What began as a project to understand the leadership style of Nelson Mandela has grown into an initiative by veteran management consultant Eric Mafuna to promote effective African leadership in SA and the rest of the continent - and it has high-powered endorsement.
No less a figure than President Thabo Mbeki was to launch Mafuna's African Leadership Group in Sandton this week.
Mafuna describes it as the culmination of a decade spent examining and trying to understand "ethnic leadership across structures where leaders are seen as equals among equals". As he noted, Mandela always gives credit for his achievements to the people he led.
Mafuna's faith in this notion leads him to want to move away from the "great leader concept". Traditional communities, he says, have been forced to give up their concepts and to focus instead on an "individuated, Western concept of leadership".
The African Leadership Group aims to "fuse the best ethnic, traditional leadership styles with modern thinking, to address today's challenges".
The problem with the Western model, he explains, is that leaders tend to operate outside the boundaries set by the group - be it shareholders, peer groups, a party or the electorate. This leads to an unhealthy accumulation of power and dominance by an individual, and an accompanying loss of humility and the patience to listen to people.
"Our research shows that in traditional, pre-industrial society, there's a different approach to leadership. It works around the collective and includes all on the basis of membership of the group - from the clown to the sage, as well as the experts in various fields."
The second element is that the group protects its independence. Third, members have a culture of sharing information. Fourth, a problem is approached by asking whether it is one of cognition, co-ordination or co-operation.
The fifth and most important element of this model is the concept of "constellational leadership", epitomised by the Mandela-Mbeki "binary" leadership of the 1990s. In this model (which Jews call zugot), deputy president Mbeki was the binary star who made Mandela shine so brightly. Similarly, says Mafuna, things were going well for Mbeki when he was paired with Jacob Zuma. Zuma in fact once used the term isagila somjigijelo (short knobkierie) to describe his role as trouble-shooter and catalyst when he was Mbeki's deputy president.
Mafuna's model does have room for the individual leader, and includes a constellation of experts. After the latter has "unpacked a problem and formulated solutions, these are referred to the group to decide on", he says. Experts almost never agree on what the right solution is, "but the group has an uncanny ability to pick the right solution . . . This is at the heart of constellation leadership; that is, harnessing the experts to work within the bounds of the group."
As Mafuna sees it, this links up with the principles underlying democracy - common purpose and shared understanding, which are integral to traditional African society. It also accepts that government cannot solve all the problems, but relies on people's initiative.
The project is relevant because of the "bitter experience that foreign leadership concepts do not sit well in Africa. In a multi-ethnic society such as SA, we have a collectivity of diverse groups to tap into - for example, Jewish communalism, Indian philosophy, African co-operation," says Mafuna.
"You can't get away from the conclusion that the bulk of Africa's problems are due to poor leadership.
"In our kind of democracy it requires tapping in to the resources of all the groups in society, not just Africans and Afrikaners, for instance, but the other ethnic groups as well."
This sounds like the ethnic "grand coalition" idea proposed by F W de Klerk around 1990. "The timing was wrong. [But] coalition-type government and leadership is a natural in a multi-ethnic society," Mafuna replies. "The majority does not come from only one [ethnic] group. Within a democracy, you still need representivity and equity. It is not enough to say, I have 50% of the vote, and become top dog."
As Mafuna sees it, Mbeki, the expert, aspires to lead in a constellational, collective fashion, but will succeed only once he starts firing underperforming ministers, and once society responds by choosing from the various initiatives he has put in to the pool.
