Traveling by air is not something
big for me, I prefer to travel by car due to being in touch with the land and
space and people and just for the sake of being out there. This is where you meet the real people of our
country. However – being blessed with
the ability to travel to Cape Town by air and having the time available to
browse through a copy of “Leadership” (edition 389, February 2018) the
following caught my attention:
Inga Vanqa is honoured for being award-winning and building a
successful quantity surveying company made the remark that “it’s still very
tough to be a black business person in this country. The first problem is the
access to finance and the second is the access to the market.” This true for all, unfortunately. However, the remarks he made that I
completely support are (1) that education and mentorship will play a big role
if the situation is to be change and (2) I believe in leading by example
and showing them how it’s done – referring to telling people to not be late and
then be late himself. Absolutely. I believe that is what leadership is what is
all about.
Pricillah Mabelane (CEO for BPSA) said she strongly believe in
orchestrating delivery through people and being a visible and active
leader. She mentioned – able to listen,
engage
to inspire confidence, being adaptive ito different people and contacts,
know when to push and when to pull, challenging people to grow and continuously get
better, walking the floor, interfacing with customers to understand their
needs, spending time with the sales team, understanding the risks we operate
under. Wish I knew her better.
Willem van der Merwe, GM of Africa Biomass Company, said that
leadership meant to him the following – set an example that inspires people
by the Grace of God, inspire a vision to create a reality that does not yet
exist but can be achieved through focus and planning, initiate action and
control
to achieve the vision, serves his people, let all know everyone are
important. He states that good leaders
should never make themselves more important than the group around him/her. Wise words indeed.
Being a leader takes a lot, it
requires sacrifices. Vanqa says that due to him being very
busy he misses activities with his children.
He sees it as part of the sacrifice one must make. He hopes to retire early one day and then be
a house husband and stay-at-home dad.
And here is where I’m saddened – the sacrifices that leaders make and
the challenges they face seldom allows them to realise an early retirement and
time with their families. By the time they
have time for their families, their families tend to not have time available
for them.
So, here is the question …. are they (and we)
creating a world to which people want to belong? (Leadership definition
according to Robert Dilts – NLP coach and author.) The more
difficult question is how much of what we are doing as leaders
are driven by ego or necessity?
