Tag: LeadershipStrategy

The Trust-Based Leadership Series is a practical and integrated leadership collection. It equips leaders to build trust, act with confidence in complex moments and create teams that thrive through intrinsic motivation. The series does not treat leadership as theory alone. Instead, it grounds leadership in practice and lived experience.

A practical guide to working on your business - helping founders and leaders build organisations that perform well, act with integrity and endure.‎ Many entrepreneurs, founders, executives and board members spend their days immersed in urgent business demands. They solve problems, manage teams and respond to constant operational pressures. However, the greatest challenge for any enterprise involves learning how to step back and work on the business, not only in it.

One of the single scariest challenges for a growth business is when they must make the calls to “level-up” on their talent within their organisation. The standard monthly cost for an experienced Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is between R2m and R5m per annum. Gulp. For a growth business this represents a very significant investment. Not only are you bringing in an expensive resource, but this is also a person who will interrogate your business in a way that your current bookkeeper or accountant never has.

In my experience, leadership has often been treated as a function of certainty. Experience is expected to provide answers. Structure is expected to deliver control. Leadership itself centres on directing, deciding and maintaining order. However, that model is under strain.

Leading 25,000 people across Southern Africa has taught me that authentic inclusion cannot be scheduled. Business leaders are challenged to move beyond performative diversity initiatives. I also question whether their commitment to South Africa's cultural richness extends beyond designated awareness days. At its core, this article interrogates the limits of calendar activism in driving real inclusion.