Reindorf Baah Perbi | Professionalism and Integrity Exemplified

INTRODUCTION

This instalment in the 50 Inspiring Living Leaders series had to be completed by the end of April 2025 to coincide with the seventy-fifth birthday of an African colossus in the finance world, Reindorf Kofi Baah Perbi. In the interest of full disclosure, this retired deputy Senior Partner of one of the ‘big four’ global accounting firms in Ghana, KPMG, is my own biological father. If it is true that “Success is having people who know you best, love and respect you the most,” then I dare say this is a success story. 

‘RBP’ or ‘Uncle Perbs’, as he is affectionately called, is a Fellow of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants globally as well as a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana locally. Because of the integrity with which Reindorf Perbi has lived and led as a finance professional with significant impact in several spheres of life over the last seven decades, his progenies have been honoured to put the name “Perbi” on their family charity (Perbi Family Foundation), executive leadership education consultancy (Perbi Executive Leadership Education–PELÉ), media company (Perbi Paradigms) and on their education technology establishment that has served nearly 20,000 children across the length and breadth of Ghana, Perbi Cubs.

GROWTH

Born Aloft

In the year 1950 in the Gold Coast—as colonial Ghana was called—when the shriek of a baby boy pierced the quiet, dew-saturated and cold morning in April atop the Akuapem mountains of the eastern regions of this British territory, little did the indigenes of Mampong know what sort of Ɔdehye (royal) had been born. It was a Friday, and he was appropriately called “Kofi,” the Akan name given to such Friday-born boys, like Kofi Annan, the late United Nations Secretary-General, who was also an April-born; only a dozen years earlier and in the Asante capital of Kumasi. 

Kofi would later be formally christened Reindorf Baah Perbi by his Methodist goldsmith and bar-owner father, Robert Kofi Perbi, and his farmer-mother Florence Asamoabea. ‘Baah’ because he was named after his paternal grandfather who bore that name. His given German name, Reindorf, is said to have been taken from a certain ‘Doctor Reindorf’ whose name (and maybe deeds?) the baby’s father apparently fancied a lot. He was the third of eight children, all from the same pair of biological parents except for the eldest who was of a different mother.

Early Education

Reindorf Baah Perbi attended the local Presbyterian primary school until he qualified for Adisadel College in Cape Coast, an all-boys secondary school established by the Anglicans in 1910, four clear decades before the young Perbi was born. In those days, that was quite a trek from the Eastern to the Central Region of newly-liberated Ghana.

Neat, orderly and principled, Reindorf won the affection of his friends and teachers alike. It was at Adisadel that Reindorf sat for both his Ordinary and Advanced Level certificate examinations. He became Head Prefect in 1969. The Chapel Prefect in that leadership cohort, Sir Sam Jonah, would later become a lifelong friend and CEO of Ashanti Goldfields, listing it on the New York Stock Exchange.

Reindorf’s maternal uncle took particular notice of his potential and would invite him to spend his vacations with him wherever he was stationed in the country as a bookshop manager of the Methodist Book Depot. R.B. got admitted to study Mathematics in Sixth Form and at the University of Ghana, Legon, a move that took him off his innate desire to pursue Medicine. He had also developed a passion to be a teacher, and he surmised any degree would qualify him. Later, he would get to vicariously live the doctor dream through his firstborn son, Dr. Yaw Perbi.

Due to unforeseen difficulties with the Mathematics course at Legon, Reindorf later had to backpedal from that and head to the School of Administration to pursue accounting. That would turn out to be his true calling—for the rest of his life.

Cementing the Calling

After graduating from the University of Ghana with a Bachelor of Science (Hons) Admin., R.B. would later deepen his professional credentials by qualifying as a chartered accountant (ACCA) and put the icing of a number of certificates and diplomas: Post-graduate Diploma in Industrial Management (Finance) from the Research Institute for Management Science, Delft, in the Netherlands; Accounting Software Systems (Notely Cahill Systems, Ireland); Management Development (Centre for Management Development, Lagos Nigeria); Leadership Training (Haggai Institute for Advanced Leadership Training, Singapore); Plant Based Nutrition (T. Colin Campbell Foundation, Cornell University, USA); KPMG Partners Development Program (Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa); and a Regional Course on US Government Auditing.

Spiritual Formation and Fervency

Although the Akuapem region is dominated by the Presbyterians—thanks to the Basel missionaries incredible work of evangelizing the mountains and settling there due to the coolness of the weather and minimal mosquito presence that the high altitude blessed it with—this particular Perbi family in Mampong was Methodist in persuasion. So here was Reindorf, born Methodist, elementary-schooled Presbyterian and secondary-schooled Anglican. How ecumenical!

Reindorf’s father was an active member of the local Methodist church, and especially active in the Singing Band. He was a nominal Christian though as evidenced in his running a brisk beer bar  business (drinking spot). During his secondary school days, Kofi Baah trekked all the way to Tamale in Northern Ghana as a 15-year old to a Scripture Union vacation camp where he had a special spiritual encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ that would change his life forever. With evangelistic fervor, he would begin to challenge and change things in his family and later marry a lady who had had a similar high school spiritual encounter through the same ministry of Scripture Union. R.B. would later become the President of the University Christian Fellowship with his would-be wife as President of the fellowship’s branch in her campus hostel of residence, Volta Hall.

Cutting His Teeth in the World of Work

Reindorf’s first job out of university was his National Service at the Accra Polytechnic from 1973 to 1974 where he undertook teaching and researching for a Technical Education Books Project. Then for the next three years (1974-1977), he worked in accounting at Peat Marwick Cassleton Elliot & Co. (what would later evolve into KPMG) as a Trainee Accountant responsible for performing audits and internal control reviews for several client firms.

From those humble beginnings, R.B. rose to become Chief Accountant at the Social Security Bank Ltd. (now Societé Generale) from 1977 to 1985, with accounting and treasury functions, financial administration of the bank involving managing the production of periodic reports for management information, as well as for the Board and annually for shareholders, serving on Finance and House Committees. He was  directly in charge of the Accounts Department, Stores and Warehouse and Procurement; assisting in evaluating applications for medium and long term financing. This would land him in the most epic of professional and national crises.

SUCCESS

A Test of Tests in Integrity

Speaking of RBP as ‘Integrity Exemplified’ always takes one back to a Social Security Bank (SSB) experience where as Chief Accountant some of his staff misconducted themselves, including forging his signature on several payment vouchers to defraud the bank. One of the conspirators was a businessman. When the truth finally surfaced, they were convicted and sentenced to death by a Tribunal. Shortly after, they were killed by firing squad in 1985.

Integrity pays, even to the extent of saving one from the jaws of death itself! In appreciation of Dad’s exemplary integrity about eight years ago, I penned and published the following around Father’s Day 2017: 

“If there ever was a man of integrity I could vouch for it is my father: Reindorf Kofi Baah Perbi. In fact, even way back in the 1980s during his days as Chief Accountant at the then Social Security Bank (now SG-SSB), when his signature was forged and monies stolen it was his integrity that saved him. Everyone vouched for him: “Chief would never do such a thing,” they convincingly told the authorities.

“Those were the heady days of revolution and military rule in Ghana so he had even received a pre-judicial slap or two already when he was picked up by soldiers and sent to Gondar Barracks. After several weeks of tribunal hearings (and I remember us going to fetch him from tribunal hearings after we had been picked up from Ridge Church School), eventually, the perpetrators were found, tried and shot via firing squad. It was no joke. One of them, I believe, is still on the run—he must be still running now or dead from running.”

Illustrious Career at KPMG

Reindorf Perbi rose to become Deputy Senior Partner of KPMG Ghana, having been admitted as a partner in 1988. Previously Head of Audit for many years during which he was Engagement Partner for a number of KPMG clients (some of which will soon be listed) but in his last years he was in charge of Quality & Risk Management, and HR & Training. 

In 2003, he was appointed Head of Assurance for KPMG West Africa cluster and represented the region in many KPMG Africa meetings. In a previous capacity as Partner in charge of Advisory Services with KPMG Ghana, he was involved in a number of assignments in the parastatal sector, including:

• Conducting financial information study for Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (funded by the World Bank),
• Team member in charge of finance for USAID funded Government of Ghana Primary Education Project (PREP) which was to grant funding as well as to assess capacity of the Ministry of Education in managing funds,
• Assisting in organisational restructuring and design of accounting manual and management information systems,
• Advising, as Liaison Partner, on the design, development, selection and implementation of a computer-based mortgage accounting system.

Diverse Industries, Same Integrity

A survey of RB’s consulting and auditing experience reveals a wide range of industries—petroleum, mining, financial, manufacturing, service, construction, transportation (including shipping), telecommunications—touching on public and private sectors alike. Taking Government, for example, he was the Co-ordinating financial consultant for Stabex 1991, Urban II & III, and Small Holder Rehabilitation Project (IFAD funded) for the Ministry of Agriculture as well as Finance consultant for USAID-funded Ministry of Education Primary Education Project (PREP). He was responsible for providing overall quality, reviewing of financial statements and management letters and authorising the release of the audit report of the Local Government Development Project (Urban III). Then there was the financial audit of the Urban Transport Project. Also a key Ministry of Health project.

Regarding the private sector, Reindorf was the Engagement Partner for Shell Ghana Limited, Total Petroleum Ghana Limited and previously Mobil Oil Ghana Limited. In fact, for thirteen years (1994-2007) he led the strategy, planning and supervising of field work plus preparation, supervision and review of financial statements and reports. This was for the separate companies till their merger in October 2006. RB also served for three (3) years as Energy & Natural Resources liaison partner for KPMG West Africa in the Africa region. He audited companies involved in the provision of mining services as well as gold prospecting. 

Reindorf Perbi’s audits of financial institutions have included big names like Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited, Ghana Venture Capital Fund Limited, CAL Bank, State Insurance Company, GT Bank Ghana, and Bank of Ghana. Regarding the latter, this was an eight-year period (2001-2009) of being the Engagement Partner for the audit of the Central Bank of Ghana, checking the checker. RB’s audit of other miscellaneous companies included those in the manufacture and sale of cosmetics and pharmaceutical products, and hardware, various companies in telecommunication and shipping and private-public ventures including audit of a company involved in Ghana’s National Electrification Project.

Global Trust, Local Thrust

Of particular intrigue is the fact that a significant number of projects of global funding partners like USAID, International Development Agency, the European Union and the World Bank being implemented locally would have Reindorf Perbi as the lead engagement partner. And by local I mean in Ghana or even within the West African sub-region. Some of RB’s financial audits of the European Union, European Development Fund and European Economic Commission have been CSSVD Phase 1 of Stabex, Ministry of Health support programme (CHIM Project no. 8 ACP GH03, 2003), Ghana Audit Service (Project no. 8 ACP GH02 in 1998 and 8 ACP TPS in 2003), setting the strategy, planning and supervising field work, preparation and review of reports.

The Ghana Living Standards Survey 4 was a joint European Commission-World Bank Project (No. 7 ACP Gh 035-35, 2001) that Reindorf Perbi was financial auditor of as KPMG’s engagement partner. R.B. was the concurrent partner who ensured that all matters relating to reporting consideration were taken into account regarding the financial audit of Pan-African Institute for Development (PAID).  He reviewed the working papers and reports submitted by the field staff, ensured that all quality control considerations were met and led discussions and presentations of our reports. This was a project in Burkina Faso, financed by the Netherlands Government, which involved checking compliance of project expenditures with approved budget, accounting of all revenues and reporting on the same.

Family Matters

With all these gargantuan projects under his watch, RB managed to form a flourishing family. In fact, he had strategized with his wife for her to take a seasonal and less time-demanding professional route in order that they might fend well for the children.

R.B. married the first child of the celebrated ethnomusicologist Emeritus Professor J.H. Kwabena Nketia, Akosua Adoma, at the University of Ghana in 1977. She would end up as a professor of history at the same University and between them have four (4) children–two boys and two girls: Dr. Yaw Perbi (The HuD Group, Kwiverr, Lausanne Movement), Mrs. Amma Eleblu (PriceWaterhouseCoopers), Adwoa Konadu Perbi (Gates Foundation) and Nana Nketia Perbi (Stanbic Bank Ghana). At the time of writing, R.B. and Akosua had 11 grandchildren.

SIGNIFICANCE

On Saving a Nation

All of Reindorf Perbi’s professional gravitas would come to bear on saving his nation Ghana from political mayhem when the Supreme Court hearing the 2012 election petition challenging the legitimacy of declaring President John Dramani Mahama as President settled on KPMG “as referees in counting pink sheets exhibits produced before the court as evidence of alleged irregularities in the December 2012 presidential elections.” The court, presided over by Justice William Atuguba on May 9, 2013, “took the decision after the exact number of pink sheets exhibits had become a dispute between the petitioners and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a respondent in the case.” The presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, his running mate, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, and the Chairman of the NPP, Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey had alleged that gross and widespread irregularities took place on the face of the pink sheets from 11,842 polling stations.

The hearing of the substantive petition began on April 17, 2013 and had been muddied by inconsistency of the vital electoral documents that are signed on the ground, at polling stations, by representatives of the various political parties. This was a serious and sensitive matter that some had even described as a “Pink Sheet “War.”” As deputy senior partner of KPMG at the time many like me had no doubt that the nation as a whole and the process itself was in safe hands knowing the calibre of a professional Mr. Perbi was and the depth of character he and the KPMG brand he had helped grow from the late 1970s and then the mid 1980s possessed. And we were not disappointed.

Led by the senior partner, Mr. Joe Winful, KPMG presented 15 copies of their final report to the registrar of the Supreme Court by 9am on June 24, 2013. As Mr. Winful intimated on behalf of KPMG, “We worked thoroughly and tirelessly, including weekends and sometimes up to 2 a.m., in order to finish the work on time.” He emphasized how “We have done our professional work diligently and are prepared to defend our work when called to testify in the case.” The character, competence and care of RB and co. no doubt contributed to the salvation of the nation.

Education as Bedrock

Reindorf Perbi is not only the proud product of solid education but a prime promoter of it, from sponsoring his own external family to broader initiatives in his hometown of Mampong, Akuapem. This belief in education has seen him volunteer to serve on the boards of significant educational establishments in Ghana like Achimota School and Akosombo International School as well as a five-year tenure on the University of Ghana Council. There are times when he has stepped in the classroom himself, whether in teaching Leadership and Management at Haggai Institute or as a former part-time tutor in accountancy at the University of Professional Studies and Government Accountancy School, Asylum Down, Accra.

Awards

Mr. Reindorf Baah Perbi’s illustrious work has not gone unnoticed. He has been the recipient of several awards, spanning his school days to this post-retirement era. As a budding leader myself, I remember being so inspired by the citation in the book cover of a copy of Spiritual Leadership that I chanced upon in his vast library. That citation acknowledged his excellence in leadership of the University Christian Fellowship of the Ghana Fellowship of Evangelical Students (GHAFES) as its president in the early 1970s. He has also had the privilege of being a former honorary auditor of Scripture Union Ghana.

Not too long ago, the International Needs Ghana board presented the Ray Harrison Distinguished Service Award to Reindorf. He was board chair in 1988 during those crucial days when International Needs ventured into the Trokosi system to rescue young women from the claws of a system of shrine slavery. You may read more about that here. This campaign gained attention all over the world.

Also, many who didn’t know that the farming genes from his parents weren’t as suppressed as they thought were caught by surprise when in 2009 RB won the Best Cattle Farmer in Wetsonya, Eastern Region of Ghana at the National Farmers Day awards. He is a Lifelong Fellow of the Oxford Club, USA.

Membership of Boards

The following are some boards and councils that Mr. Perbi has served on, and in some cases chaired:

• Institute for Christian Impact (chair of the board until recently)
• Guaranty Trust Bank (Ghana) Limited board  (2017-to August 2018)
• University of Ghana Council (2017 – 2021)
• KPMG West Africa board (2005-2007)
• Institute of Chartered Accountants (Ghana) ICA(G) council
• Ghana-Netherlands Chamber of Commerce (GNCBB)
• International Needs (Ghana) board (1985 – 2000), board chair
• International Needs Network (New Zealand) (2006 – 2012), as External International Board member and Treasurer
• Adisadel College Endowment Fund (Vice-chairman)
• Legon Interdenominational Church (LIC), Council of Elders
• Haggai Institute Alumni Association of Ghana (board chair)
• Senior Advisory Committee for Ghana Fellowship of Evangelical Students (GHAFES), Chair
• Nketia Music Foundation, Chair
• Genius Youth Club, Patron

Publications and Presentations

Reindorf is a powerful presenter and prolific writer in both his personal and professional capacity. This can be traced back to his student days in both the second and third cycles. In the first dozen years of his work life, one of his moments of shining was as a Rapporteur-General during the Association of Accountancy Bodies of West Africa (ABWA) maiden conference in Abeokuta Nigeria (1986). He still prides in his “The Accountant and the Control of Corruption” article in The Professional Accountant, a magazine of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana (ICAG) two decades ago (2005). To two key audiences–Ghana’s Minister of Finance as well as the Council of ICAG–he presented a key paper that year after on “The Need for Change in Government of Ghana Financial Year.” That same year was his lecture on “The Professional Accountant and the Public Interest” to the Joint Professional Bodies Association Continuing Professional Development.

RB has presented umpteen times as a member faculty for Leadership & Management workshops and training of Haggai Institute Alumni Association of Ghana and is a contributor to the LIC Magazine, the publication of the Legon Interdenominational Church (at the University of Ghana) where he’s been worshipping for the last thirty plus years. He on occasion preaches there, and in other churches, as well.

Twice, Mr. Perbi has been a speaker at the HORASIS Global Conference (2018 and 2019). RB has visited/attended meetings and conferences/ training in 39 countries in Africa, Europe, U.S.A, Canada, South America, Asia and the Middle East.

Retirement? Not Really.

After a cumulative thirty-two (32) years at KPMG (1974-1977; 1986-2015) Reindorf Kofi Baah Perbi retired as Deputy Senior Partner of KPMG Ghana in April 2015, where he had provided direct  assistance in managing the Ghana Practice, as well as been the Partner in charge of Quality and Risk Management, Ethics & Independence, and Human Resource. He had earlier been leading Management Consulting, Audit, Receivership & Liquidations and Special Engagements. RBP served as a member of KPMG’s Executive Board for West Africa also, a key role that would take him to various countries in the sub-region like Sierra leone, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, 

At his retirement, it was humbling to hear how many of his Accounting, Management Consulting, and Audit colleagues honoured him for this one thing: integrity. I sat at those banquets (yes, there was more than one! Lol!) soliloquising, “I want that. When all is said and done, that’s the kind of man I want to be!” Mr. Perbi is in what I would call “active retirement” as he, among other things, serves as a very involved Executive Chairman of CEDARS Investments Ltd., which he founded in ? and is a recent director of the Adansi Rural Bank Plc. He often travels out of Accra on various adventures within the country.

Governor-in-Chief and Advisor-in-Chief

‘Chief’ is a nickname his contemporaries from Adisadel College have for RB (we’ll save that story for another day). With all the amazing life and leadership experiences underneath his belt, including equipped with in-depth knowledge in Governance, Petroleum, Mining, Manufacturing, Financial and Construction sectors, it is no wonder that a year after retirement, Guaranty Trust Bank (Ghana) appointed him to their board as Independent Non-Executive Director, describing him as “a seasoned accountant and investment consultant.” Reindorf’s five-year membership of the ACCA Global Forum, for Risk & Governance, spanned his pre and post-retirement periods  (2012 – to 2017).

RB has served as Council Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (Ghana) and on several governance and advisory boards. As Consultant/Head Reviewer of the Quality Assurance and Monitoring Unit, Mr. Reindorf B. Perbi ended his consultancy tenure with the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana as lead reviewer in 2021, after a fruitful three-year period spanning December 2018 to December 2021. RB has served as a member of the University of Ghana Council, sometimes presiding over and dissolving the sessions of the Congregation/Graduation, sitting in for the Chancellor Kofi Annan (2008-2018) or Mary Chinery-Hesse (2018-present).

PELÉ

Mr. Reindorf Baah Perbi serves as an audit and governance consultant at PELÉ where authentic and customised relationships and resources are offered to C-level executives to grow personally, succeed professionally, and become significant societally. We just could not resist  leveraging his immense experience and expertise to help many others to be and do the same–and more.

CONCLUSION

Here is an inspiring global leader who represents many unsung heroes. Whether as a Chartered Accountant or Management Consultant, Reindorf Kofi Baah Perbi has been and/or orchestrated the financial and managerial backbone of many companies to ensure shareholder value without fanfare and with hardly any online presence. RB has led a quiet and peaceable life, retained faithfully his wife and family and as in his corporate life, has been the trellis that has held up all sorts of vines to flourish.

Reindorf has wealth that we know is earned and a name that is even better than riches, giving his descendants the pride to carry the name and the courage to place it on various commercial as well as social ventures. The name has opened many doors. If integrity had a face, it would be that of R.B. Perbi, an African colossus in finance and a poster child of integrity. And we who know him best, love and respect him most. That, is success. 

 

Post Script: At his seventy-fifth birthday dinner in Accra on 28th April 2025, RBP was pleasantly surprised by the dual launch of the Perbi Family Foundation (finally formalising the immense philanthropy of the family locally and globally) and of his full autobiography project to be published by the end of 2025, DV.

 

ENDNOTES

1. John C. Maxwell 
2. Yaw Perbi. “I Don’t Care How Good You Are–If You’re Not a ‘Walkie Talkiie’. www.yawperbi.com https://yawperbi.com/dont-care-good-2if-youre-not-walkie-talkie/
3.  Ibid.
4.  Ivy Benson. “Ghana: Supreme Court Contracts KPMG.“ All Africa. 10 May 2013. https://allafrica.com/stories/201305101597.html
5.  Ibid
6. Samuel K. Obour. “KPMG report ready.” Graphic Online. June 24, 2013. https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/politics/kpmg-report-ready.html
7. My Joy Online. “KPMG done auditing pink sheets.” MyJoyOnline.Com. June 1, 2013. https://www.myjoyonline.com/kpmg-done-auditing-pink-sheets/
8. Samuel K. Obour. “KPMG report ready.” Graphic Online. June 24, 2013. https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/politics/kpmg-report-ready.html
9. Ibid.
10. Ghana. International Needs. https://ineeds.org.uk/countries/ghana/
11.  Yaw Perbi. “I Don’t Care How Good You Are–If You’re Not a ‘Walkie Talkiie’. www.yawperbi.com https://yawperbi.com/dont-care-good-2if-youre-not-walkie-talkie/
12. Ben Ackah-Mensah and GTBank. “GTBank Appoints a New Director to its Board.” 31 August 2017.
13. https://www.gtbghana.com/media-centre/press-releases/gtbank-appoints-a-new-director-to-its-board
14.  University of Ghana, Legon. “UG Holds July 2018 Congregation Ceremonies.” 23 July, 2018. https://old1.ug.edu.gh/news/ug-holds-july-2018-congregation-ceremonies
15. https://old1.ug.edu.gh/pad/sites/pad/files/u6/paddocs/NOVEMBER%20CONGREGATION%20COLLEGE%20OF%20HUMANITIES%20UNDERGRADUATE%20PROGRAMME-min_0.pdf

Medical History is One of Health Leadership

Doctors Perbi and Biaye exploring the Dakar campus of Cheikh Anta Diop University,
including the frontage of the original medical school block built over 100 years ago.

It’s not for nothing that the Ghana Medical Association (GMA),  in a January 2024 press release following a November 2023 Annual General Meeting, asked all medical  doctors to thenceforth express their titles as ‘Dr. (Med)’ and ‘Dr. (Dent.)’ for dentists/dental surgeons. While they had their own valid reasons, including patient safety, personally it has coincided with a season where I keep meeting people who have always assumed my ‘DR’ title is because I’m a ‘book doctor.’ While I’m currently struggling to keep afloat in the middle of one such doctoral programme, of the latter kind, I’ve been a ‘body doctor’ since 2005.

In Dakar, Senegal on the Monday after St. Valentine’s Day, I experienced a rush of all sorts of memories—good and ugly, and even plain bad—when I took a pilgrimage to one of Africa’s oldest medical schools. My guide, an alumna of the said medical school, Dr. Rebecca Biaye, did a phenomenal job. Seriously, she could moonlight as a successful, paid tour guide but then again, until she’s done with her Dermatology residency her nights aren’t quite hers—she’s often on night duties at the hospital.

Back to medical history. Of course, Africans had medical doctors even before Hippocrates (the so-called ‘father of Medicine’) but in modern history the oldest medical school in Africa would be the faculty of medicine at Cairo University in Egypt, founded in 1827. From northeast we move deep south, where University of Cape Town in South Africa takes the silver medal (1912), and then out way west with bronze going to Cheikh Anta Diop University (formerly University of Dakar) where in 1916, the French created the “École Africaine de Médecine” (African Medical School). The University of the Witwatersrand (1919), also in South Africa, is a close fourth. 

If anyone has cause to believe this order above is not accurate (for example a university may have started, yeah, but its med school came up much later or did start on paper but the first actual intake was several years down the line) do assist me to rectify the above narrative. My own med school, the University of Ghana Medical School (UGMS), missed the top five mention on the continent having been first planned way back in 1919, but only taking its first students in 1962, a whole 14 years after the main University of Ghana itself had been established.

Apparently, the most recent medical school in Africa was founded in 2023, according to an article in the British Medical Journal, with more than half of all Africa’s medical schools—public and private alike—opening since 2004. Incidentally, just a day before the said Dakar pilgrimage, I bumped into the co-founder of the private Accra College of Medicine (founded in 2013), Rev. Professor Adukwei Hesse, an Internal Medicine professor of mine. His co-founding wife, Prof. Afua Hesse, also taught me Paediatric Surgery. Ghana’s other private med school, Family Health Medical School, was also founded by my Obstetrics & Gynaecology lecturer, Prof. Yao Kwawukume, and his wife Dr. Susu B. Kwawukume. I’m proud to have lectured in both medical schools on non-medical topics which medical students badly need to be more rounded and holistic in their formation for higher, wider and deeper impact, especially leadership and entrepreneurship! (Oh, don’t get me started!) These kinds of thoughts and (mis)deeds for which I’m better known may be why the uninitiated assume I’m a ‘book doctor’ rather than a ‘body’ one.

A 100-year old baobab tree in front of the Cheikh Anta Diop University’s original medical school block

Health Leadership in general, and Doctor Leadership in particular, is vital yet often taken for granted. The last time I made a presentation on the importance of leadership and coaching to the Ghanaian medical fraternity during the Ghana College of Physicians’ & Surgeons’ annual Medical Fiesta (in 2022), I cringed and cringed when a former dean of my alma mater opined that medical students had too much of a course load to ‘add’ studying leadership. For ‘A Leadership Primer,’ literally the title of Dr. Robert Grossman’s incisive article, I highly recommend  Dr. Robert Grossman’s incisive article on Doctor Leadership here. His introduction alone resonates with the title of this article, “Lessons from Medical History for Today’s Health Leaders.” Indeed, all of history is but a record of the rise and fall of leaders and leadership. Hear Grossman: “We know from history, and sometimes from personal experience, that the importance of leadership cannot be overstated. Whether in politics, business, sports, or academia, the person at the helm can alter the course of history. Yet to date, there is a sentiment that medicine (and radiology in particular) has failed to produce its share of leaders.”

Working IN medicine (clinician) requires a wholly different mindset, process and skill set from working ON medicine (leader). To be fair to the “book doctor” describers of this prescriber, I haven’t practised clinical medicine in over 15 years. But I’m always quick to add, as I coach, train, and speak on leadership in over sixty countries that “once a doctor, always a doctor.” It’s only that I work more on the software now [the mind(set)/thinking], rather than just the hardware [body].” Frankly, though–if we all will be honest–it’s the software that really runs the show, even running the hardware. N’est-ce pas?

Postscript
As our contribution to stopping the gaping leadership deficits we find among entry level workers and even with some C-level leaders, Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELÉ) is rolling out a slew of online leadership lecturers for personal digital learning and mastery. Come to think of it, all medics should be getting enrolled for free. After all, our lives are in their hands. They had better know what they are about!

MANSA MUSA–THE RICHEST MAN THAT EVER LIVED AND THE STOP MARKET (yes you read right, not ‘stock market’).

An artist’s impression of Mansa Musa with his hordes of soldiers. HISTORYNMOOR/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/CC BY-SA 4.0

In the fourteenth century Mansa Mūsā, emperor of the medieval Mali Empire of Africa, made a trip whose ripples were felt decades later. For the uninitiated, Ghana, Mali and Songhai were three of the greatest empires of the western part of Africa, south of the Sahara. Mūsā’s Mali empire spread 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometers) from the Atlantic Ocean to modern-day Niger. Some reports indicated it would take a year, at the time and with their means of transportation, to travel that breadth. The 14th-century traveller Ibn Battūtah noted that it took about four months to travel from the northern borders of the Mali empire to Niani, the Malian capital in the south. Mali formed a rich 24-city network of cities  

Mūsā the Man

Mansa, which means ‘sultan’ or ‘emperor’ in the Mandinka language of West Africa, was immensely wealthy, prodigiously generous and profoundly pious. The empire’s source of riches was the natural resources of two highly productive gold fields renowned for some of the purest and most prized gold in the world. Nations scrambled for pure gold, especially for the minting of national coins in which they took much pride.

Mansa Mūsā took a legendary trip to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, to perform the annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage with an entourage of 60,000 people, including a personal retinue of 12,000 slaves, all clad in brocade and Persian silk. On this trip were countless court officials, soldiers, griots (singing poets) and 500 slaves ahead of him each carrying a gold-adorned staff as he himself rode on horseback. Included in this Malian caravan were 80 baggage camels, each carrying 300 pounds of gold.

Either the grandson or the grandnephew of Sundiata, the founder of his dynasty, Mansa Mūsā came to the throne in 1307 (some reports record 1312) and took the said Mecca trip in the 17th year of his reign.  His route from his kingdom’s capital of Niani (northeastern Guinea today) on the upper Niger River would take him first to Walata (Oualâta, Mauritania) and on to Tuat (now in Algeria) before making his way to Cairo.

Typically the journey to Mecca and back took a full year with long layovers in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. So en route, emperor Mansa Mūsā made a stop in Cairo to visit the Sultan. That stop… Well, the historian al-‘Umarī, who visited Cairo twelve years after the emperor’s visit, found the inhabitants of this Egyptian city, with a population estimated at one million, still singing the praises of Mansa Mūsā. 

The Stop Market

To quote al-‘Umari, “The man flooded Cairo with his benefactions. He left no court emir… no holder of a royal office without the gift of a load of gold. The Cairenes made incalculable profits out of him and his suite in buying and selling and giving and taking. They exchanged gold until they depressed its value in Egypt and caused its price to fall.” That stop, stopped the market.

Apparently, so lavish was the emperor in his spending (one writer put it as “handing out gold like it was candy”) that he flooded the Cairo market with gold, thereby causing such a decline in its value that a dozen years later the market had still not fully recovered. It is believed that this visit caused many Muslim kingdoms in North Africa and others of European countries to desire to come to Africa. The rest, as they say, is history.

An African Leadership

The year of this much-talked-about trip was 1324. What does your history tell you was happening in the region of the world you hail from at the time? Since many Africans have been compelled to learn European history for obvious (colonial) reasons, we know that the 1300s were pretty dark days in Europe, fuelled by religious craziness, unfettered superstition and taken to the nadir by the arrival of the bubonic plague. Also known as Black Death, this pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people in Europe alone. Meanwhile the Black sultan Mūsā and his sub-Saharan African peoples were flourishing in ‘unimaginable wealth.’

This detail is from Sheet 6 of the Catalan Atlas showing Mansa Musa crowned in gold. BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

An elaborate 14th-century map called the Catalan Atlas features a prominent illustration of Mansa Musa seated on a plush throne, crowned in gold, holding a sceptre in one hand and a large golden orb in the other (see photo above). So says the map’s description:  “This Moorish ruler is named Musse Melly [Mansa Musa], lord of the negroes of Guinea. This king is the richest and most distinguished ruler of this whole region on account of the great quantity of gold that is found in his lands.”

A Gold Bar for your Thoughts

This is no tall tale. Even today, evidence of Mansa Musa’s resplendent reign still stand, like the Djinguereber Mosque, in Timbuktu, Mali, which he commissioned to be built en route back from Mecca in 1327, paying the Granada (Spanish) architect Abū Ishā al-Sāhilī who had travelled back with him from Arabia 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of gold. 

Mansa Mūsā’s army general had captured Timbuktu as a side show during the long Mecca pilgrimage. Emperor Mūsā would choose to spend significant time there on his way back to his own capital, eventually growing Timbuktu into “a very important commercial city having caravan connections with Egypt and with all other important trade centres in North Africa. Side by side with the encouragement of trade and commerce, learning and the arts received royal patronage” (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Eventually, three madrassas, including the still-standing Djinguereber, composed the University of Timbuktu, inscribed on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1988. The famed Malian city of Timbuktu was home to one of the largest libraries in the medieval world.

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Under Mansa Mūsā (1307–32?), Mali rose to the apogee of its power.” From the look of things, Mansa Mūsā the Black emperor may have been the richest man to ever live. Sorry, Solomon. In fact, Celebrity Net Worth puts his net worth at $400 billion in today’s dollars, making Emperor Mūsā  nearly twice as rich as Jeff Bezos. Amazing.

When it comes to Mansa Mūsā the Malian Maestro, however, too many get stuck on the money, but de Graft-Johnson concurs there’s more to legacy than gold: “The organization and smooth administration of a purely African empire, the founding of the University of Sankore, the expansion of trade in Timbuktu, the architectural innovations in Gao, Timbuktu, and Niani and, indeed, throughout the whole of Mali and in the subsequent Songhai empire are all testimony to Mansa Mūsā’s superior administrative gifts. In addition, the moral and religious principles he had taught his subjects endured after his death.”

Wait a minute. Stop. Where is all of Africa’s gold today; and where are her leaders of the Mansa Mūsā stock—immensely wealthy, prodigiously generous, profoundly pious, grand legacy-leaving?

 

References

De Graft-Johnson, John Coleman. ‘Mūsā I of Mali.’ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Musa-I-of-Mali 

Galadima, Bulus and Sam George. 2024. Africans in Diaspora, Diasporas in Africa. Langham Global Library: Cambria, UK.

Roos, Dave. 2024. ‘African King Mansa Musa Was Even Richer Than Jeff Bezos, Some Say.’ https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-figures/mansa-musa.htm

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf | A Beacon of Resilience, Determination and Leadership: Africa’s Premier Democratically Elected Female President

“If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough. The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them.”— Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

INTRODUCTION

At a gender equality conference organised by the Kwara State Government in Nigeria, Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf shared a poignant moment, stating, “I was jailed twice and sent on exile from my own country because I chose to be a resounding voice for the people.” ^[1]  Johnson Sirleaf, a Liberian politician and economist, holds a remarkable place in history as the first woman elected president of an African country, a feat the United States of America is still struggling to equal. Her leadership and resilience make her a fitting inclusion on Perbi Executive Leadership Education’s (PELÉ’s) list of 50 inspiring leaders, as her tenure redefined the role of women in African governance and global leadership. This essay delves into the extraordinary life of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, focusing on her personal growth, remarkable achievements, unwavering resilience, and lasting impact. The following paragraphs will explore how she rose to prominence, her significant contributions to leadership and gender equality, and the challenges she overcame in her journey to become Africa’s first elected female president.

 

GROWTH

Early Years

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was born on October 29, 1938, in Monrovia (Liberia) to Jahmale Carney Johnson and Martha Cecelia Johnson (née Krueger).[^[2] Ellen enjoyed a peaceful childhood marked by a strong sense of community, where the extended family system meant that everyone looked out for one another.^[3] In an interview with the Academy of Achievement, she reflected: “During my childhood and up until the time when I was moving up professionally, the country was a great place to be. Everybody knew everybody. It’s a small country, small population. So it was easy to move around, easy to pursue what one wanted.” ^[4] This statement underscores the close-knit nature of Liberian society at the time, highlighting the social and political environment that shaped her formative years.

Ellen’s experiences during her childhood laid the foundation for her future leadership, illustrating how a supportive community can foster resilience and ambition. 

At age 17, Ellen married James Sirleaf, a young agronomist who had a degree from the University of Wisconsin.^[5] After having four sons in quick succession, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf embraced the role of homemaker while many of her peers pursued professional paths. ^[6] Her husband, James Sirleaf, worked for Liberia’s Department of Agriculture and to help support the family, Ellen took a job as a bookkeeper at an auto repair shop.^[7]  When James received the chance to study in the United States, the couple left their children with grandparents and travelled to America together.^[8] While James worked toward a graduate degree at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Agriculture, Ellen enrolled in accounting courses at Madison College of Business^[9]. Upon their return to Liberia in 1965, James resumed his position in the Agriculture Department and Ellen began working in the Treasury Department, which would later become the Ministry of Finance.

 

Education

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf received her early education at the College of West Africa in Monrovia, Liberia. Her academic journey continued in the United States, where she studied economics at the University of Colorado Boulder. ^[10] She furthered her education with a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 1971.^[11] This strong educational foundation played a crucial role in shaping her future as a leader and economist.

 

Public Service

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s journey as a prominent political voice in Liberia began with her impactful speech at her high school alma mater in 1971, where she boldly criticised the government.^[12] This marked the start of her advocacy for accountability and reform in her country. Prior to this, in 1965, she served in the Treasury Department, and by 1979, she had been appointed Minister of Finance. In this role, she implemented measures aimed at addressing the mismanagement of government finances, demonstrating her commitment to improving Liberia’s economic governance. [13]

Her personal financial integrity made her popular but not without clashes with the two heads of state of Liberia she served under during their respective tenures. [14] She served in various governmental roles and implemented fiscal reforms aimed at stabilising Liberia’s economy. Her tenure in these positions earned her both admiration and criticism, but her dedication to improving her country’s welfare never faltered. According to Archives of Women’s Political Communication of Iowa State University, Sirleaf became the president of the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI) in 1980 but had to flee that same year to Kenya as a result of an increasingly suppressive military government.[15] 

In Kenya, she served as the vice president of Citicorp’s Africa Regional Office in Nairobi but later moved to Washington, D.C. where she became the senior loan officer at the World Bank and the vice president for Equator Bank.[16] 

From 1992 to 1997, Sirleaf was the director of the Regional Bureau for Africa of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). During these years, Liberia was plunged into civil war and Ellen ran for president in the 1997 election of Liberia but came second place.  “I felt I’d earned the stripes and I could compete as effectively as anybody else. I’d gone through all the trials and tribulations of political life and also had enough, I believe, international exposure, professionalism. And also, I didn’t think there was anybody who could be as competitive, given my experience, background in some things. I thought I was a formidable candidate, and I proved to be right.” Ellen gave this explanation when she was interviewed by the American Academy of Achievement.[17] 

 

SUCCESS

Presidency

Sirleaf’s path to the presidency was not easy. Liberia, a country marred by civil wars and economic instability, needed a leader who could steer it towards peace and prosperity. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won the 2005 presidential election and took office on 16 January 2006.[18] She was elected the 24th president of Liberia and the first elected female head of state in Africa. Gloriously, Ellen won re-election in November 2011. According to the Global Leadership Foundation (n.d.), Johnson Sirleaf (during her two terms as president) focused on rebuilding the country, attracting over $16 billion in foreign direct investment.[19]  She also attracted more than $5 million in private resources to rebuild schools, clinics and markets, and fund scholarships for capacity building. She successfully negotiated $4.6 billion in external debt forgiveness and the lifting of UN trade sanctions, which have allowed Liberia to once again access international markets.[20]  She increased the national budget from $80 million in 2006 to over $672 million in 2012, with an annual GDP growth rate of more than 7%. Her remarkable leadership and economic foresight not only revitalised the nation’s economy but also positioned Liberia as one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies during her tenure.[21]

 

Africa’s Iron Lady

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has been a steadfast advocate for peace, justice, and democratic governance—values that carried profound significance in a nation plagued by dictatorship and civil war. Despite the inherent dangers of opposing undemocratic regimes, often backed by warlords or led by them directly, Ellen courageously criticised leaders whose actions she believed were harming Liberia.

Initially, she supported Charles Taylor’s efforts against the oppressive regime of Samuel Doe. However, as it became evident that Taylor’s motives were self-serving and centred on consolidating power and personal enrichment, Ellen distanced herself from him. Reflecting on this during an interview with the Academy of Achievement, she remarked: “His motives were selfish, and he was there to take power and to enrich himself… That’s when we started to distance ourselves from him.”[22]

No woman had become president in any African country at the time Ellen contested for the seat of the president in Liberia. Although she came second in her first attempt and was charged with treason by the Charles Taylor government,[23] propelling her to go into exile, Sirleaf returned to Liberia in 2003 to chair the Commission on Good Governance, which oversaw preparations for democratic elections after civil war had resumed in Liberia by 1999. While in exile (in Ivory Coast), she established a venture capital vehicle for African entrepreneurs and founded Measuagoon, a Liberian community development NGO.[24] 

 

In 2005, Ellen ran for president in Liberia where she came second in the first round of voting (after George Weah) and on November 8, 2005 she won the runoff election and was sworn in on January 16, 2006 as the 24th President of the Republic of Liberia, two years after the nation’s bloody civil war ended. 

 

Given this context, it is not surprising that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is known in international circles as ‘Africa’s Iron Lady’.[25]  Reflecting her bold and ambitious outlook, she famously wrote in her memoir, This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa’s First Woman President, “If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough. The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them.”.[26] 

 

This statement encapsulates her philosophy on ambition, courage and pursuing goals that push boundaries and inspire growth.

 

SIGNIFICANCE

Sirleaf’s election as President of Liberia was a beacon of hope for Liberia, signalling a new era of stability and progress. During her presidency, Sirleaf focused on rebuilding Liberia’s infrastructure, revitalising the economy, and promoting reconciliation among its people. She implemented policies aimed at improving education, healthcare, and women’s rights. Under her leadership, Liberia made significant strides in recovering from the devastation of years of conflict, although challenges remained.

 

As president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf served as the chairperson of the Mano River Union, where she spearheaded initiatives aimed at fostering political stability and economic cooperation among Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire.[27] She was also a founding member of the International Institute for Women in Political Leadership.[28] In 1999, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) appointed her to a committee investigating the Rwandan genocide, showcasing her commitment to human rights and justice. Additionally, she chaired the commission for the Inter-Congolese Dialogue and was selected by UNIFEM as one of two individuals tasked with investigating the impact of conflict on women and their roles in peacebuilding efforts.[29]

In 2011, Sirleaf was re-elected for a second term in a run-off vote, achieving an overwhelming majority.[30] Her leadership and advocacy for women’s rights and regional cooperation have left a significant mark on both Liberia and the broader West African region.

Throughout her career, Sirleaf’s commitment to her country, Liberia, remained unwavering despite facing personal and political challenges. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, stands as a towering figure in African politics and global leadership. Her journey from an economist to becoming Africa’s first elected female head of state is not only a testament to her perseverance but also a symbol of hope and progress for gender equality and democracy worldwide.

Post-Political Life

In March 2018, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf launched the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development which has been specifically designed with dedication to promoting women’s aspirations for development in Africa.[31] 

In May 2019, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) appointed Ellen as Goodwill Ambassador for the health workforce. The WHO explained Ellen’s appointment in the press release stating that, “following the Ebola epidemic in Liberia in 2015, she oversaw the expansion of Primary Health Care and the creation of more than 4,000 new health worker jobs as part of the post-Ebola response.”[32] 

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Ellen stepped down from her role as Goodwill Ambassador for the WHO’s health workforce to serve as co-chair of the WHO’s Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPR), alongside Helen Clark (former Prime Minister of New Zealand).[33] 

In 2020, she was also appointed to the Development Advisory Council of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) which counsels the DFC on approaches to enhancing development impact.[34] Ellen as well became a member of the High-Level Group of Personalities on Africa-Europe Relations from 2020 till date. 

She currently serves as a Member of the  Advisory Board of Brenthurst Foundation[35], and member of the Board of Directors of the Mastercard Foundation.[36]

 

Awards and Honours

In 2011, President Sirleaf was jointly awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize for Peace. This  generated a pre-election controversy wherein other Liberian presidential candidates complained that the Nobel Committee was interfering with Liberian politics by awarding the prize so close to the election. Ellen is also the recipient of The Presidential Medal of Freedom—the United States’ highest civilian award—for her personal courage, and unwavering commitment to expanding freedom and improving the lives of Africans.[37] 

Her many honours also include the Grand Croix of the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest public distinction, and being named one of Forbes’ “100 Most Powerful Women in the World.” She was one of six “Women of the Year” (Glamour, 2010), among the 10 best leaders in the world (Newsweek, 2010) and top 10 female leaders (TIME, 2010). In 2010, The Economist called her “the best President the country has ever had.”[38]

Sirleaf Johnson has been awarded honorary doctorates by more than 15 institutions, including: Tilburg University (Netherlands), the Nigerian Defence Academy, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Harvard University, Rutgers University, Yale University, Georgetown University, the University of Abeokuta (Nigeria), the University of Minnesota, Furman University of South Carolina, Brown University, Indiana University, Dartmouth College, Concordia University, Langston University, Spelman College and Marquette University.[39]

CONCLUSION

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s influence extends far beyond her presidency; she remains actively engaged in global initiatives that advocate for peace, development, and women’s empowerment. Her legacy as a trailblazer in African politics is profound, inspiring future generations of leaders, particularly women, around the world.

Sirleaf’s life and career are testaments to resilience, determination, and exceptional leadership. From her beginnings as an economist to becoming Liberia’s first female president and a Nobel laureate, her journey exemplifies the transformative power of dedicated public service. The impact she has made on Liberia and beyond highlights the crucial role of strong leadership in nurturing democracy, peace, and sustainable development.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is not merely a historical figure; she is a beacon of hope and inspiration for people everywhere, embodying the potential for positive change through unwavering commitment and vision.

 

References

1. Premium Times. (n.d.) “I was jailed, exiled for defending Liberians – Former President Johnson Sirleaf.” Available: ttps://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/418003-i-was-     jailed-exiled-for-defending-liberians-former-president-johnson-sirleaf.html?tztc=1.     Retrieved July 2, 2024.
2. My Heritage. (n.d.) Ellen Sirleaf (born Johnson) born 1983. Available: https://www.myheritage.com/names/ellen_sirleaf. Retrieved July 2 2024. 
3. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—All Achievers. (2008) .Available: https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-  johnson-  sirleaf/#interview. Retrieved July 2 2024.
4. Ibid. 
5. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. (2024) “Ellen Johnson Sirleaf”. Encyclopedia         Britannica:https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ellen-Johnson-Sirleaf. Retrieved July 2 2024. 
6. Bourlin, O. (2013). Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (1938-). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/johnson-sirleaf-ellen-1938/. Retrieved July 2 2024. 
7. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—All Achievers. (2008). Available: https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-       johnson-        sirleaf/#interview. Retrieved July 2 2024.
8. Metzlar, M. (2021). Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Exile, Election, Exile, Election – a long way of becoming president. Available: https://raffia-magazine.com/2021/01/25/ellen-johnson-sirleaf-exile-election-exile-election-a-long-way-of-becoming-president/
9. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—All Achievers. (2008). Available: https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-       johnson-        sirleaf/#interview Retrieved July 2 2024.
10. Amana A. (n.d.) Ellen Sirleaf: An Amazon’s Journey in Active Politics and Leadership. Available: https://www.amazonswatchmagazine.com/governance-in-heels/ellen-sirleaf-an-amazons-journey-in-active-politics-and-leadership/. Retrieved July 2 2024.
11. Archives of Women’s Political Communication. (n.d.) Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.         https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/directory/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/. Retrieved July 2 2024. 
12. Ibid. 
13. Ibid. 
14. Britannica; The Editors of Encyclopaedia. (2024) “Ellen Johnson Sirleaf”. Encyclopedia         Britannica:https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ellen-Johnson-Sirleaf. Retrieved July 2 2024. 
15. Ibid.
16. Gilpin, R., & Hsu, E. (2008). Is Liberia’s Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program a” necessary Intrusion?”. United States Institute of Peace.  Available: https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PB-May2008-Is-Liberias-Governance.PDF. Retrieved July 2 2024.
17. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—All Achievers. (2008). Available: https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-       johnson-        sirleaf/#interview Retrieved July 2 2024.
18. Ibid
19. 19. Global Leadership Foundation.(n.d.) “Ellen Johnson Sirleaf” President, Liberia 2006-2018:           https://www.g-l-f.org/who-we-are/members/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/ Retrieved July 2 2024.
20. 20. Ibid
21. United Nations (n.d.). First Female President of Liberia & Nobel Peace Laureate. Available: https://www.un.org/en/conf/migration/assets/pdf/Ellen-Sirleaf-Bio.pdf. Retrieved July 2 2024.
22. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—All Achievers. (2008) . Available: https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-       johnson-        sirleaf/#interview Retrieved July 2 2024.
23. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2024). “Ellen Johnson Sirleaf”. Encyclopedia         Britannica:https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ellen-Johnson-Sirleaf. Retrieved July 2 2024. 
24. Ibid.
25. United Nations (n.d.). First Female President of Liberia & Nobel Peace Laureate. Available: https://www.un.org/en/conf/migration/assets/pdf/Ellen-Sirleaf-Bio.pdf. Retrieved July 2 2024.
26. Johnson, E. S. (2009). This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa’s First Woman President.
27. Columbia World Leader Forum. (2012). Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Available: https://worldleaders.columbia.edu/directory/ellen-johnson-sirleaf. Retrieved July 2 2024.
28. Mastercard Foundation. (n.d.) President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf:   https://mastercardfdn.org/people/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/. Retrieved July 2 2024.
29. Ibid
30. Metzlar, M. (2021). Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Exile, Election, Exile, Election – a long way of becoming president. Available: https://raffia-magazine.com/2021/01/25/ellen-johnson-sirleaf-exile-election-exile-election-a-long-way-of-becoming-president/
31. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development (2024). Building a Legacy of Leadership and Knowledge in a Center of Excellence. Available: https://ejscenter.org/. Retrieved November  29 2024.
32. World Health Organization (2019). Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf appointed as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Health Workforce.  Available: https://web.archive.org/web/20200715054041/https://www.who.int/hrh/news/2019/EJS_good-will-ambassador-hwf/en/. Retrieved November  29 2024.
33. Miller J. (2020). Veteran female leaders to head WHO COVID-19 review amid anti-globalism barbs. Available: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-panel/veteran-female-leaders-to-head-who-covid-19-review-amid-anti-globalism-barbs-idUSKBN24A2U3/. Retrieved November  29 2024.
34. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development (2024). Ellen Johnson Sirleaf joins the Development Advisory Council of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. Available: https://ejscenter.org/. Retrieved November  29 2024.
35. The Brenthurst Foundation (2024) Leaders Invested in the Economic Development of Africa. Available: https://www.thebrenthurstfoundation.org/people/. Retrieved November  29 2024.
36. The Mastercard Foundation (n.d.) Available: https://mastercardfdn.org/board-of-directors/. Retrieved November  29 2024.
37. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—All Achievers. (2008) . Available: https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-       johnson-        sirleaf/#interview Retrieved July 2 2024.
38. United Nations (n.d.). First Female President of Liberia & Nobel Peace Laureate. Available: https://www.un.org/en/conf/migration/assets/pdf/Ellen-Sirleaf-Bio.pdf. Retrieved July 2 2024.
39. Ibid

 

SATYA NADELLA – The transformational leader driving the resurgence of Microsoft

“The most important attribute that any leader needs to have—and it is often underestimated—is the need to create clarity when none exists.”— Satya Nadella

 

INTRODUCTION

Satya Nadella is an Indian-American transformational business leader currently serving as the Executive Chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation. He is credited with Microsoft’s resurgence, positioning it as a leader in cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence.^[1] Under his leadership, there has been a cultural transformation at Microsoft and the value of the company has grown tenfold to over $3 billion.^[2] Nadella’s remarkable rise to the top of one of the world’s influential technology giants and his achievements at the top is a story that is worth telling. 

 

GROWTH

From Hyderabad to Redmond

Satya Nadella was born on 19th August, 1967 in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. His mother, Prabhavati, taught ancient language, literature and philosophy of India at the college level.^[3] He describes himself as ‘my mother’s son’ as she was a constant steadying force in his life growing up. His father Bukkapuram Nadella Yugandhar worked with the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) administering many districts at different times in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. This meant Satya moved places often and lived in “old colonial buildings in the middle of nowhere with lots of time and space”^[4]. When Satya was six, the family lost his five-month-old sister and this had a devastating impact on the family, ultimately leading to his mother giving up her job.    

As a result of his father moving around a lot, Satya moved schools a lot until age fifteen, when the moving around stopped for him to enter Hyderabad Public School. His childhood dream was to play cricket for Hyderabad and work for a bank. This was fine with his mother but his dad pushed him to get out of Hyderabad for greener pastures. His father gave up the chance to pursue a PhD in Economics on a Fulbright fellowship in the early 1960s to join the IAS.4

When Satya was fifteen his father bought him a Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer kit and this spurred his interest in software, personal computing and engineering. In pursuit of this interest, he wrote the entrance exam to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) but unfortunately failed the exam, much to the disappointment of his father. Fortunately, he got admitted to Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) to study Electrical Engineering. He hoped that studying electrical engineering would get him closer to computers and software. He completed his studies at MIT in 1988 graduating with a Bachelor’s degree^[5]. He migrated to the United States on his twenty-first birthday in 1988 to pursue a Master’s degree in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. At the University of Wisconsin, he developed an interest in the theoretical aspect of computer science focusing on the computer science puzzle known as graph coloring.  Nadella completed his Master’s degree in 1990. He also has a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago^[6].

After graduation, Nadella landed his first job in Silicon Valley with the now defunct Sun Microsystems where he worked on workstations, which was his focus at that time. He worked on Sun’s desktop software and he spent two years with Sun witnessing a transition in the computer business as both Sun Microsystems and Microsoft were undergoing transitions. In 1992, Nadella left Sun Microsystems for Microsoft, a journey from Hyderabad in India to Redmond, Washington State, USA (location of Microsoft’s headquarters). 

 

SUCCESS

Influence of Family Life

Satya Nadella is married to Anupama, his childhood sweetheart. Anupama’s father and Satya’s father joined the IAS together and were friends. Satya and ‘Anu’ got married in December 1992 in India. By 1994 Anu had completed her degree in Architecture at Manipal Institute of Technology but was facing difficulties obtaining a visa to join Satya in the United States because of Satya’s permanent resident status there. Satya was told it would take five or more years to get a visa for Anu because of the existing rules regarding his permanent resident status. He was advised by a lawyer at Microsoft that reverting to an H-1B status would allow Anu to obtain a visa much earlier. He therefore decided to give up his green card to go back to an H-1B status, a temporary resident status. His priority was the love of his life. The decision worked and Anu eventually joined him in the US. Satya subsequently gained notoriety as the guy who gave up his green card. Satya and his family live in Bellevue, Washington.^[7]

The couple have two daughters. They lost a son, Zain, at the age of 26 in 2022; Zain was born with cerebral palsy.^[8] Just as the loss of his five-month-old sister had affected and shaped his family in the 1970s, the birth of Zain in August 1996 with cerebral palsy and his subsequent death in February 2022, shaped Satya and Anu’s understanding of life. They learned that the problems of life cannot always be solved in the manner one wants and that one must learn to cope. During one of his numerous visits to the ICU unit to visit Zain, Satya noticed how many of the devices were running on Windows and were increasingly connected to cloud storage. This drove home the importance of the work he was doing at Microsoft and reminded him of the importance of his decisions as the CEO of Microsoft. 

 

Leading and succeeding at Microsoft

Satya Nadella is praised for steering Microsoft away from a failing mobile strategy and refocusing the tech giant on cloud computing and augmented reality.^[9] He first joined Microsoft in 1992 working on its operating software, Windows NT. He steadily rose through the ranks at Microsoft, picking up valuable leadership lessons along the way from people like Doug Burghum, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

In 1999, Satya was appointed vice president of small businesses and in 2001, he was named corporate vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions. He was promoted to the role of senior vice president of Research and Development for Microsoft’s online services division in 2007. From 2011 to 2013 he served as president of Microsoft’s server and tools business. He subsequently served as a vice president of the tech giant’s cloud computing platform leading the transformation of the firm’s business and technology culture from client services to cloud infrastructure and services.^[10] 

In February 2014, Satya was introduced as the CEO of Microsoft taking over from Steve Ballmer, who had succeeded Bill Gates in 2000.^[11] Nadella’s first decade at the helm of Microsoft has been defined by cloud computing.  He has been championing cloud computing and positioning Microsoft to be a leader in the field. Cloud computing is transforming businesses around the world. Schools, farms and hospitals all over the globe depend on cloud computing. Under Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft is investing billions in OpenAI and is committed to building its public cloud computing platform, Azure, into a supercomputer for the world.^[12] Microsoft is on course to own its own $20 billion cloud business. On April 30, 2024, Nadella announced that Microsoft would invest $1.7 billion over the next four years in new cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure in Indonesia as it seeks to expand its presence in Southeast Asia.^[13] 

Nadella has overseen some of the major acquisitions by Microsoft: the $69 billion acquisition of Activision in 2022, the $20 billion acquisition of Nuance Communications in 2021 and $26 billion deal for LinkedIn in 2016.^[14] 

When he took over in 2014, Microsoft’s market capitalisation was just over $300 billion. After a decade of him being at the helm, the company’s market capitalization has grown tenfold to $3.06 trillion and Microsoft is a leader in cloud and artificial intelligence.^[15] Over the past ten years, Microsoft has created $2.8 trillion in shareholder wealth.^[16]

Nadella’s tenure as CEO is not without controversy though. In October 2014, during a Women in Computing programme held in Phoenix, USA, he stated that women should put their faith in the system and not ask for a raise and that the system will actually give them the raise as they go along.^[17] He was severely criticised and he apologised for his statement in memos to staff at Microsoft. He affirmed his support for equal pay for men and women for equal work and the need for women to ask for pay raises.^[18]

 

SIGNIFICANCE

Leadership Principles and Impact

Satya Nadella states in his autobiography, “Hit Refresh,” that he “was influenced by his father’s enthusiasm for intellectual engagement and his mother’s dream of a balanced life.”⁴ His leadership style has been shaped by certain principles he learned from playing cricket. The first principle is to compete vigorously and with passion in the face of uncertainty and intimidation. The second principle focuses on the importance of a leader putting the team first, ahead of the leader’s personal statistics and recognition. The third is an emphasis on the central importance of leadership, that is, the role leaders must play in bringing out the best in everyone on the team. Leaders must be empathetic and must bolster the confidence of the people they lead. He indicates that throughout his life’s work he has seen these principles at work. As an empathetic leader he has interacted with people globally and has seen at first hand the “interplay between empathy and technology.” The Microsoft CEO says “empathy isn’t a soft skill; it’s actually the hardest skill we learn.”^[19] He asserts that these principles have not only shaped his corporate leadership style but also his leadership style as a husband and father.

In a July 2019 interview with Chicago Booth Magazine, a publication the University of Chicago’s business school, his alma mater, Nadella listed three attributes he looks for in leaders. They are the leader’s ability to create clarity when none exists, the ability to create energy and the ability to create success in an overstrained space (environment).^[20]  

Nadella is credited with re-shaping the culture at Microsoft inspiring employees to embrace a “learn-it-all” curiosity that got all stakeholders of the company – developers, customers and investors – to engage with the company in a new way. He has placed an emphasis on the kind of soft skills that are often derided in the extremely competitive corporate world.^[21] Nadella believes that empathy is key to innovation and it is needed to understand and satisfy customer needs. He encourages business leaders to, “Listen more, speak less and be decisive when the time comes.”^[22]

 

Awards and Recognition

Nadella has been globally recognised for his achievements at Microsoft and in the global technology industry. In 2022, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan Award, one of the highest civilian awards by the government of India.^[23] In honour of his transformative leadership he was awarded an honorary Ph.D by the Georgia Institute of Technology in January 2024.^[24] He was named CNN Business CEO of the year for 2023 in recognition of him leading Microsoft to shift focus from the legacy of Windows to an industry-leading position in AI innovation.^[25]  In 2019, he was named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year.^[26] He was praised for his willingness to delegate. Also in 2019, he was named the Financial Times Person of the Year.^[27] He’s been named among Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the world twice, both 2018^[28] and 2024.^[29]

Nadella has served on many boards and committees including the Board of Directors of Starbucks, Board of Trustees of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago.

 

CONCLUSION

Satya Nadella did not expect to lead one of the world’s most influential and most profitable companies when he was a young man in the Indian city of Hyderabad. His dream then was to play cricket and to work in a bank. He eventually moved from Hyderabad to Redmond to work at Microsoft and in his early years at Microsoft, becoming CEO was “not even a thought” he says. Rather, his focus was on excelling in the little role he had at that time, according to him.  Nadella’s best career advice is,  “Don’t wait for your next job to do your best work.”^[30] 

 

^[1] Marcus Law (2024-02-06) Satya Nadella’s 10 Years as Microsoft CEO: From Cloud to AI  Technology Magazine. Retrieved 29th April 2024

^{[2] Wily Healy (2024 -04-23) If You’d Invested $10,000 in Microsoft Stock When Satya Nadella Became CEO, This Is How Much You Would Have Today  MSN.com Retrieved 29th April 2024
[3] https://www.globalindian.com/profiles/satya-nadella/
[4]} Nadella Satya, Shaw Greg & Nichols, Jill Tracie (2017), Hit Refresh: the quest to rediscover Microsoft’s soul and imagine a better future for everyone. New York, HarperCollinsPublishers, 

^[5] Satya Nadella’s life and career, from computer-science student to CEO of Microsoft and turning it into a $3 trillion titan  Business  Business Insider Africa. Retrieved 29th April 2024

^{[6] McCracken, Harry (2010-12-15). “Microsoft’s New CEO Satya Nadella: 10 Things to Know”. Time. Archived from the original on 4 February 2014. Retrieved 29th April 2024
[7]  https://news.microsoft.com/exec/satya-nadella/ Retrieved 29th April 2024
[8] “Microsoft Says Son of CEO Satya Nadella Has Died”. finance.yahoo.com. March 2022. Archived from the original on 1 November 2022. Retrieved 29th April 2024
[9]  https://www.forbes.com/profile/satya-nadella/?sh=50787c133bff Retrieved 29th April 2024
[10] Hollar, Sherman (2020-12-01). “Satya Nadella – Biography & Facts”. Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 2 February 2022. Retrieved 29th April 2024
[11] “Microsoft names Satya Nadella new CEO”. CNET. 4 February 2014. Archived from the original on 6 February 2014. Retrieved 29th April 2024
[12] Marcus Law (2023-01-23). Microsoft confirms ‘multibillion-dollar’ OpenAI investment  Technology Magazine. Retrieved 29th April 2024
[13] Edna Tarigan (2024-04-30). Microsoft to invest $1.7 billion into AI infrastructure in Indonesia, CEO Satya Nadella says  MSN.com
[14]} “Padma Bhushan: Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and Google’s Sundar Pichai get Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian award – Times of India”. The Times of India. 25 January 2022. Archived from the original on 26 January 2022. Retrieved 29th April 2024^[15]

^{[15] Jordan Novet (2024-02-24) Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella hits 10-year anniversary CNBC.com Retrieved 29th April 2024}

^{[16] Matt O’Brien (2024-02-03). Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella caps a decade of change and tremendous growth | AP News AP News. Retrieved 29th April 2024}

<sup>[17] Staff; agencies (2014-10-10). “Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: women, don’t ask for a raise”. Theguardian.com. Archived from the original on 17 September 2017. Retrieved 29th April 2024
[18]Swisher, Kara (2014-10-09). “Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Women Pay Gaffe: “I Answered That Question Completely Wrong.””. Vox. Archived from the original on 6 August 2020. Retrieved 29th April 2024

[19] Kylie Kirschner (2023-10-17). Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says empathy isn’t a soft skill — it’s actually ‘the hardest skill we learn’. Business Insider Africa. Retrieved 30th April 2024.

[20] Sandra Jones (2019-01-19)  Leadership Lessons from Satya Nadella | The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Chicago Booth Magazine. Retrieved 29th April 2024

[21] “Transforming culture at Microsoft: Satya Nadella sets a new tone”. www.intheblack.com. Archived from the original on 14 June 2020. Retrieved 29th April 2024

[22] Newsroom (2018-06-18). “Satya Nadella: when empathy is good for business”. www.morningfuture.com. Archived from the original on 14 June 2020. Retrieved 30th April 2024

[23]</sup> “Padma Bhushan: Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and Google’s Sundar Pichai get Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian award – Times of India”. The Times of India. 25 January 2022. Archived from the original on 26 January 2022. Retrieved 30th April 2024

<sup>[24] “Georgia Tech Presents Satya Nadella With Honorary Degree”. Georgia Tech News Center. 25 January 2024. Retrieved 30th April 2024

[25] Samantha M. Kelly (2023-12-31). Microsoft’s Satya Nadella is CNN Business’ CEO of the Year | CNN Business Retrieved 30th April 2024

[26]</sup> Lashinsky, Adam (2019-11-19). “Businessperson of the Year 2019”. Fortune. Archived from the original on 4 July 2020. Retrieved 30th April 2024

<sup>[27] Waters, Richard (2019-12-19). “FT Person of the Year: Satya Nadella”. Financial Times. Archived from the original on 5 July 2020. Retrieved 30th April 2024

[28] Isaacson, Walter (2018-04-19). “Satya Nadella”. Time. Archived from the original on 4 July 2020. Retrieved 30th April 2024

[29] Hobson, Mellody (2024-04-17). “Time 100: Satya Nadella”. Time Retrieved 30th April 2024</sup>

^{[30] Morgan Smith (2023-03-24) Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s No. 1 tip for career success  CNBC.com Retrieved 30th April 2024}

 

 

50 Inspiring Living Leaders

This 50 Inspiring Living Leaders series highlights current influencers who are succeeding in leadership, integrity, family or entrepreneurship in whatever field and exhibit most, if not all, of our values of PELÉ. We value people, growth, particularity, excellence, success, authenticity and significance. These stories are largely written in terms of growth, success and significance in leadership, integrity, family and  entrepreneurship. While we do our best to receive personal references about each leader, most of our research and writing is based on literature review of publicly-available information. As authorities in leadership, we are fully aware that there is no such thing as a perfect leader, and leaders may have their flaws, but we choose to celebrate these inspiring living leaders for their achievements outlined in our series. Having said that, should you happen to have any incontrovertible evidence that any of our featured leaders does not fit our bill of an authentic leader, please write to us at info@perbiexecutive.com. Our vision at PELÉ is a flourishing global ecosystem of authentic leaders characterised by healthy growth, holistic success and lasting significance.

Guard Your January!

Happy New Year! Welcome to the first blog of 2024, a pep blog. The equivalent pep talk is available on Youtube here. Now, this is the the bottomline of this debut communication: Guard your January. Guard your January!

I noticed this many years ago, maybe 15 years ago, that as January go so does the rest of the year. And so although a lot of people take quite a while to get out of the yuletide mood and year-end festivities I realized over a decade ago that by the second day of the new year I needed to grab a hold of myself and start thinking about the rest of the year, prayerfully planning etc.

So for instance at The HuD Group, a holistic emerging leadership development organization I co-founded 20 years ago and now has has work in about 25 countries on all continents, one thing we do and mobilize others to join us in is that from the 2nd to the 22nd of January every year we have a focused time of fasting and praying. We call it P³ or PPP because it’s a time of Prayer, Purpose and Planning.

Now, even if you’re not a person of faith you probably still agree, at least, that you are not just a piece of matter. You are here by the intentional creation of an intelligent Designer who has you here on purpose to fulfill His mission for your life. And so, think about your God-given purposes in January. Why are you here on Earth? Why has God given you another year? (Not everybody made it into 2024, don’t forget).

If you need some guardrails, you’re here to reflect your Creator in your being and your doing and so think about your purpose in 2024 in terms of

–Character (will you be a godly or God-like leader? In what ways?)

–Community (who are you going to intentionally hang out with this year, from family and friends to fellowships?)

–Celebration (what’s going to be the central joy of your life, ultimately how are yougoing to bring delight to your Creator a.k.a. worship)

–Contribution (as one “born to rule through service given” how are you going to lead differently in 2024?)

–Commission (you have an obligation to form godly, effecual leaders too; and better still when you can do it from the inside out with the redemptive power of God that comes from believing in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross).

As you think about these God-given and practical purposes, prayerfully consider each and plan your year accordingly. Don’t just be engaged in activities and running around in January–especially from program to program–because as January goes so does the rest of the year. Personally, I hardly take speaking appointments in January and I rarely travel in January because I realized many years ago that is a time to be focused, to be prayerfully intentional about the rest of the year. Last year I violated that, taking on what I thoutht was an ‘unmissiable’ speaking engagement in Kenya. Let’s just say I paid for it dearly.

May you grow in this practice of putting first things first, and in such a profound way that leads to more success this year and even more significance. Remember: guard your January! That’s my pep talk and blog, my first pep talk and blog, for you in 2024.

Leading with Courage 1: Dealing with Difficult Discussions.

All is set for a life-saving operation. On the surgical table lies a man whose continued living depends on the amputation of a diabetic foot that is giving the rest of his body hell. The renowned surgeon dashes in, marks a leg, drapes it quickly and begins to swab it, disinfecting the operating area for action. Then a sudden realization hits his scrub nurse like a thunderbolt. That is not the limb to be amputated. Would she have the courage to bring up this crucial conversation for a timely intervention? No. She remains silent. The wrong leg is amputated.

At the invitation of The Association of International Certification Schools (ASICS) in Ghana, PELÉ delivered a Masterclass on Leading with Courage: Navigating Difficult Discussions. This was at the Airport View Hotel in Accra. This is the second time engaging this body of leaders–founders, proprietors and C-level executives–of private schools that run either the Cambridge or International Baccalaureate programmes. At their Revive annual retreat in the Volta Region last year, the PELÉ team delivered a two-hour workshop on Leading with Self-Awareness, which included sharing an analysis of the DISC personality assessment of each of the ASICS council members and the potential areas of synergy as well as conflict as a team.

 

Scenarios

Dealing with difficult discussions could produce humorous scenarios like the banter between two of the richest people on the planet, Mike Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, that just might end up in an entertaining duel. It will be a sight for sore eyes should they actually, eventually, get into that much-talked about cage fight. However, not navigating difficult discussions well (or at all) could end up in sheer disastrous situations, like the surgeon (above) who amputated the wrong leg just because his scrub nurse couldn’t bring herself to raising that ‘crucial conversation’ when she noticed the wrong leg was being marked and swabbed for surgery. The anticipated pain we fear and so keep silent turns out better than the actual disaster that occurs because of our silence. Yes, often there is no pain per se beyond the little discomfort; but even when there is, it is better than we thought.  Much better. How many organizations are disastrously amputating wrong legs because the right mouths won’t speak?

Difficult discussions or ‘crucial conversations’ may range from high-level, multilateral Israeli-Palestinian issues to simpler organizational ones like delayed projects and presiding over a poor performance review to as personal as employee body odour or bad breath.

 

Hard Questions about Hard Situations
Since “thinking begins when you ask really difficult questions” (Slavoj Zizek), let’s ask a few Lencioni ones (from The Motive):

1. Do you organize “team-building” activities for your team that are fun but that largely ignore uncomfortable conversations about their collective behaviours?

2. Would you rather learn to live with a person’s difficult behaviours than endure an awkward, potentially emotional discussion with them?

3. Do you find yourself venting about your direct reports’ or other stakeholders’ behavioural issues rather than talking with them directly?

4. Do you find yourself saying about potential uncomfortable conversations, “I don’t have time for that” or “I can’t waste my energy on this”?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above four questions, you are a candidate for the Dealing with Difficult Discussions workshop.

 

 

One of Five Things C-level leaders Suck at

In his no holds barred book, The Motive, Patrick Lencioni observes that reward-centered leaders find the following five responsibilities tedious, uncomfortable, plain hard: 1. Developing the Leadership Team, 2. Managing Subordinates (and making them manage theirs), 3. Having Difficult and Uncomfortable Conversations 4. Running Great Meetings 5. Communicating Constantly and Repetitively to Employees. Smack in the middle of the junk pile is abdicating dealing with difficult discussions.

So, while these ASICS leaders are already prone to shirking their responsibility to navigate uncomfortable and difficult conversations just by virtue of being C-level leaders too, the ones who are African have the odds stacked against them even more as “high-context nations prefer the avoiding and obliging conflict styles more than low-context nations” (Croucher et al, 2012).

 

What to do
So what leaders need is a mindset shift as well as a new skillset. The saving paradigm is this: “Effective team-building always involves emotional and uncomfortable conversations” (Lencioni). Every leader worth their salt knows ‘it comes with the territory’ and the response-able thing to do is to deal with it response-ably. There is no true success in life or leadership without having to deal with difficult discussions. Navigating difficult discussions has more to do with YOU than the issue(s) or the other person(s) involved: one’s motives (for leadership), personality style (assessable via the DISC) and values. This is why whenever we can, we would rather run the Leading with Self-Awareness masterclass or workshop first, since these are only three of eighteen factors we bring to the fore that leaders must be self-aware of.

Ín terms of skills, the new skillset involves a couple of tools. One of the tools to practice is known as Climbing the Ladder of Integrity. In our 150-minute workshops, we invest at least half-an-hour of practicing this skill and getting feedback. Not so much for confronting someone per se, but for first getting clear within yourself.

 

Concluding with Courage
Leading with courage, really, is leading with heart (don’t forget ‘heart’ is cœur). With this courage, which is not the absence of fear but the taking of action forward in spite of it. In the words of former U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear. Progress.” Remember the anticipated pain we fear and so keep silent? Even the Madiba, Nelson Mandela, confesses: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” May we too, like him, learn this and lead with heart–courage, character, compassion, competence–navigating ‘crucial conversations’ and difficult discussions.

PELÉ’s vision is a global ecosystem of authentic leaders characterized by healthy growth, holistic success and lasting significance. Consequently, we are on a mission to offer authentic and customized relationships and resources to C-level executives to grow personally–including dealing with difficult discussions–to succeed professionally, and become significant societally.

 

REFERENCES
Patrick Lencioni (2020): The Motive: Why So Many Leaders Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilities. The Table Group.

Stephen M. Croucher, Ann Bruno, Paul McGrath, Caroline Adams, Cassandra McGahan, Angela Suits & Ashleigh Huckins (2012): ‘Conflict Styles and High–Low Context Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Extension,’ Communication Research Reports, 29:1, 64-73. Link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2011.640093

 

 

The ‘L’ Word. Leadership is Not a Dirty Word.

Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELÉ) just concluded a successful co-hosting of the annual John Maxwell Team conference dubbed Live2Lead in Accra. Corporate, non-profit and other leaders in Ghana experienced in real-time, via simulcast, the motions colleagues in Atlanta, Georgia were also going through in the United States. Live2Lead. Live is an ‘L’ word, so is Lead. Yet Google “The ‘L’ Word” and you are more likely to be greeted with Lesbian or even Los Angeles and not Lead(ership). In fact, a certain Showtime drama series that depicts these other L’s and aired in the first decade of this century dominates the internet should you conduct “the ‘L’ word” phrase search.

For us at PELÉ, Leadership is the ‘L’ word. If Dr. John C. Maxwell is right that “leaders see everything with a leadership bias,” then is it any wonder? This is incredibly important to us in our quest to form a global ecosystem of authentic leaders that in our DeepLEAD^TM courses, the first of all 24 modules (in a three-part series comprising eight modules each) is actually entitled “The ‘L’ Word.” We LOVE Leadership.

Some associate leadership with politics and because “politics is dirty” leadership gets a bad rap; leadership then becomes a dirty word and a dirty thing. Politics, like any other worthwhile thing, can be dirty. But even when and where it is true that “politics is dirty,” leadership is bigger than politics. In fact, our founding principal at PELÉ is on record to have said that “leadership is too important to leave it to politicians alone.” Similarly, because “Gen Z doesn’t do hierarchy,” the current rejection of twentieth century ‘command and control’ and ‘authoritarian’ leadership to rather embrace a flatter perception of the leader—plus the notion of twenty-first century ‘distributed leadership’—also tends to make the word ‘leadership’ undesirable, even demonized in some quarters today. For many, leaders and leadership have had a bad rap, a negative reputation, hence the title and subtitle of the first of our DeepLEAD^TM modules, The ‘L’ Word—Leadership is not a dirty word, with the wild hope to change that narrative in the head and heart of anyone who cares to pay attention. We establish the paradigm that the current rejection of twentieth century ‘command and control’ and ‘authoritarian’ leadership and the embracing of a flatter perception of the leader plus and distributed leadership does not exclude how vital leadership is and what it can/cannot do.

 

‘O’ for Objectives

While the overall aim of the DeepLEAD^TM Growth Series is “to establish an indisputable link between the person of the leader—including their self-awareness, life story, character, temperament, habits, emotional health—and the success of leadership,” the specific objectives of The “L’ Word module include exposing students to the wide array of leadership opinions and definitions to appreciate the breath and nuance of the ‘L’ subject. By the end of the course, one would’ve laid “the foundation for the topic of leadership in a memorable and definitive way for not just the course itself but for all of life.” While one would’ve compared and contrasted two dozen leadership definitions and descriptions, studied a 200-year panorama of leadership paradigms from the Great Man Theory of the 1800s to Authentic Leadership or Adaptive Leadership of the first and second decades of this century respectively, there’s an all-encompassing Dr. Yaw Perbi definition of a leader, which we use throughout the course and in our engagements with clients.

 

‘D’ for Definitions

It has been interesting observing the definitions and descriptions of leadership that have most caught the attention and strummed the heartstrings of the October 2023 cohort of the DeepLEAD^TM live Masterclass. Already, the fact that DeepLEAD^TM embraces complexity, straddles paradigms and tames tensions is forming these in them as they grapple with definitions that even seem contradictory, like Mandela’s shepherd paradigm of leading from behind and fellow Noble Prize laureate Mott’s whose definition of leadership is being in front and staying ahead! Here’s John R. Mott (Nobel Peace Prize laureate 1946): “Leaders are people who know the road, and who can keep ahead, and who can pull others after them.” Here comes Nelson R. Mandela (Nobel Peace Prize laureate 1993): “A leader…is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” The DeepLEADer has the wisdom to know when and where to be ahead or lead from behind.

Whether it’s the leadership theories, descriptions or definitions in The ‘L’ Word module, by the end of it leaders undergoing it would realize that no one theory, description or definition is enough to explain all of leadership. Warren Bennis captures the nuance and complexity of the ‘L’ word well when he asserts, “Like love, leadership is something that everybody knows exists, but no one can define…” No wonder, he explains, “decades of academic analysis have given us more than 350 definitions of leadership.”

 

Conclusion

What dominates our minds when it comes to “the ‘L’ word” is miles apart from what populates a typical Google search today. But Leadership is the ‘L’ word. And it is incredibly important, as strongly put in the DeepLEAD^TM series, that because “everything rises and falls on leadership” and “leadership is cause, everything else is effect,” one day, eventually, Leadership will get the most results in an internet search for “the ‘L’ word.” In the course we state, and it bears repeating, that “Whether in normal times or unusual ones, the tenets and principles of great leadership ought to be passed on to each generation.” So no matter what letters we assign to the generations–X, Y, Z, Alpha, whatever–that in each and every generation, the ‘L’ word would be Leadership. That’s what we live for, why we’re here. We live to lead.

 

Post Script

DeepLEAD^TM is for any leader seeking profound, authentic transformation—of self, systems & society—that lasts. There is a live DeepLEAD^TM Masterclass currently ongoing. Watch out for the launch of the online pre-recorded, self-paced version in December 2023.

Meet Motivational Marcus Buckingham, Master of Strengths

British best-selling book-writer and arguably “the world’s most prominent researcher on strengths, leadership and high-performance at work,” Marcus Wilfrid Buckingham, is a remarkable individual. If you’ve ever heard of Strengthsfinder, or better still, taken the phenomenal assessment, behold the co-genius behind it! Renowned for his outstanding contributions to the world of work and the fields of technology, innovation, and philanthropy, Buckingham is a global researcher and New York Times best-selling author focused on unlocking strengths, increasing performance, and pioneering the future of how people work. He is the author of two of the best-selling business books of all time, First, Break All the Rules (1999), and Now, Discover Your Strengths (2001), and his tenth book, Love + Work (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022) is a Wall Street Journal bestseller and has been heralded by Forbes as one of the ten must-reads for career and leadership. Marcus’ 2019 Harvard Business Review (HBR) cover article, “The Feedback Fallacy,” was selected by HBR as one of the most influential articles of the last 100 years, and Marcus’ strengths assessments have been taken by over 10 million people worldwide.

Born 1966 in Buckinghamshire in Britain, Marcus displayed an innate curiosity and passion for technology from a young age. After completing his formal education at Cambridge in computer science, Marcus co-founded a startup in the late 1990s that revolutionized the way people interacted with online content. The company’s groundbreaking platform garnered widespread attention and accolades, propelling Marcus into the limelight as a visionary tech entrepreneur. Throughout his career, Marcus remained at the forefront of technological advancements, leading numerous successful ventures and launching groundbreaking products that transformed industries. His dedication to innovation and his ability to anticipate market trends earned him a reputation as one of the foremost technology pioneers of his time.

Beyond his professional accomplishments, Marcus Buckingham has always been deeply committed to making a positive impact on society. He is renowned for his philanthropic efforts, actively supporting various causes related to education, healthcare, and environmental sustainability. Marcus firmly believes in using his wealth and influence to drive positive change and has donated generously to charities and initiatives around the globe. In addition to his philanthropy, Marcus has been an advocate for promoting diversity and inclusivity within the tech industry.

In addition to the self-published short film series Trombone Player Wanted, Buckingham has made numerous television appearances on US television networks and cable channels including The View on ABC, I Want to Work for Diddy on VH1, The Oprah Winfrey Show on syndication, Good Morning America on ABC and The Jane Pauley Show. Marcus Wilfrid Buckingham the English research-based motivational speaker and business consultant is based in California, USA.

 

BUCKINGHAM LIVE AT MAXWELL’S LIVE2LEAD ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2023

Marcus Buckingham speaks at this year’s annual Live2Lead Ghana, a brainchild of Dr. John C. Maxwell. As Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELE), we have been privileged to host Live2Lead on both sides of the Atlantic, in Montreal, Canada as well as in Accra, Ghana. We are absolutely convinced that leadership is taught; not just caught. Join John and the stellar faculty he’s put together for this year’s Live2Lead conference and up your leadership game.

This year, together with our partners in Ghana, we’ve chosen the theme, “Leading for Legacy.” Here’s a taste of Marcus Buckingham’s take on legacy: “Your strongest life is built through a continuous practice of designing moment by moment.” Legacy doesn’t just happen; it’s by intentional, intelligent design. Come and find out how, in-person at the Ecobank Ghana Headquarters in Accra, or online, wherever in the world you might be!

October 6 is Leader Day this year. Register now through this link. Impress upon your organization to join the Leadership Emphasis Day/Leader Day movement that will transform society by becoming a Patron of Live2Lead. A Patron company or individual is one that sends at least 10 leaders to Live2Lead. Together we can change our world for the better! Yes, we can!

The Father of Open Heart Surgery Opens His Heart at Live2Lead 2023

Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng is an astute German-trained Ghanaian cardiothoracic surgeon and founder of the National Cardiothoracic Centre whose recent foray into Ghanaian politics nearly marred his otherwise stellar legacy. He is also the Founder and President of the Ghana Heart Foundation, erstwhile Chief Executive Officer of Ghana’s premier teaching hospital (the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, in Accra) and immediate past Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation for the Republic of Ghana (2017-2021). He has been a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences since December 2002.

 

A STRING OF FIRSTS
The best leaders lead from the power of their life stories, positive and otherwise. Even before Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng would be born, his father Kofi Frimpong died from chest/heart injuries sustained from a road traffic accident. Kwabena was barely four months from birth. It comes as no surprise then that although his first love was engineering, due to his affinity for physics and mathematics while he attended Sekondi College in the Western Region of Ghana, he later would later go the doctor route at university. As if destiny was calling, after the University of Ghana Medical School and housemanship, he was offered a scholarship to study general, cardiothoracic and vascular surgery in Germany. As Frimpong-Boateng figured he could help people with heart situations like his late father, he took the opportunity to sharpen his craft and deepen his calling at the Hannover Medical University in Hannover.

So forty years ago, in 1983, Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng and his team of professors did their first heart transplant on a human being and then performed his first transplant as the lead surgeon in October 1985. This made him the first Black doctor to perform a heart transplant, earning him the nickname the “Black Pearl.”

At the time, he was recognized worldwide for this feat and as if that was not enough, in November 1988, three years later, he struck another first: the first heart-lung transplantation in Hannover. After finishing his post-graduate studies, despite being in very high demand in Europe, he chose to return to the land of his birth to practise as Ghana’s first locally based cardiothoracic surgeon. Frimpong-Boateng performed the first open-heart surgery in Ghana using the heart-lung-machine.

Even away from the hospital, as a farmer Frimpong-Boateng established the first ostrich farm in Ghana, in the village of Dedukope, in the Volta Region of Ghana.

 

SPEAKING OF LEGACY

Translating his personal success into societal significance, in 1989 he set up the National Cardiothoracic Centre at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and was commissioned in 1992. There were no cardiothoracic surgery facilities in the country at the time and this was really avant garde for a country still struggling with primary health care issues such as mosquito-bourne Malaria and childhood vaccinations. Today, people head to the centre from all over the continent for cardiothoracic attention and is now recognised by the West African College of Surgeons to train heart surgeons, cardiologists, cardiac anaesthetists, operating room nurses, intensive care nurses, cardiac technicians, and other cardiothoracic technicians. As a practicing Christian, he has said that his work on the foundation of the National Cardiothoracic Centre was God’s purpose in his life.

One of the greatest way to pass on legacy is by teaching others. Frimpong-Boateng joined the University of Ghana Medical School as a lecturer in 2000 and was promoted associate professor the same year. He was made a full professor in 2002. He also served as the head of the Department of Surgery at the University of Ghana Medical School, prior to his appointment as the Chief Executive of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in 2002. The Ghana Heart Foundation, which he also founded, raises funds to pay for heart surgery for some indigent Ghanaians who cannot afford the cost of such specialized surgery.

Again, he has done well, in terms of passing on legacy, by authoring a couple of biographical books, Deep Down my Heart: A History of Cardiothoracic Surgery in Ghana and Taming the Monster, a treatise on managing Ghana’s behemothic premier teaching hospital.

In March 2006, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng unsuccessfully sought nomination as the candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for the December 2008 national presidential elections. Regardless of his results, he declared he was still concerned with political issues in relation to education and health problems and would later become a Minister of State. Yet he regrets that political corruption in Ghana is too much and opines that politicians are not taking social priorities into account, especially the need for technology. His foray into the deep and often turbulent waters of politics, especially as chairman of the inter-ministerial committee on illegal mining in the country, nearly marred his enviable legacy of pioneering and impactful lifework. In a recent interview with the Africa Watch magazine, he boldly declared, “Impunity rules in Ghana.”

The erudite professor has had several local and international awards over the last four decades, including two honorary doctorates. Frimpong-Boateng and his wife, Agnes, have five children, some of whom are doctors also.

 

PROF. FRIMPONG-BOATENG AT JOHN MAXWELL’S LIVE2LEAD ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2023

The good professor speaks at this year’s annual live2lead Ghana, a brainchild of Dr. John C. Maxwell. As Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELE), we have been privileged to host Live2Lead on both sides of the Atlantic, in Montreal, Canada as well as in Accra, Ghana. We are absolutely convinced that leadership is taught; not just caught. Join John and the stellar faculty he’s put together for this year’s Live2Lead conference and up your leadership game.

This year, together with our partners in Ghana, we’ve chosen the theme, “Leading for Legacy.” Speaking of legacy, in the said interview with the Africa Watch magazine, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said, “Life is not all about fame and money, but more importantly, what one can do to help others.” He also recently wrote An Open Letter to Anybody Who Wants to be President of Ghana in 2025.  Among other things, words that bordered along legacy were the following:  “…the success of true leadership is measured by what extent the people can be mobilized to lead independent lives: to feed, shelter, clothe, heal, and defend themselves, and also produce tools, implements, spare parts and machines they require for daily living, so that if for one reason or the other ships and airplanes are unable to access the country the citizens can stand on their own and survive.” Come and find out how to truly lead successfully, in-person at the Ecobank Ghana Headquarters in Accra, or online, wherever in the world you might be!

October 6 is Leader Day this year. Register now through this link. Impress upon your organization to join the Leadership Emphasis Day/Leader Day movement that will transform society by becoming a Patron of Live2Lead. A Patron company or individual is one that sends at least 10 leaders to Live2Lead. Together we can change our world for the better! Yes we can!

Register HERE, NOW.