klerk criticises Rhodes statue removal campaign, believes the campaign is off the mark. Just like many who have benefited from apartheid, he lacks moral, authentic and ethical leadership qualities. These three qualities of leadership were never a requirement in the party, let alone in Cabinet, and were never asked of him and his predecessors by the White electorate of the days of National Party rule (from 1948-1994), and more directly, in the last days, over which he presided. It is not a surprise that he criticises the campaign at Oxford and elsewhere, wherein the aim is to remove from the pedestal of human leadership legacy, the icons of those who represent an unjust system. The aim of these campaigns is to not just get rid of the symbolism that is both offensive and insensitive to the feelings of those who were at the receiving end of a brutal system of colonisation, patriarchy, racism and imperialism, but to ensure that the current values that give life to the culture of these institutions, shift to reflect current and sustainable newfound values.

Before I go on and explain the lack of ‘mae’ in FW De Klerk’s leadership being, I would like to just highlight a few things that he needs to hear (including those who are supportive of his narrative):

• History and Legacy are two different and unrelated concepts. When one is removed as an icon of good leadership (in the inclusive sense), it does not mean history will be falsified or they will be obliterated from history books. All it means is that they are removed from an area of honour and prominence in society and they get relegated to the back of the class, where they belong. When I deal with moral leadership, you will see the light.
• Two wrongs do not make a right. If the process as explained above, does not go all the way, so as to take all material wealth Oxford or any other institution enjoys from the perpetrators of crime, and give it to its rightful owners, you should rather advocate for that as opposed to justifying your cheap and callous logic. Again, when I deal with authentic leadership, you will see, and probably feel more, as a leader.
• Impact on history without qualifier smacks of prejudice and blind Whiteness that has no place in ethical leadership. As I deal with your lack of ethical leadership in your being, I hope to educate you and those who support your narrative and logic. When I coach, teach, develop and consult on leadership, I do so (and I know those who share the same space do it for the same reason) to make manifest, in the leader, team or organisation, positive impact. This positive impact is through the eyes of the adopted and collective values, in our case, our Constitution. Rhodes would have gone to jail for a long time under the current dispensation, so his impact is no different to that of Adolf Hitler, with most probably more voluminous a list in atrocities.
• You are not qualified to speak on behalf of Black people as to how much pain or hatred, they should feel for the man, simply because your people were paid off in 1902, 1910 and in 1948, and went on to do to the Blacks what the English did to your people. Let the Black people find their own way in rehumanising the Black body, which the intersectionality of global repression against them, found humanity faced with patriarchy, racism, classism and many of the ‘isms’ that came with the package deal. Speaking of the package deal, its aftermath is still felt today and is sometimes hidden through meaningless terms like ‘born-frees’. With nothing to bequeath to this generation, failures of your people (together with the British) relating to all three aspects of modern leadership: moral, authentic and ethical, will be felt for centuries to come.

Let me begin with a scholarly description of what moral leadership is, the first component of the ‘mae’ acronym:

Moral: ““Moral leadership helps followers to see the real conflict between competing values, the inconsistencies between espoused values and behaviour and the need for realignments in values, changes in behaviour, or transformations of institutions….[However] the transformational leader may be a breaker and changer of what society has regarded heretofore as right and wrong.”- Steven Covey

Looking at Covey’s description of moral leadership, juxtaposed against our transformation in South Africa, as well as the role de Klerk played, it may seem odd  to strip him of this quality, especially after engineering, through transformational leadership, the current dispensation. It is difficult to believe that de Klerk transformed at the level of values, whereby he would have denounced the dehumanisation of the Black body, and accepted them as being equally human. As indicated earlier, the concept of a historical account is not such a complex issue that it can be confused with a positive legacy that a leader has left behind. De Klerk’s ability to process any level of complexity is unquestioned; it is his interpretation that is questionable: wenza ngabom! He is deliberate in how he expresses his narrative and therefore, immoral as a leader.

Unarmed teenage boys were killed just outside Umtata, during the same period negotiations were going on; on the other hand, the South African economy was headed for a definite meltdown. The trigger for apartheid and the whole repressive system of colonising Africa was resource driven. It was greed and the need to amass wealth that saw millions of Black South Africans side-lined in the build up to 1910 as the Union of South Africa was created, by his people. The multinationals and the system of imperialism were bolstered and the economy of the West prospered at the expense of the dehumanised, undeserving masses of Black people.

Global sanctions and an orchestrated system of economic exclusion against South Africa, threatened its very trigger, an exclusive economic system that continued to feed off an extractive economy, creating better jobs elsewhere in the West. Rumours abound are that this is the real driver and the foundation of our rainbow nation, with De Klerk benefitting personally. Political power was and still is a small price to pay, to sustain that system. The structural dynamics handed over to an inept government in 1994 still have to be shifted to reverse years of imperialism and colonisation. Judging by FW De Klerk’s behaviour and utterances in the last 20 years, it is difficult not to believe his suspected motive for transformation, for he continuously fails the test on moral leadership, no matter how many times he rewrites the examination. Whenever the question of history comes up, he fails to deal with it in a manner that allows the victims and the perpetrators to collectively own it and transcend it towards a truly diverse rainbow nation, where the spoils of the past would be shared. One needs to read some of Professor Sampie Terblanche’s work to understand how the negotiations were never about economic power, but just politics. De Klerk represents the side that had both political and economic power, a side that effectively shielded capital from having to account for its contribution to the past.

What we see in the Boardroom (of corporate SA) is no different, even though the context is slightly different, for what we find is that there is seldom a closed loop relationship between the espoused values and the actual behaviours of most private sector leaders (the focus of this article). It is for that reason that the #ZumaMustFall campaign fell flat on its face: the trigger for it was the same as the trigger for apartheid. But then, I digress.

Authentic leadership is the next in the ‘mae’ that is missing from De Klerk’s leadership being.

Authentic leadership is one of the key requirements that can position a leader as one who is values-based in their being.  As part of our battery of pre-coaching assessments, this dimension measures the leader’s capability to relate to others in an authentic, courageous and high integrity manner. It is composed of:

 

Integrity measures how well the leader adheres to the set of values and principles that she/he espouses; that is, how well s/he can be trusted to “walk his/her talk.”

Courageous Authenticity measures the leader’s willingness to take tough stands, bring up the “un-discussables” (risky issues the group avoids discussing), and openly deal with difficult relationship problems.

Source: www.theleadershipcircle.com

 

When a leader flip-flops between one set of values and another (opposing), to justify their position, and even ask for absolutes from the other side, just to show that they are not the only ones in the wrong, that leader cannot be trusted. When De Klerk says those institutions that hold funds bequeathed to them by Rhodes, have to return them all to the victims, he fails the paper on Authenticity with no hope of a rewrite but he has to redo the course. He just never was in the lecture room!

 

Do we find similar behaviour among the leaders, in the Boardrooms of corporate SA? – Absolutely!

 

They will tell you how intra-Black GINI index (World Bank estimate) has grown, so that they do not have to deal with the national question on true economic transformation. There are many ‘if only’ statements uttered in SA Boardrooms, so that real organisation and macro-economic transformation is excluded from the strategic conversations we should be having. It is leaders like De Klerk who reinforce this kind of thinking and utterances, for they do not provide a different way of seeing the world, in so far as Black lives are concerned. I can just hear: “If only all can be graduates, all will be OK”, whilst the Black graduates in your midst, are treated with disdain.

 

The last, but not least, and certainly not complete, in the list of the requirements for Values-based leadership, is Ethical Leadership. We used to share a joke in my early days in corporate, which went like: “Ethics is not a county in England!”

 

Ethical Leadership can be derived from, among others, this Wikipedia description: Ethical leadership is leadership that is directed by respect for ethical beliefs and values and for the dignity and rights of others. [1]:22 it is thus related to concepts such as trust, honesty, consideration, charisma and fairness. [2]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_leadership

De Klerk chastises the campaign because he believes, the impact Rhodes had on society, however devastating to Blacks it was and still is, is important enough to be honoured until time immemorial. This kind of narrative displays total disregard for the rights of Black people and others who have suffered as the result of global imperialism, colonialism and continued racism.

Up to this day, remnants of the values that were influenced by the superiority complex of the Anglo-Saxons, greed and need to amass wealth at the expense of the locals, still reign supreme in the Boardrooms of Corporate South Africa, as well as across the world in the multinational corporations. In 1994 we experienced migration of this way of being in South African leaders, from the Cabinet and Parliament, into the Boardroom.

Lessons for South Africa

 

1. Corporate SA leaders, Black, White, woman, man, young or old, should be more conscious of the lack of ‘mae’ in themselves: moral, authentic and ethical leadership.
2. Corporate leaders need to reflect on their way of being and find time to align themselves with the true values of our Constitution, and not just the letter thereof.
3. When working on organisation culture and strategy of a new and true way of being, corporate leaders need to know that they cannot speak on behalf of their followers and colleagues, especially if they have always had, or currently have privilege.
4. Corporate leaders need to work into the bone of their body, new ways of being that will allow them to have credibility, not only in the eyes of the markets, but include the trust by the citizens of this country, South Africa.
5. Corporate leaders need to ensure that what they say and what they do, are aligned.
6. Corporate leaders need to develop ways, authentic ways of redefining what business organisations are all about, for double digit economic growth will always be a pipe-dream, if they do not fix the way they are seen by the majority of their employees. The most competitive nations, according to the list of the World Competitiveness Report, have less conflict between corporations and the majority of their citizens.
7. Corporate leaders need to create processes, systems and policies that are aligned with both the spirit and the letter of our transformative legislation, chief among them being our Constitution.
8. There needs to be consequences for those who still reminisce of the past and want to, by whatever means, either maintain or recreate it for the benefit of the few. They do not belong in the decision making bodies (governance) of corporations operating inside South Africa.

In conclusion, I hope I have not only educated FW De Klerk, but the few at the top of our Irish coffee economy, so that we can have a truly harmonised society, the way it is supposed to be, through values-based leadership.

@goodnews_cado | @coachcadogan  | www.linkedin.com/in/goodnews | www.about.me/goodnews_cadogan | www.nyuzi.wordpress.com

Reconciliation Is Reciprocal By Design

It is a dance led by the privileged, in which those buried in adversity become active participants

I read recently that (@Fact) those who dance frequently are the ones among those with the highest self-esteem and most likely to have a positive outlook on life. In many of the assignments I have had the pleasure of being part of (organisation change and transformation), both as part of the leadership of an organisation, as well as a consultant, coach and facilitator, I have been witness to this, that may seem to be trivia. Reconciliation, as described in the dictionary:

• The restoration of friendly relations.
• The action of making one view or belief compatible with another.

It is when it is described as a verb, an action word, that I become excited with the language I use the most to express myself when I am not speaking in isiXhosa, isiZulu, or in ChiChewa, or ChiTumbuka. This is how it is captured (RECONCILE):

• To restore friendly relations between.
• To make (one account) consistent with another, especially by allowing for transactions begun but not yet completed.

As in dance form of two dancers in tango, it (reconciliation) has to be voluntary, with both taking alternating roles of leader and follower, depending on the context and movement as it interchanges in seamless flow until the music is over. The reason I prefer the verb or action word, is that it is explicit in its description that there has to be restoration between two, who were once friends, but now are not. It is an act, as accountants and bankers would say, of making one account consistent with another, taking into account what has begun (in apartheid years), which may have to be changed in midstream, to accommodate what has come as a result of the new South African democracy.

Twenty years down the line since the dawn of our democracy, many still relate our story from two extreme positions: victor and victim, privilege and adversity, rich or poor, young or old, able and differently-abled (disabled) trust fund baby and born poor baby, and more. THAT is the current reality and it will take the two from the mentioned and the unmentioned pairs, to dance with reckless abandon, to really reconcile the South African situation. In one of the many workshops I have facilitated in the name of organisation transformation, one Black fellow said: “How can I forgive and forget, when you (referring to a White person in the room) are still wearing my grandfather’s jacket?”

That jacket could be anything: the wealth built by your family through 300 odd years of heritage, and bequeathed to you as the privilege you would like to attribute to hard work today. It could be the private school, former model C, or premier university degree education that you may attribute again, to many hours of burning the midnight oil. It could be the cushy job that you have landed at one of the local conglomerates, multinationals, or it could be the family business built over many generations, through hard work, as you would like to believe. That jacket, looked at from different perspectives, represents different things to different South Africans; it is also one of the stumbling blocks to national reconciliation. Whilst we are at odds as a nation, divided by the past and the present, we will have a hard time to create a competitive nation out of the ashes of apartheid, for its cinders still burn negative energy which feeds the anger of the victims of the past. On the other hand, the same cinders, keep the greed-fire burning, making it difficult for those who have the proverbial fat in their mouth, to consider reconciliation as an option.

Most of these feeble attempts at the level of the corporation, to reconcile, under the banner of transformation, almost end up in smoke, for none of the leaders (shareholders, Boards and executives) are prepared to go all the way. Those who now have nothing to build on, have to work their way through the system, like we did, they say. It is always all talk, with no real altering of the values and beliefs that got us where we are as a nation today. They are prepared to take a few from the other side (those dispossessed of their forefathers’ jackets), so that they may be what is commonly known as ‘economic security guards’ so as to keep peace. I believe that kind of peace is short-lived.

Until such time we all fall in love with the dance of reconciliation, like the character (having a great career and a loving family, lawyer John Clark) in ‘Shall We Dance?’, we will not find the joy of reconciliation, for as much as we have tried on the political front, we have failed dismally to reconcile [using the banker’s definition: To make (one account) consistent with another, especially by allowing for transactions begun but not yet completed]. John Clark could not find peace in the art of dance until he fell in love with it, deeply.

1. As the half that faced adversity in the previous regime’s tenure, we need to have the resilience required to penetrate the thick wall of denial by those who benefited from the past. We have to do it with love and compassion. That resilience must show in:
   1. Media coverage.
   2. Robust, courageous and bold public policy, with enforcement capacity, including change in foreign and trading policy if it comes to the push.
   3. In recent conversations with trusted associates, they were shocked at the suggestion of taking away incentives from the auto sector if they were not prepared to transform. I say, all businesses should earn their keep in our economy. They must have an operating license that is supportive of our transformation and reconciliation agenda as a nation (united nation of all those pairs mentioned above).
2. Furthermore, as the half that faced adversity in the past and currently still so, we have to find practical ways of beating the exclusive system of privilege, by staying true to the values of sharing and finding power in numbers. Do not be content with being the only Black, woman, or disabled person, or any of the many I have not mentioned.
   1. Just imagine if those who have more than 5 Board position, only stopped at 5 and accepted no more.
   2. Imagine if the billions of Rands mad available since the 1990’s were spread across thousands, if not millions, through broad-based structures! It would make it easier of the owners of corporations in South Africa had their values aligned with the Constitution, for all transformation programs would go the Full Monty.
   3. Organisations like BBEC would swallow, in influence terms, organisations like Business Leadership SA and similar, which, in my view, are still exclusionists in approach, despite the façade of transformation. It is the values that count and the values manifest in narrative and actions. Many of the business formations fail dismally on the latter two.
3. Pitching reconciliation alongside national competitiveness is something agents of transformation are not doing enough, hence the suspicion with which it is viewed by the privileged. Credible research, from credible institutions, like Harvard, point to a scenario of doom, if national reconciliation is approached half-heartedly. None of the winning nations according to the World Competitiveness Report, have glaring civil war, whether on the streets or in the Boardrooms of their corporations. In speaking to leaders in business in South Africa (and I speak to a lot of them), they say: “It is war out there!”- Under the circumstances, South Africa stands no chance of being a super economy in Africa, on this count alone.
4. As the privileged South Africans, the wealthy who never voted the National Party (just kidding) or supported apartheid, or supported sanctions-busting initiatives in the dark ages of pre 1994, sincerity is important towards driving reconciliation. Your shenanigans in the Boardroom can easily be traced back, to the past in the old South Africa, or some parts of the current political agenda in opposition politics. The best quality in the oppressed masses, is the intellectual ability to gauge the intentions of others, verbal or unspoken, so stop trying, you are busted. Engage in real transformation that goes beyond talk shops.
5. Create platforms for multitudes to emerge from the oppression of the past, as the wealthy ones:
   1. Loosen the stranglehold you have over access to wealth and wealth creation.
   2. Do not always go for the usual suspects, for there are many who are worthy, beyond the few politically connected leaders and professionals.

• Genuinely reach out to those whose values, hearts and minds are wired to do good. There are many, believe me, they are the ones who continue to prevent South Africa from burning with frustration with the capitalist system.

6. I believe that you, as the privileged few, you stopped learning a long time ago. As the rest of the developed world’s creative minority is experimenting with more innovative ways, you are still stuck in the past in:
   1. Wealth and wealth creation and shared benefits of same. The old hat of capitalism is being rejected the world over by enlightened leaders.
   2. Nation-building is the foundation of a partnership between business and political leadership (nations go to war to protect business interests, just as an indication of how far they are tight together). If you are malingering in this area, your currency to criticise government will always be without value, like an adopted child’s in a callous family home.

• You have to invest your wealth, to multiply it, and you are not going to be successful if you invest with the few who do not have the long view of South Africa. You have to develop the art of the long view so that you can recognise it in others, others a few generations from now, your legacy may be zero, to your own, and the nation in general.

1. As reconciled nations become competitive nations, it surely begins in commerce, to create THAT competitive nation. A nation not beholden to its government for family survival will surely have power to appoint the political leaders it wants.

As you reflect on what you will do as a South African that would love to see national cohesion, be conscious of the position you occupy in society, not out of anger because no wealth has been bequeathed on you, or you never had a chance to get a good education, or a cushy job. It should also never be out shame, guilt and arrogance, because of the wealth amassed, both in the old and the new South Africa. I plead with all South Africans to reflect and envision from a common position of being human. It is the oneness of humanity that will yank us out of our comfort zones. Believe me when I say, both positions: privilege and adversity are of comfort, for when we remain in each, we do not have to do the hard work of unlearning what has always worked for us, and learning and doing the critical reconciliation that is required. We could remain as we are and build the high walls to keep others out, or throw missiles over the walls and criticise the system; that is not going to build a competitive nation through reconciliation.

REAL RECONCILIATION is not diversity awareness programs and learning stupid things about how to deal with an Afrikaner and Zulu, Xhosa, Venda and Shangaan and more. Real reconciliation will happen we, as leaders, seek to understand what makes our followers tick, and what they want, to give more, then give it to them, for the benefit of all.

Visualise a South Africa that is a force to reckon with in Africa in terms of competitiveness and integral consciousness of its leaders A South Africa that cares for each and every one of its 49 million citizens, with leaders that are candid with each other, whether they are in academia, politics, commerce or government. .

I visualise leaders who are not there to milk the economic system for their own narrow benefit, but for most.

7 Reasons for Leadership Success on the Back of Courageous Authenticity

Courageous Authenticity

As part of the coaching service we provide to both individuals and teams at the top of organisations, we assess them before and after the coaching relationship that usually lasts for about two years at the most. The 360 degree assessment we use was developed by Bob Anderson, and can be accessed at www.theleadershipcircle.com and it can be used for all leadership levels, with the Manager Edition for functional managers. As the reference suggests (360), it is a measure of both self and others’ assessment of the leader. Among the competencies that we measure, Courageous Authenticity is one of the most revered by peers and followers alike. It is paired with Integrity to contribute to the composite element: Authenticity.

I have observed and listened to leaders, followers and peers alike, lamenting poor display of courageous authenticity by a leader who is a subject of evaluation. There are a number of ways in which a lack of courageous authenticity manifests itself in the leader, both within and externally. Most observers of these leaders highlight the following, as what they are looking for in the ideal leader:

• The willingness, both in one-on-one engagements and in group meetings, to affix their proverbial flag to the mast, in support of a well-considered position.

o   When all has been considered, someone has to take the lead to ensure a decision is made and though it may not be the most popular, it should be the best, based on the intention or the desired outcomes. The choice may be policy-driven, or values-driven, and consistent with the desired system-outcome. Most leaders capitulate in the face of pressure (which may not necessarily be driven by what is best for all) and desire to be popular, thereby make the wrong choices when it matters most.

• The courage to bring up the ‘undiscussables’ and break the cycle of a downward spiral that may be influenced by the fear to be seen to be going against the generally accepted norms. These norms, in all cases, bear no resemblance to the espoused values of the organisation the leader is serving.

o   There may be an issue that has crept into either a certain behaviour that is contrary to the adopted value system, or erratic decision-making that shows lack of focus, with most in the group or team, having accepted that as a norm. It is a leader with courage that will be able to break the cycle and get all to change and remember what the organisation is all about.

• The leader must be more able to deal with relationships issues and be at ease with sharing their own vulnerabilities when dealing with others, whatever the situation.

o   Most leaders are not aware of what the much acclaimed coach in Marshall Goldsmith, wrote about in his book: “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There”. Leaders come up the ranks to levels that require them to give up what they excelled in, because the new level at which they operate requires them to suddenly master a new set of competencies. One of the competencies that is required more of the leader, as they go up the ladder, is relationship management. It is the other side of the same coin: task achievement and it places a high demand on the leader to be more able to collaborate and influence others to change their views about deeply held beliefs. In South Africa (to a certain extent, globally) we have variables: race, gender, class and disability, playing a major role in the leader’s ability to deal with relationships. This certainly, as all stakeholders are more discerning in this regard, will make or break a leader’s career as their judgement is called upon to emerge as a critical differentiator of their prowess in leadership.

• Courageous authenticity calls for leaders to be more able to deal with risky situations, authentically and directly, whatever the perceived danger.

o   Turning the tide, shifting levels of consciousness of both peers and bosses, changing the way business sustainability is seen within the system of capitalism as we know it, requires bold leaders like Nelson Mandela,  Rosabeth Moss Kanter,  Otto Scharmer, Michael Porter, Paul Polman, Bill George, Maya Angelou, and a few more, who are starting to share their own new-found beliefs. Not only have they seen current short-term business models as being unsustainable, they are doing (some did) something about it, and they are the evangelists of ‘new-think’. They are changing (some have changed) the way leaders see their role in solving intractable societal and business problems.

I have also heard from most of these leaders, justifying and defending their behaviour (being less courageous and authentic) in this regard. Some of what they say suggests that they find safety and comfort in the approval of others, whatever the intentions of group-think may be. This will certainly be detrimental to the achievement of the mission on which the incumbent leader accepted their role.

Now, what you have been waiting for, the 7 reasons why you ought to display courageous authenticity, for inner peace, task achievement, building a resilient culture and creating High Performance Teams, Organisations and Nations, are listed herein below:

1. You will have inner peace that is not influenced by seeking validation by others for higher self-worth to register within. You will no longer be held hostage to others’ selfish judgment.
2. Truth to self, others and to power will be the source of your leadership effectiveness. Leaders of high integrity achieve more out of their leadership life. They do not fear to push the boundaries.
3. It will be easy for others to follow you for they can see by your own example, and it is easy for you to give feedback because your beliefs and the values of your organization come alive in consistent decisions and actions. They will trust you!
4. “To live, to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy”, a la Stephen Covey ~ will be an easy journey for you, because you will have accepted the light and the dark side of self. It will be easy for you to receive and give negative feedback, whilst not filtering it, without breaking the other’s self-esteem.
5. When your followers trust you, they will be more committed to achieving more. You will be the most successful leader in your chosen field. In situations where you have to exit the system due to incongruity of  values, it will be easy to get into another system or organization, for your reputation will have preceded you, as they say.
6. There will be fewer ‘undiscussables’ in the organization or team that you serve, thereby making it difficult for people problems to fester and paralyse the creative ability of the team members. This will be so, as a result of the ‘nothing to hide, or hide from’ currency you will have created for self and others.
7. Finally, it will be easier for you to negotiate difficult agreements that may otherwise have been clouded by your own inconsistency, or that of the rest of the people with whom you live and work.

In conclusion, I believe that for any leader to be able to display high levels of transformational leadership, which in simple terms, is the ability to perform difficult tasks (like cutting expenditure budgets extensively, or ramping up income revenue, or even negotiating tough changes in behavior, or values alignment, as well as even embarking on a new business venture), and make cause to happen for a big system to shift, they have to be authentic and courageous at the same time. Without courageous authenticity, no leader can change anything, even self. As the human race, we are doomed, literally, if we cannot develop courageous authenticity, at the crests of all human existence. Where leadership is a way of life, rather than a position, this demand is placed on both leaders and followers, equally.

In the next article, I will spend in-depth analysis of the twin to Courageous Authenticity (that is Integrity), as a driver of leadership success.

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The Joy of Giving

 

Transcend|Integrate|Design|Embrace

 

Giving back to society can easily be seen as something a person, group or company can only do when it has reached the pinnacle of its development trajectory. I learnt from my mother that one does not have to wait. She had seven of her own children, but at any one time, there would be 10-15, or more of us, getting the same attention, with no real divide between her biological children and those of our extended family. Contributing this piece is an honour and a privilege, and it is my aim to present it from an African perspective, without denigrating others. One of my friends recently said we are all inter-connected, as humanity, and the origin of the contributors to this book is living proof that, really we are.

I derive pleasure and joy in giving, and in so doing, take away the notion that giving to my society is an act of altruism, where I ‘lose’ something and my people ‘gain’ something. Most people who give to their societies today give from that perspective, as demonstrated by Regis Murayi (2010), in this statement:

“I believe that a society cannot be truly successful with a mentality that every individual should only worry about themselves and in the end things will work out for the best. Community service is about building a stronger community whether on campus, in your neighborhood, city, state, or any other type of community.”

It is the genuine and unconditional love of one’s people that would drive them to derive pleasure and joy from giving something to them, and can also be found the African philosophy of Ubuntu, where my mother and my grandfather would have described it as: “A person is a person, because of his/her people”. From the hills alongside Lake Malawi, to the hills of Stockenstroom in Bedford, South Africa, this connection with one’s people is what would have caused one to undertake a week’s journey without food provision, for along the way, a stranger was welcome, and all would have been provided for. In that era, interconnectedness between the peoples of Africa was at its highest, much higher than what the African Union can achieve today.

It is a choice we make, to serve our people, with no financial or material return in sight, for we love them, and today, as a result of the ‘shrinking globe’, our love for the other person transcends rivers, mountains, oceans and continents. The keyword here is choice, and this choice, we usually consider when the cause we undertake to lead and support, goes beyond our need to satisfy basic needs for sustenance and personal security. It is when at a personal level, we choose to live for humanity and the global system, depending on our space of focus, from a local village, to a metro, province, region, continent, and sometimes, global, like the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign. It is volunteers, by choice that derive pleasure from their work, without direct personal benefit.

My personal experience of joy in giving is in the area of knowledge sharing, for I believe I am well positioned as a leadership coach, organisation and transformation consultant, to receive and disseminate knowledge from personal experience and that of my clients, thereby making it easier for others and for them not to pay the same proverbial school fees, but achieve the same learning experience. I have recently taken this approach to a deeper level, by creating a non-profit organisation (CCAL) that focuses on courage and authenticity, both of which I see to be the greatest shifts in human progress.

Beyond making the choice at a personal level, to connect with our societies, we need to create the institutions that will be the containers of that choice, so that the joy of giving can live beyond our lifetime, and to ensure that the initial choice is enriched through wider participation of others, who have made a similar choice- to give with joy, without direct personal benefit. Love cannot be left out of that framework, for if we are to make the choice to give with joy, we have to love our people unconditionally, and we

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have to love the chosen cause, fully.

Reflecting On the Leadership Life of Nelson Mandela

By Goodnews Cadogan, Paul de Beer, Christo Nel, Funeka Plaatjie-Njobeni & Kerry Sandison

The passing of Madiba has touched a core of being human and being a leader, and his legacy will linger in our midst for centuries to come. One of the ways that we can make sense of how one man’s life is affecting the world is perhaps to seek for and also live the values and principles he lived by. How else could it be possible for one man to even in death bring together people from often radically opposing views? It is as if he has awakened a universal sense of being within millions of people across the globe.

The legacy of Nelson Mandela symbolises and brings to life so much of great leadership that scholars, philosophers, politicians, but most importantly,  ordinary people will continue to explore what he has meant to humanity and most specifically to each one of us at an individual level. No reflection on his leadership lessons can ever hope to be complete and so each moment of meditaion is just that: a moment extracted from his lifelong presence and universal examples he has gifted us.

We reflect on three integral virtues that are amongst many, that define the great leadership Madiba stood for:

• The creative anxiety to face into the storm and turmoil of uncertainty without reacting defensively from a place of rage or collapsing into paralysis.
• The conscious exercise of generative power that enables people contribute to shaping circumstances in a sustainable and aspirational way.
• The capacity of relentless love that enables us to engage with others in ways that enhance one another even when we are in total disagreement, and to do it in ways that never undermine the self-worth and dignity of others.

Nelson Mandela offers us many insights on how to turn these three interwoven virtues into the core of leadership and being.

Since time immemorial anxiety has always been part of life; on release, it can lead to either ‘flight’ of ‘fight’, and depending on whether a leader has manageable levels within, he or she can choose the right option for the situation. In tracing Nelson Mandela’s river of leadership life, he has displayed healthy levels of creative anxiety at critical points. In one of his quotes he says: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – It is this quality in Nelson Mandela that turned him into the master of creative anxiety. He became a beacon of strength for his comrades, followers and adversaries alike, including the nation at large, the continent and the globe. In so many instances he faced into the storm of anxiety and turned potentially destructive moments into times of exceptional strength and change:

1. In his capacity as first Commander-in-Chief of MK, during his trial in 1962 he said: “Government violence can do only one thing and that is to breed counter-violence. We have warned repeatedly that the Government, by resorting continually to violence will breed in this country counter-violence among the people, till ultimately, if there is no dawning of sanity on the part of the Government, ultimately the dispute between the Government and my people will finish up being settled by violence and force.”
2. “While we wipe away the tears, let us today reflect on what we as a South African nation need to do so that we can all go beyond our present pain. Let us learn from the tragedies that still besiege the hopes on which to build our future.” – He acknowledged the tragedy of the Bisho massacre, calling for calm in the same breath, and challenged the nation to learn and build from the experience.
3. Earlier, after the Boipatong massacre, as well as on Chris Hani’s assassination, he provided much needed calm and made it clear to his followers that peace did not have competition, and fighting was not an option. The road to freedom and democracy, he declared, was through the ballot. Furthermore, at CODESA, when the subject of power-sharing came up amongst his comrades, he put the position forward that sharing was necessary. He made it clear that as leaders, it was their duty to sell this position to the followers, with courage.

It is Mandela’s high levels of personal consciousness, and innate ability to listen to others’ viewpoints that made it easier for him to display the capacity to use the presence of anxiety to drive immense creativity. He seemed to know just how much anxiety to allow to build-up and transcend for best leadership interventions to be born. In no manner was this ever some illusionist’s trick or attempt to manipulate. It was rooted in his own deep comprehension that to be anxious is to be human and alive, and so instead of running from or raging against these moments of anxiety he turned these into personal and collective energy.

Leaders and followers alike, to begin with, in South Africa, will have done a great job of honouring him if we can acquire higher levels of both internal and external awareness consciousness. This would make it easier for us to take out the most appropriate response to a situation, for we would have assessed the desired response against the most inclusive level of the collective that we serve. On the other hand, we would have studied the environment and the people concerned, so that we respond to the society (leadership response) needs as we sense them.

The second aspect of Mandela’s leadership that we reflected on is being more able to exercise and display Generative Power. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Power without love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental and anemic.” How to find the balance, when the opportunity presents itself, requires courage and authenticity, which we will reflect on deeper, later on. It is the state of maturity, linked to the previous aspect of consciousness that drives the ability to exercise healthy and combined doses of power and love. We can, without contradiction, claim that Mandela had reached the highest state of leadership maturity (unitive state) and this is the embodiment of oneness of the universe, hence even in death, he manages to unite the globe in celebration of his life and mourning of a genuine loss to most. Ken Wilber captures this so well in his work, and it is also described in other forms of spiritual consciousness in Africa, Christian mysticism, and in other Eastern cultures, including Sufi tradition.

He had to let go of his egoic-state to achieve this genuine display of generative power (and liberating abundance), uniting the broad church in the ANC he belonged to, as well as adversaries across class, race and gender divides. His generative power extended its reach across the globe, to influence country, region, continent and the world at large. Let us share with you some of the unique instances that he could not have been able to access from the egoic-state:

1. He understood the power of symbolism and consciously sought opportunities where he was able to illustrate his vision through acts of powerful symbolism. To mention just a few:
   1. He refused to be portrayed as the chosen and special one amongst his comrades, but always projected himself as one of a collective in the leadership group and organisation he served.
   2. Ndileka, his eldest grand-daughter said of Mandela, whose health was then fading: “He’s the glue that keeps us together. I shudder to think what will happen when that glue is no longer there, but we rally round and put our differences aside. Well, I’m not so sure we put them aside, but we pitch up for him.”
   3. He used his presence and influence to illustrate his commitment to justice, non-racialism and reconciliation such as when he drew Zelda La Grange close to him as his executive assistant.
   4. He did not view power as the end in itself and so did not hang onto it. Instead he only took one term as President and gave the reigns to the then Deputy President, Thabo Mbeki. This was strong symbolism for African leadership challenges as well as global democracy.
      1. He fully owned his rank and power and exercised it. In this he created rich and full leadership. A clear example was his pushing for a Government of National Unity, despite the clear landslide victory was to get in the first democratic elections of 1994.
      2. His values and behaviour were intimately interwoven and time after time he drew on his values to guide action and exercise influence. His former adversary, the last President of apartheid South Africa, said this of him: “He was a remarkable man. His biggest legacy will be [his] emphasis on reconciliation, his remarkable lack of bitterness.”
      3. The image, published in papers across the world, of the towering Mandela with his arm around the widow of apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd after the two shared tea, cemented his stature as one of the world’s most respected statesmen. Betsie Verwoerd later said: “I identify myself with the wishes of my people for a volkstaat (people’s state) which I believe could be developed in this part of the country,” to Mandela in Afrikaans during the visit.

Mandela responded: “I want a united South Africa where we can cease to think in terms of colour”.

1. He is credited with being the most able leader in paying absolute attention to the person he is talking to, listening with all his senses, to the exclusion of the rest of the world. In return, he would give the most measured or appropriate response, whether it is gentle or fierce, on the rare occasion.

1.        Most South Africans, during the ten days of mourning since his passing, have been singing, and some will do for as long as they live: “Nelson Mandela – akekho ofana nawe – ha hona a tshwanang le wena – there is no one like you”.
2. There are a few, across the world, whose trials have made them symbols of freedom, including the former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, the Dalai Lama and, more recently, Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl turned women’s rights activist .

The third aspect of Madiba’s leadership legacy is authenticity and servant leadership. Words like genuine, real, not copied, trustworthy, come to mind, when describing Mandela as a leader. Even for his adversaries, these words are apt, in describing how they had experienced him, as a leader. The popular song that proclaims that ‘there is no one like him’ is borne of this experience of him, by his followers. Combined with servant-leadership it becomes such a potent combination of a leader’s being, that it explains the reverence, the honour, the respect, including support from unlikely quarters. Margaret Thatcher had personally donated £20,000 to his foundation. The Iron Lady, who was famously frugal, kept a tight grip on her purse, but she gave, willingly, to Madiba.

Servant-Leadership is about the integration of opposites, and as Fons Trompenaars puts it, it is not just two words, with servant qualifying leadership as an adjective. Two words linked by a hyphen, signifying equality between the two. It could begin, like in the case of Madiba, a leader with a desire to serve others, or just a leading servant. Furthermore, it would be apt to note that servant-leadership and love are intertwined, because the motivation to serve one’s people as a leader comes from relentless love for them, whether they be White or Black, rich or poor, man or woman.

1. He clearly was not pursuing something for reasons of fame or self-enrichment. He was driven by his inner quest for justice and creating a society of non-racial democracy. This is clear in the excerpt from his statement during the Rivonia Trial:
   1.  “Four forms of violence were possible. There is sabotage, there is guerrilla warfare, there is terrorism, and there is open revolution. We chose to adopt the first method and to exhaust it before taking any other decision. In the light of our political background the choice was a logical one. Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality. This is what we felt at the time, and this is what we said in our Manifesto” (Exhibit AD)
2. His deeds and words were clearly rooted in consistent values. It provided a sense of certainty for those around him and built resilience, as demonstrated above.

3. We wish to raise the following points to highlight his capability of illustrating relentless love in the following ways:
   1. exceptional ability to forgive
   2. willingness to engage with people that he fundamentally disagreed with on a philosophical and political level
   3. utter dedication to inclusivity of widely diverging and often conflicting ways of thinking
   4. demonstrating true understanding of and empathy for people with conflicting interests, fears and hopes

In conclusion, above all else he was not a saint but the embodiment of the possibilities of being human – of inviting each one of us to aspire to also live a life of personal greatness. It is for that reason that we decided to pen our reflections, to invite you also, as leaders in politics, public sector, private sector, non-profit sector, and the leaders of co-operatives, as well as ordinary citizens, to explore to lead a life of greatness.

Just like apartheid, poverty is not a natural human condition, neither is fraud and corruption. Crime, violence in society in general, and that against women and children, should be ills of the past. All of these societal challenges will not disappear of their own accord. You can make the choice to act against these, wherever you are, with whatever legal means at your disposal, as a personal commitment. Economic freedom is another silent killer of unity in South Africa; we put this at the door of business leadership and the owners of capital. Through responsible leadership and responsible investment, we can wipe out those organisations and leaders who want to continue with the business practices of the pre 1994 era.

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