Virtuosic Leadership

Virtuosic Leadership

Virtuosic Leadership

How to effectively connect with people for corporate

and stakeholder value maximisation.

Linda Henry

Grootboom

About The Author

Linda Henry Grootboom has his maternal parental roots in District Six, Cape Town, but was born at 6th Avenue, Walmer in Port Elizabeth (at the maids’ quarters) and grew up in a racially mixed area known as Salisbury Park. His family was forcefully removed from the area in 1967 in terms of the infamous Group Areas Act of 1913 under the then-apartheid system in South Africa, which resulted in him being raised under conditions of extreme poverty.

He is a graduate of the Cowan High School in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, under the headship of the affable, likeable and renowned administrator in educational circles, the late Frank Mathol’engwe Tonjeni (may his soul rest in peace). Unfortunately, Linda could not proceed to university owing to extreme poverty. This is attested to by the fact that, from Standard 3 up to his matriculation year, he has been a homeless child.

During this time, he did garden work and other menial tasks during school holidays, throughout his schooling years, in order to survive and supplement the meagre financial support he received from his pensioned maternal grandmother.

Linda is a professionally trained corporate director having studied directorship and corporate governance through the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa (IoD) SA. Owing to his passion for opera and classical music, as school boy, he would work in people’s gardens to get money so that he could catch either a taxi or a bus to attend orchestra rehearsals at the then-PE Feather Market Hall. The idea behind this was to closely watch the late Robert Selly (who was the director of music) conducting the Port Elizabeth Municipal Orchestra and Oratorio Choir in preparation for either the Messiah by George Frederick Handel or Elijah by Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn.

Years later, Linda was mentored during the late 1980s in orchestral conducting by his late close friend, maestro Christopher Dowdeswell, who subsequently introduced him to the great, mesmerising Gorizia-born internationally acclaimed orchestra and choral conductor, Professor Riccardo Capasso, who was on a concert tour in South Africa at the time. That experience led to Linda being, admittedly, the first black person ever in the Eastern Cape to conduct a full-strength professional orchestra and professional soloists in complete works.

His debut in professional orchestral conducting was in 1992, when he conducted the East Cape Chamber Orchestra at the PE Opera House, in a variety concert of music by GF Handel, Josef Haydn and WA Mozart. On that occasion, he shared the stage with the then-head of music at Rhodes University, Professor Rupert Mayre.

In 1993, he was again invited to conduct a full-strength professional East Cape Philharmonic Orchestra at the Port Elizabeth Opera House (the friendly city is now known as Nelson Mandela Bay) in a complete work by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mass in C Major, KV 317 (the ‘Coronation Mass’) for orchestra, choir and four professional soloists, which included the star Cape Town tenor, Stephen Carletti, and the famous, vocally reliable leading PE soprano, Jill Nock. At that concert, he conducted a fully non-racial choir; that is, a combined La Music Choir and the Port Elizabeth Oratorio Choir.

After the traditional simultaneous bows of the conductor and members of the orchestra, the concert master (principal violinist, the bearded Donald Flint) gave Linda a vigorous handshake, with that customary broad smile of his, whispering with confidence and gratification, Excellent communicative conducting, maestro; thank you very much! As has been the case with the first concert in 1992, there were successive loud cries of ‘bravo, bravo, bravo’ in the packed concert hall, with members of the audience on their feet, clapping thunderously. For Linda that moment was surreal, and was to be followed by many more such moments.

As the clapping and stomping of feet on the floor was not subsiding, the conductor walked energetically back to the stage to take his final bow. A day after that historic concert, local newspapers were awash with top classical music critics’ commendations and positive appraisals of the performance, and commenting on ‘the amazing, very high standard of orchestral conducting displayed by the young black man from the township’. Linda then toured with the orchestra, choir and soloists to the northern suburbs of Port Elizabeth and presented the same music programme.

Again, the response of the audience in yet another packed hall was an explosive, sustained applause. The media once again used all kinds of adjectives and superlatives as they commended the ‘extremely high standard of the musical performance’, which was a true team effort.

Whilst still working in Pretoria, Gauteng Province, he has also conducted prescribed choral music workshops for churches in the North-west Province, and adjudicated in choral music and brass band contests.

Vocationally, he has worked for various private sector companies in Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and Pretoria and went on to work as head of organisational development and transformation for a Johannesburg-based municipality (Eastern Metropolitan Local Council), where he acted regularly as chief executive officer (municipal manager) of the council. Linda was also part of the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council’s Strategic Steering Team that drove the organisational restructuring of the Greater Johannesburg Metro during this critical phase in the life of the municipality. He headed the Organisational Design and Community Services Project Work Streams. This organisational transformation project gave birth to the current City of Johannesburg or iGoli. Thereafter, he worked at national government in various top management capacities.

Linda, an LLM (Master of Laws) graduate from the then-University of Port Elizabeth (now called the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University), has also studied organisational behaviour and strategic human resources management at masters level with Heriot Watt University’s Edinburg Business School.. He is a highly sought after speaker and presenter at national and international conferences and summits. His topics usually cover corporate strategy, strategic human capital management, change leadership, organisational development and design, organisational performance consulting, employee engagement and labour law, etcetera.

Linda is also an Alma Mater of the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice, where he studied evidence-based policy making and implementation. Currently, he lives in Cape Town, his parental hometown, with his family, where, for the past eight years, he has been working as a public service executive (responsible for departmental financial management, strategic planning, strategic executive support and corporate governance in the department of the Premier) in the Western Cape Government.

Linda is a director and owner of companies, one of which is a corporate strategy, organisation development, corporate governance, corporate performance consulting and strategic human capital management consultancy firm in which he is the executive chairman and CEO.

Professor Tinyiko Maluleke

BIO

Tinyiko Sam Maluleke is a Professor in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria. He also serves as Assistant to the Vice Chancellor in the crafting of the University’s Africa Strategy.

Before that Prof Maluleke was the Deputy Vice Chancellor : Internationalisation, Advancement and Student Affairs at the University of Johannesburg. Among many other key roles, he has also been the Executive Director : Research and later Deputy Registrar at the University of South Africa (UNISA). As a researcher, Prof Maluleke holds a B rating by the National Research Foundation in recognition of the international impact of his research publications and other outputs. He obtained his doctorate in Theology from UNISA in 1995. He has supervised, to completion, 11 PhD students who are white, black, male and female, and they hail from such countries as Canada, Germany, DRC, Sierra Leone and South Africa. Professor Maluleke is an elected member of the South African Academy of Science and also sits on one of the NRF rating specialist panels.

An intellectual who is passionate about social justice, Maluleke is proficient in all the eleven South African official languages. He also speaks and writes French. Professor Maluleke is a highly respected political and social commentator whose analyses, views and opinions are often solicited by the South African media. He is a regular columnist for the Mail & Guardian and many other mainstream newspapers.

He is often invited to speak at many academic, community and corporate functions.

Credits And Dedications

I dedicate this book to:

• My late grandfather and grandmother, Hendrick and Maria Grootboom, my late mother, Winnifred (Winnie) Grootboom, and my late maternal uncle, Lucky Grootboom, all of whom were my pillars of strength and support during their entire lives.

• My wife, Buyiswa, who is my most loyal counsellor, lover and soul mate for her unwavering support to me in all my professional endeavours and the hardships that I endured during our life together.

• My kids, who always keep me on my toes and lovingly challenge me intellectually.

• Professor Tinyiko Maluleke of the University of Pretoria for the professional guidance, and the incisive foreword he has written to this book, without whom this book would not have been a success.

• All the great women and men in South Africa and abroad who have positively impacted my career life and inspired me.

Contents

About The Author

Professor Tinyiko Maluleke

Bio

Credits And Dedications

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1. Leading and Leadership

Chapter 2. Leadership in Action

Chapter 3. Our Common Organisational, Leadership ‘Toxins’

Chapter 4. The Malaise of Blame Avoidance and Glory Taking in Organisations

Chapter 5. Decision-Making in the Context of Organisational Dynamics

Chapter 6. ‘Egotiation’ – a Behavioural Essential for Leadership Connectivity

Chapter 7. Primal and Metanoic Leadership as Siblings, and What They Bring to Our Workplaces

Chapter 8. Can Emotional Competence Aid Leaders in Primal and Metanoic Leading?

Chapter 9. Excellent Leadership as a Shaper of Effective Institutional Messaging and Information

Chapter 10. Organisations are Social Contracts

Literary References

Copyright © 2017 Linda Henry Grootboom

Published by Linda GrootboombPublishing at Smashwords

First edition 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Author using Reach Publishers’ services,

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Printed and bound by Novus Print Solutions

Edited by Vanessa Finaughty for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

Website: www.reachpublishers.co.za

E-mail: reach@webstorm.co.za

Foreword

Tinyiko Maluleke

The year was 1983. Nigeria had been independent for 20 years. Out came the late Chinua Achebe’s dynamite little book titled: The Trouble with Nigeria. It is a slim volume. It is direct, sharp and pointed. No lengthy introductions. No pleasantries and no protocol is observed. In Lagos, Achebe had overheard too many conversations at bars, at university corridors, hair salons, bus stops and taxi rides which start with ‘the trouble with Nigeria is ...’ So he decided to write a book about his own view regarding the trouble with Nigeria. It is an angry little book. The book starts with a bang under the first subheading titled ‘where the problem lies’:

The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership. (Achebe 1983:1)

More than 50 years since Nigeria became free, the problem of leadership remains. The relief that followed the 2015 election of Muhammadu Buhari into the Presidency of Nigeria is because it is the first time for an incumbent to peacefully transfer power to the next leader, following a peaceful election in that country. In many ways, this most populous country on the African continent is a microcosm of the problems of leadership bedevilling the continent. In the Achebe quotation above, we can easily substitute the country Nigeria with any other African country or even with the continent itself. The problem of leadership would remain.

Clearly therefore, the book of Linda Grootboom could not have addressed a more enduring and a more palpable problem. By writing about leadership, Grootboom also follows in the footsteps of great African thinkers and writers. I am particularly pleased that he looks at leadership in more spheres than just the political realm. Like Steve Biko and Frantz Fanon before him, Grootboom explores in this book the realm of inner and personal leadership, i.e. the psychological and spiritual state that is conducive to leadership. As with the likes of Achebe and Ali Mazrui, he offers several examples, of good and bad leadership at a continental level. Grootboom has listened carefully to his fellow Southern African leadership practitioners and theorists. He probes deeply into the insights of the likes of Lovemore Mbigi and Reuel Khoza. Of particular focus in this book is the leadership of organisations. No country can develop and succeed unless its institutions and organisations are led and run well.

And yet, Grootboom is quick to point in a direction beyond theories that are beholden to the centrality of an individual leader and his or her charisma. This is a book about leadership. It is not a book about the leader. This is a book about the competencies and role of the leadership team and not the attributes of the individual figurehead leader. It is a book that speaks to all the elements and ingredients necessary for leadership culture and ethos to ensue.

Despite huge global CEO packages that are structured to attract the ‘best brains’ that money can buy in the market, organisations have continued to fail. Developing countries and their institutions need more fresh thinking than the mere adoption of ready-made definitions, models and approaches to leadership. As you will learn from this book, leadership, particularly excellent leadership, is not the monopoly of the West. Similarly, poor and bad leadership is a global problem and not merely an African one.

The ten chapters of this book have been arranged in such a manner that they build a case for a major rethink in how we manage our workplaces, and how we see the roles of the people who work in our organisations, the workplace cultures that we need to create, as well as how leaders should connect with those they work with. Diversity of opinion and workplace culture, as well as the discouragement of anxiety-generating and ego-charged environments, are also raised with the intention to reinventing how we lead in our places of work. The point is made that leadership and strategy formation are collective efforts. More specifically, a strong argument is made for the African or communalist way of leading our workplaces, with a lot of emphasis on employee empowerment as a means of creating strategic value for stakeholders.

The very first chapter seeks to define the concepts, ‘leading’ and ‘leadership’. The last chapter makes the point that organisations are ‘social contracts’, and the importance of emotional connectivity is stressed. Reflective dialogue is encouraged, as the journey is a very long one.

The regent who brought Nelson Mandela up taught him a particular understanding of leadership. This understanding permeates the pages of this book. In this regard, Mandela says:

I will always remember the regent’s axiom: a leader, he said, is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realising that all along they are being directed from behind (Mandela 1994:25&26)

Centurion, Pretoria, 3 August 2015

by Professor Tinyiko Maluleke, PhD

Introduction

by Linda Grootboom

I have to admit with gratitude that the extensive research, which included desk analysis and targeted interviews that I conducted with various leaders and so-called ‘followers’ for writing this book, has not been easy for me. Today, I do not regret that I did all that hard preparatory work. I am also grateful for the malignity of the times and the socio-political era that defined my early upbringing, scholastic, socio-economic and emotional cultivation under circumstances of extreme poverty and numerous tests of resilience in all its forms. These I consider as having been destined to cross my life and that, too, provided me with a good foundation for writing the book.

I truly regard that phase of my ordinary, humble life on our beautiful planet as having been a key part of the crucible that influenced my decision to finally put pen to paper. However, when I was still contemplating taking the first step of writing the book, ‘pressurised’ by my wife and kids to do it, I was inspired by what Mary Oliver said in Wild Gees when she refers to the world which invites us as individuals to make a statement about who we are and what we stand for.

In this book, I have deliberately opted to adopt an exploratory, personal experience-based approach that does not seek to impose a specific leadership philosophy or practice doctrine. In this regard, I honestly hope that I have succeeded in humbly inviting and encouraging all of us as leaders/executives to engage and think more reflectively and innovatively about how we can improve the lives of people in the companies and organisations in which we work.

In other words, my principal goal here is to initiate some reflective dialogue with you as readers and leaders on concepts, perspectives, constructive views and new approaches that could help us in our endeavours to reshape our thinking about and approach to leading and leadership. I guess the aforementioned puts paid to any notion or perception that writing this book was a matter of serendipity. In addition, I would like to assure readers that there are absolutely no controversialist intentions on my part in exploring the perspectives covered in this book.

It is my firm belief that, whatever the size or nature of our individual, unique organisations, we can certainly ferment lively and more explorative, reflective dialogue on how we as leaders (and would-be leaders) can ensure that we are ‘wired’ with our colleagues and fellow employees in emotionally mature, meaningful and empowering ways. I call this emotional wiring. Therefore, in this humble endeavour, I have absolutely no intention to be absolutist or canonical, because to do so would be tantamount to a travesty of both dialogic honesty and scholarship in the discipline of leading and leadership.

Essentially, I ask the typical ordinary person’s vexing question (because I am truly an ordinary being):

How can we become more effective as leaders of people and organisations/companies, etc. and sustain such effectiveness regardless of the eras and organisational cultures that we are invariably journeying through, and confronted with, respectively?

Given that experts’ definitions of leading and leadership vary, I would reason that it is important for us to remember that many luminaries in the complex field of leadership scholarship and practice have suggested that emotional intelligence (EI) is key in the journey of self-discovery among workplace and organisational leaders. These are some of the kinds of concepts that we will, together, engage with later in the book.

To me, the mere mention of the word ‘emotional’ clearly suggests that we make intellectually motivated postulations about interpersonal relations, intrapersonal relations, interpersonal feelings, intrapersonal feelings and group and organisational dynamics, etcetera. Perhaps that also explains why the internationally respected prolific leadership author and innovator, John C Maxwell stresses the importance of understanding the feelings of those that one interacts with.

The veracity of that statement can be found in the fact that, when leaders lead, they must first be clear in their minds and hearts as to what lasting impressions they wish to leave in others. More precisely, they should ask themselves what positive and meaningful impacts they wish to make on others and their organisations or companies. They should also ask themselves what value they wish to create for