Leadership Made In Africa: An Anthology of Leadership Articles and Perspectives for Practitioners

By Modupe Taylor-Pearce, Mercy Kusiwaa Frimpong and Daniel Ampofo

Leadership Made in Africa is a collection of leadership articles and perspectives written for practitioners of leadership in Africa. Covering leadership success topics like effective communication, emotional intelligence, human capital, coaching, stakeholder management, and corporate governance, the articles are seasoned with African stories that illustrate the concepts in a manner that enables the reader to understand and apply the concepts in their own sphere of leadership influence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312583986

Book preview

LEADERSHIP

MADE IN AFRICA

AN ANTHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP ARTICLES AND PERSPECTIVES FOR PRACTITIONERS

By

Modupe Taylor-Pearce, Ph.D.

Copyright 2023

Dr. Modupe Taylor-Pearce

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author or publishers.

Published by:

Lulu Publishing Services

Editors

Dumisani Magadlela

Tafadzwa Chiganga

ISBN

978-1-312-58398-6

Cover design and illustrations

by

Mercy Kusiwaa Frimpong

Daniel Ampofo

First Edition

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments………………………………………………      5

Foreword………………………………………………………..      8

CHAPTER ONE……………………………………………….      11

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

CHAPTER TWO………………………………………………      16

WHO GOT YOU HERE WON’T GET YOU THERE

CHAPTER THREE……………………………………………      22

IN AFRICA, WE SETTLE OUR DIFFERENCES AT THE BALLOT BOX

CHAPTER FOUR…………………………………………….      26

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

CHAPTER FIVE……………………………………………..      30

THE SECRET TO GETTING ANYTHING YOU WANT

CHAPTER SIX……………………………………………….      35

THE PRICE OF ANGRY OUTBURSTS

CHAPTER SEVEN…………………………………………..      43

SUCCESS IS THREE CHOICES

CHAPTER EIGHT……………………………………………      50

CHURCH LEADERSHIP

CHAPTER NINE ……………………………………………      58

REPLICATION LEADS TO MEGA TRANSFORMATIONS

CHAPTER TEN ……………………………………………..      63

POTBELLIED LEADERS ARE BAD FOR AFRICA

CHAPTER ELEVEN …………………………………………...….      68

LEADERSHIP BY FACILITATION

CHAPTER TWELVE …………………………………………      74

LEADERSHIP AND THE FUTURE OF WORK IN AFRICA

CHAPTER THIRTEEN …………………………………………      79

LEADERS TALK LESS AND SPEAK LAST

CHAPTER FOURTEEN ………………………………………      87

LEADERS MAKE LEMONADE…OUT OF LEMONS

CHAPTER FIFTEEN ………………………………………      91

LEADERS EAT LAST

CHAPTER SIXTEEN …………………………………………      96

CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ………………………………………..      101

BE ALL YOU CAN BE

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ………………………..………………      106

AWARENESS CREATES CHOICE

CHAPTER NINETEEN ………………………………………      110

ASSEMBLING THE WINNING TEAM

CHAPTER TWENTY ………………………………………      116

A BORDERLESS WORLD

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE………………………………………      122

THE FIVE C’S OF A GREAT EMPLOYEE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO……………………………………      149

SACRIFICIAL LEADERSHIP IS NEEDED IN AFRICA

EPILOGUE…………………………………………………      …      154

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The first offering of gratitude for this book goes to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, without whom I am nothing. This book is a testament to the proverb A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. One of the articles in this anthology was written in 2004 when I was not thinking about writing a book. While the majority of the articles were written during 2022, I was still not thinking of them as content for a book. This brings me to the second person to whom I wish to offer my gratitude: Mercy Kusiwaa Frimpong, the Chief Marketing Officer of BCA Leadership. Mercy was a driving force and constant encourager, nudging me to share my thoughts, observations, and experiences on leadership in Africa to a wider audience through the writing of weekly articles. She caught the vision even while I was still myopic.

I am grateful for the amazing team of award-winning coaches that we have at BCA Leadership…forty-two amazing award-winning coaches who collectively fulfill the promise that BCA makes to leaders in Africa: a promise to support leaders who are intentional about making optimal decisions to achieve their goals with the essential leadership vitamins of facilitated peer learning and executive coaching. These coaches have also caught the vision of a transformed Africa that will be a middle-income continent by 2030 and a high-income continent by 2045, and have willingly chosen to invest their time, talent, and treasure into creating a pan-African brand (BCA Leadership) that delivers on this promise, through which Africa will be transformed. They have pushed me to be a better leader and better coach and many of the perspectives in this article are borne from lessons I have learned from them. Two of them – Dumisani Magadlela and Nankhonde Kasonde-van den Broek – have graciously written the foreword and the epilogue of this book and I am grateful for their contribution.  I am also grateful to our pan-African Board of Directors of BCA Leadership, led by our Chair, Madam Charity Lumpa. The long-term future of BCA is better secured because of the best practices in governance that I, as the CEO, have been nudged, encouraged, and sometimes harassed into upholding by the Board of Directors. I am grateful for your sacrifice and leadership.  I would be remiss if I did not offer gratitude to the management team and administrative team of BCA Leadership, a dedicated group of professionals who collectively provide support for BCA coaches and me to provide the services that inform some of the articles in this book. Africa is already better because of your contribution. Tafadzwa Chiganga, a 2023 BCA Fellow, was instrumental in the editing of this book, along with Dumisani Magadlela. Mercy Kusiwaa Frimpong and Daniel Ampofo designed the cover pages and provided illustrations. The credit for this book goes to all of you.

My first leadership responsibility is to my family. I am grateful to Renee, my darling wife of twenty-five years, for her unflinching support and counsel as I practiced many of the leadership lessons described in this book on my family. Chinua, Mandisa, and Makeda (my adult children) probably wish that I had learned some of these leadership lessons earlier in life while they were still toddlers; they may have been saved from some of the mistakes I made as a father! I am grateful to them for their love and encouragement. They are my jewels!

I hope and pray that the lessons and insights in this book will accelerate the leadership growth of every leader in Africa and influence leaders to make better decisions and achieve better results for their organizations. This brings me to the final group that I want to thank: YOU. By picking up this book and reading thus far, you have started to invest in your own leadership capacity and Africans will be the beneficiaries. So, I thank you, dear African leader, for the trust you have placed in me to pick up this book and read it. May Africa become a great continent because you and millions of other African leaders like you become better decision-makers as you expand your knowledge and awareness about Leadership Made in Africa.

Modupe Taylor-Pearce, Ph.D

FOREWORD

By

Dr. Dumisani Magadlela

Africa needs transformational leaders. Africa has many brave and fiercely courageous leaders. Africa also has for centuries been a leading pariah on poor leadership.

There are endless jokes about African leaders who fall sick and get shipped abroad for basic medical care which could be provided in their countries if they paid close attention to the needs of their people. It almost seems as though African leaders are not really leading. There is a case to be made to the effect that many African leaders are pawns of powers from beyond their borders that control everything they do as unsovereign nation-states. Yes, unsovereign.

On the unpredictable journey towards effective leadership – leadership that transforms lives and whole societies – we often encounter pioneers that break with tradition and go their own way.

In the pages that follow, Dr Modupe Taylor-Pearce has put together a compilation of chapters that will challenge the leader in you to introspect, to reflect, and to look in the mirror with serious questions. Dr Taylor-Pearce has weaved together lessons, insights, and questions that every African leader – especially younger ones – must ask themselves. I am mentioning younger leaders not because the older ones are a lost cause; there are older leaders whose hearts and heads are in the right place, and who can still make a significantly positive difference. They just need to step up more with courage and integrity. I just happen to believe that younger people – especially our African youth in the youngest continent on earth, can lead better than most of the so-called liberation heroines and heroes. Young people should not wait to be invited to the table. They must set their own tables and lead into the future.

The articles that Dr. Taylor-Pearce has written and presented as chapters of this book are both powerfully educational and insightfully funny. To get the most out of this book, I encourage you to ask yourself what kind of leader you are. Everyone is a leader somewhere in their life. I truly believe that there is a leader in each one of us. Given a chance, most people can lead something or others, and some do so effectively without formal leadership training. It is in the finer art and science of leading through greater roles that many leaders fall flat on their faces. This is the one reason why we have this exciting African leadership coaching outfit called BCA Leadership. It is breaking new ground and seriously pioneering in African coaching and leadership solutions.

As you read this book, ask yourself these questions:

How exactly am I leading? Go ahead and ask yourself that question.

What kind of legacy am I going to leave behind when my term or period of leadership is done?

Who are the youth that I am growing to become transformational leaders with the willingness and ability to secure and grow Africa and her resources for future generations?

Do not read this book and remain the same. Remember, as you read this, that the people that you lead are learning from your example as a leader. Is your leadership example worth emulating?

As a global coach, I believe that Africa needs greater airtime on global coaching platforms, and it is happening slowly. If like me you believe that Africa is the original home of all humanity, then you would be forgiven for seeking African solutions to African leadership, and working smartly with African partners and friends who have Africa’s best interests at heart.

Enjoy this book, and remember:

"Until the lions/animals have their own story-tellers, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter" (African Proverb)

Dr. Dumisani Magadlela is an executive coach, coach-trainer and leadership skills development facilitator based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He serves on the Global Board of International Coaching Federation (ICF) as Chair (2023). He is a founding Board Member of Africa Board for Coaching, Consulting and Coaching Psychology (ABCCCP), a coaching association promoting coaching development across Africa. He co-founded and chaired the Ubuntu Coaching Foundation (UCF) at The Coaching Centre (TCC) to help poor communities access affordable coaching. Dumi serves on multiple coach-development faculties globally, including the Global Team Coaching Institute (GTCI).

CHAPTER ONE

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

In 2008, I enrolled in a Ph.D. program after many years of resisting the entreaties of my parents to do a Ph.D.. I had finally found a topic (Leadership) that I was passionate enough about to want to become a subject-matter expert. When I shared this news with a friend of mine who had earned his Ph.D. a decade before me, he informed me that this journey would change me in profound ways. I was skeptical: What do you mean?

You will start thinking differently and even talking differently as you go through the program, he replied. 

Okay, I said. Which really meant I don’t believe you, but I do not have the energy to argue with you right now. 

I did not realize that he was right until 2014 when I visited some friends whom I had not seen for almost a decade. One of them commented to me that I had become a deep thinker. I wasn’t sure what he meant and asked him to explain. He said, When you talk, it is obvious you have thought deeply about what you are talking about; I notice you now quote or reference the sources that influence your thinking, even in normal conversation. The interesting fact about that conversation was that I was yet to finish the Ph.D. program…I only completed it in 2015. 

At a United States Military Academy (West Point) 20-year reunion in 2014, I was approached by a white classmate who had been a former roommate of mine for a semester. He came from an upper-middle-class family with strong Army ties and when we met as cadets in 1990 we had very little in common; I vaguely recall that he had not been very nice to me during my time at West Point. I had not seen him for 20 years since we graduated. He approached me and said "Modupe, it’s really good to see you. I was really mean to you while we were at West Point, and I feel bad about it. I was pretty stupid at that time and simply did not understand where you were from or the challenges you had to deal with and because you did not fit my expectations I simply behaved like an ass. I am sorry for that. I am really glad to see you again and hope we