Seamless Leadership

A passion to perform in South Africa

Adriaan Groenewald

• Publisher: Jonathan Ball
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781868426478
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

For most of the lifespan of the new South Africa, leadership consultant Adriaan Groenewald has interviewed and written about top political, corporate, entertainment and sports leaders. His leadership model embraces the legacy of Nelson Mandela - to unselfishly unite people around the creation of positive movement towards the impossible, while fearlessly, openly embracing and confronting all obstacles along the way. What makes a seamless leader? The book combines theory and practice in subjects such as decision making, combining success and values, igniting passion and shifting attitude, performance, multiplying leaders for real impact, motivation, courageous conversations, and leading in difficult times or sensitive situations. Short chapters are complemented by 'interview' sections which illuminate principles learned from personal leadership conversations with individuals from different sectors of society, ranging from President Jacob Zuma to Helen Zille and Sizwe Nxasana to Mike Brown.

CHAPTER 1

A leadership attitude for our times

WITH

• • Mark Cutifani
• • Gareth Cliff
• • Dr Iqbal Survé

The world has changed dramatically since the 1990s, not only in economics, security, technology, attitudes, fashion, and politics, but also – and perhaps most of all – from the leadership point of view. Persistent economic and political volatility across the globe is accompanied by pervasive distrust between leaders, and between leaders and followers. It also seems that all too often the complex challenges leaders face outweigh their capabilities and expose the weaknesses in their leadership attitudes.

Are current leadership philosophies and development methodologies failing? At the very least it is reasonable to assume that they do not address the deep-rooted attitudes of leaders and how they approach their roles. All the efforts of authors and experts at putting forward sound leadership philosophies do not seem to have been persuasive enough for them to adopt an attitude that will really make organisations, society and the world a better place.

Gill Marcus, former Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, believes that, in the global financial tsunami, as she calls it, leaders must act for the greater good rather than for the good of themselves or their party or whatever entity they represent. Referring to the USA, she commented: ‘Why is there such indecisive leadership? It is because there is national interest and party interest, at a time when we need decisive and coherent leadership, in the interest of all of us.’

For Marcus the biggest challenge leaders face globally, including here in South Africa, is confidence and trust: ’nobody trusts any more, and yet this is crucial to solve the current global economic dilemma. If global leaders through the various institutions and meetings commit to doing something, it seems that the markets don’t trust it is going to happen. We are experiencing a situation where citizens, particularly in the advanced economies, don’t have confidence and trust in their leadership at any level, particularly political. Until trust and confidence is rebuilt, it will be very difficult to stabilise the global economy.’

What is going on? Why is there this lack of trust and confidence, when the world is flooded with leadership courses and literature containing advice on how to earn the trust of followers, and how to be a confident leader? Why do leaders struggle to win the trust of their people? Do followers sense incongruent motives – in other words, are leaders perceived as unauthentic – even though so much is written about authentic leadership? Are leaders not trained well enough? Are followers expecting too much?

I trust that reading this book will bring some clarity. Its purpose is to introduce a leadership philosophy whose time has come; that will take society to a better place and, if adhered to, change the world in a positive way; move it towards becoming more true to its intended destiny, a place where leaders and followers trust one another again; where the title of leader regains its rightful and honourable place in society.

You can see that I believe leadership to be an honour, not a right. It should not automatically be viewed as a synonym for ‘privileged’ or ‘elite’ or ‘popular’ or ‘well known’ or ‘powerful’.

To introduce a message of such importance we have to start at the beginning and shift the reader’s mind towards universal, ‘big picture’ thinking. Why is this so important?

So often, if not always, what helps and motivates us to resolve huge challenges in our personal lives, in business and in society, is the context of a much bigger picture, a goal, vision or purpose that frames the obstacle staring us in the face. This principle most certainly applied during the miraculous political transition of South Africa in the early 1990s. The dream of a better society outweighed individual and selfish agendas. This made it possible to overcome huge challenges and odds.

In life and leadership the following principle holds true: the further we see, the further we can go; the bigger the picture we see at any given moment, the bigger our dream and vision can be. In sum, greater context results in greater decisions. Therefore, if we hope to solve these potential global leadership crises, we need to start with the biggest and most universal picture possible, so that the context and motivation to confront the challenge can overshadow the task.

The big picture of life

Briefly, let’s view life from a simple, logical angle; a big picture that hopefully makes sense to most, across differing beliefs. Embracing this picture could significantly influence your current approach to life and leadership.

There are over 7 billion people on the planet – and that’s not counting the people who have already come and gone, and those of the future. Every one of these human beings enters this world through birth, and – sooner or later – leaves it through death. It is mind-boggling to contemplate that every one of these individuals is unique in the combination of their physical features, geography, language, beliefs, culture and much more. Why do all these different individuals exist on this planet? What is the purpose of being here? Perhaps, if we can establish what we have in common, we will find a clue and even answers to these important questions.

Not by chance, it seems, in between the two opposite ends of life – ‘entry’ (birth) and ‘exit’ (death) – each one of the billions of visitors to this earth experiences the following five fundamentals:

1. 1. Experience SITUATIONS: From infancy through early childhood, early teens through teenage years, young adulthood through to old age, birth to death, from the minute we wake up every day until we go to bed, seven days a week, 365 days a year, we gain knowledge and – mostly – understanding through never-ending situations that cross our path. Some situations are unforeseen or outside our control; some happen through our own doing. They come in shapes and forms that can be seen as either negative or positive.
2. 2. Experience PEOPLE (relationships): The moment 7 billion of us were born we were surrounded – for better or worse – by people. It seems life cannot happen without other people, and situations mostly involve other human beings, directly or indirectly. In short, we are here together and not alone.
3. 3. Experience freedom of CHOICE (decisions): Especially as we grow older, all of us have the freedom to choose how we react to innumerable situations. Then we also have a choice as to how to utilise the knowledge and understanding gained in our lives. We have to choose how we respond to human beings around us, to different relationships. And, we choose what our attitude is from situation to situation. All this happens within certain boundaries. Eventually we also use our knowledge and understanding to benefit ourselves or to benefit others and society, or both.

The boundaries within which we exercise our freedom of choice are put there in several ways. First, there is society in general, in the shape of government and other institutions that create laws and rules within which we operate. When our choices take us outside these boundaries we usually experience some sort of reprimand, intended to bring us back within the boundaries. Second, our belief and value system, mostly by way of cultural background, religion or simply a belief in right and wrong and what lifestyle brings happiness and peace, also places boundaries in our lives. Then, thirdly, boundaries are also created in our own minds by way of personal perceptions about ourselves and what we can and cannot achieve. These personal perception boundaries in our own minds may be the most difficult boundaries to overcome. But more about this later.

1. 4. Experience OBSTACLES, challenges: We all encounter challenges, trials, and obstacles of varying magnitude along the way, whether directly or indirectly (through others). It seems that these obstacles are placed here to help us grow character, to test us to the limit, to discover how we will choose, with the knowledge and understanding gained. The outcome of situations over time also results in perceptions about ourselves, as mentioned above, which quite possibly become the greatest advantage or obstacle to achieving our full potential.
2. 5. Experience MOVEMENT: Throughout all the situations, associations with people and obstacles that confront us, we end up making decisions so that we can move forward in life and in relationships. If we don’t make decisions we will mostly stand still. When something or someone stands still, it will stagnate, or even die, literally in some cases. Movement comprises growth, development, improvement or change. Life on this earth is about movement. Movement is life.

I call these five commonalities the SiPCOM Experience, which in short captures the truth that all visitors to this planet continually experience Situations (experiences); People (relationships); Choices (decisions); Obstacles (or challenges); and Movement (growth, development). We cannot escape the SiPCOM Experience! And the ‘COM’ in SiPCOM reminds us that all people have this experience in COMMON.

Why these relentless situations? Why are we so intimately linked to other people? Why the freedom to choose? Why all these obstacles and challenges? Why must we move forward? Why are we on this planet?

How to make the best of our journey through life

Planet Earth is the place where we experience SiPCOM; where we are offered the privilege of implementing and practising the five COMmonalities; where we gain experience in these five categories. It all seems to be for a good reason: the world is a huge obstacle course or testing ground that offers its inhabitants an experience of a lifetime! You are thrust into a continuous (no turning back) cycle of gaining knowledge and understanding, through never-ending SITUATIONS, mostly involving other PEOPLE and requiring constant CHOICES (decision making), accompanied by regular OBSTACLES and challenges, in order to MOVE forward. It sounds like a ‘Lord of the Rings’ type of journey, doesn’t it? The only way is forward, to some place (because one can’t make worthwhile decisions without the context of some future), and the outcome can only be personal growth, building character and relationships, learning to make decisions and experiencing movement or success. Of course, the journey involves a risk of failure, too, especially when you add to the mix a conscious decision to make full use of opportunities rather than be an indifferent bystander. In short, SiPCOM is the perfect recipe for moving closer towards one’s full potential.

Just from a logical perspective, it may be difficult to comprehend that this awesome, adventurous journey continues beyond the gateway that we call death. I believe that it has to, and that those of us who make the best of this part of the much bigger journey will be better prepared for whatever lies ahead.

How does one ‘make the best’ of this journey on Planet Earth? After all, we are here and we can only move forward. There is no turning back. We need to take full advantage of SiPCOM, which means we have to develop the abilities and skills to confidently engage situations, people, choices (decisions), obstacles or challenges, for movement within the context of this bigger picture. It will help if we can create a context, make what happens now – today – count, crucially by deciding where we want to move to, where we are going, where and how we want to ‘end up’. In that way we become a ‘forward thinker’, a ‘movement specialist’.

Create movement by becoming a forward thinker: Some situations are unforeseen or out of our control; others are expected or our own doing. We may as well try to determine or influence the ‘own doing’ part as much as we can, for the right reasons. Strangely enough, as we do this we end up giving more meaning and context to most of the unforeseen or ‘out of our control’ situations as well.

To take a very simple example, during grade 9 of high school years a decision must be made about what school subjects to take for the remaining three years. This falls in the category that is outside of the child’s control, though not unforeseen, and there is no option but to make a choice; no alternative, except perhaps to drop out of school. A youngster who is fortunate enough to have done a bit of forward thinking by deciding where he or she wants to go in life, career-wise, because of some knowledge gained through exposure (more situations, more experience), will make wiser decisions. Those who know where they want to move to will possess the necessary context to...