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.

Today is Leader Day. You Don’t Want to Miss the Inspirational Ryan Leak!

Meet Author, speaker, executive coach and film maker, Ryan Leak. Ryan is known for two documentaries, The Surprise Wedding and Chasing Failure. As CEO of a leadership development firm based in Dallas, Texas, Mr. Leak and his team train over 15,000 leaders every year–from Fortune 500 companies to professional sports teams.

Ryan’s passion is helping leaders push past autopilot and level up in their lives and careers. He spreads this empowering message through coaching, speaking, and leveraging the power of video to reach thousands through his online platforms.

As author of the USA Today bestselling book, Chasing Failure, and the Wall Street Journal bestselling book Leveling Up, Ryan and his work have been featured in dozens of media outlets, including Good Morning America and the Today Show.

Mr. Leak is widely known for that one time he planned a viral proposal and wedding on the same day. Most importantly, Ryan is married to his best friend, Amanda, and is the proud assistant coach for his son’s basketball team.

 

LEAK LIVE AT MAXWELL’S LIVE2LEAD ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2023

Today, the first Friday in October, is LEADER DAY (Leadership Emphasis Day). It is marked by the annual Live2Lead Ghana  conference, a brainchild of Dr. John C. Maxwell. And this year, the inspirational Ryan Leak is speaking! You don’t want to miss him. 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.” On legacy, here’s what Ryan Leak’s got to say: “short term decisions will dictate your long term legacy. Today is always a great time to start making better decisions that help us tell the story we want to tell later.” 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!

Today, 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!

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.

Open Letter to Anybody Who Wants to be President of Ghana in January 2025 by Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng

Ghana has not done as well as it should have done since President Kwame Nkrumah was unconstitutionally ousted from office through a military coup by the National Liberation Council on February 24, 1966. Ghana has had three other interruptions of governments. The present 4th Republic, dominated by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has not brought the transformational change that will put the country on path of sustainable development and prosperity for its people.

I dare say that the fight ahead of Ghana is greater than the fight for political independence and its people cannot be won with leaders who lack the zeal, commitment, conviction to confront their own demons and other forces and headwinds that are against the development of the country.

It is always said that one cannot re-invent the wheel and I believe in that old adage. I present here examples of what happened elsewhere on this planet not too long ago. I personally believe that the country can make progress when we get leaders who exhibit the qualities in the examples that follow.

The first example of transformational leadership is from Singapore. When the government of Lee Kuan Yew took office in 1959 it set out to have a clean administration. The Prime Minister said that “we were sickened by the greed, corruption, and decadence of many Asian leaders” and “We had the deep sense of mission to establish a clean and effective government”. This was a solid commitment from the newly elected Prime Minister. With determination and a credible program committed to scientific and technological development, Lee Kuan Yew and his team were able to live up to their good intentions and Singapore, which in 1819 was a village with 120 fishermen without natural resources and hinterland, propelled itself from third world squalor to first world affluence in just 35 years. This was commitment and a sense of mission personified.

The second example is from China. The economic development taking place in China is the result of an initiative taken by four scientists. On the 3rd of March 1986, four of China’s top weapons scientists: WANG Daheng, WANG Ganchang, YANG Jiachi, and CHEN Fangyun, jointly sent a private letter to Deng Xiaoping, the leader of the country, with a warning that decades of relentless
focus on militarization had crippled the country’s civilian scientific establishment. They recommended that China must join the world’s “new technological revolution,” or it would be left behind. They called for an élite project devoted to technology ranging from biotech to space research. Mr. Deng Xiaoping agreed, and scribbled on the letter, “Action must be taken on this now.” This was China’s “Sputnik moment,” and the project was code-named the 863 Program, for the year and month of its birth. In the years that followed, the government pumped billions of dollars into labs and universities and enterprises, on projects ranging from cloning to underwater robots. The program initially focused on seven key technological fields: Biotechnology, Space technology, Information technology, Laser technology, Automation, Energy, and Advanced Material Sciences.

Two more fields were brought under the umbrella of the program: Telecommunications (1992) and Marine Technology (1996).

In 2006, Chinese leaders redoubled their commitment to new energy technology; they boosted funding for research and set targets for installing wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric dams, and other renewable sources of energy that were higher than goals in the United States. China doubled its wind-power capacity that year, and then doubled it again the next year, and the year
after. The country had virtually no solar industry in 2003; five years later, it was manufacturing more solar cells than any other country, winning customers from foreign companies that had invented the technology in the first place.

Korea transformed itself from a stagnant agrarian society into one of the most dynamic industrial economies of the world within 40 years. In the early 1960s when Korea first launched its industrialization efforts, it was a typical poor developing country with poor resources and production base and small domestic market. Korea’s Gross National Product (GNP) in 1961 was only $ 2.3 billion (in 1980 prices) or $87 per capita which came mainly from the primary sectors. The manufacturing sector’s share of GNP remained at a mere 15%. International trade was also at a very infant stage: in 1961, Korea’s export volume was only $55 million and imports $390 million. As late as 1970, the three top exports were textiles, plywood, and wigs. South Korea now has established world prominence in such technology areas as semi-conductors, Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), telecommunication equipment, automobiles, shipbuilding, and many more. Indeed, it has emerged as one of the key international players in the global economy and is considered the 13th largest economy and one of the major trading countries of the world.

The last example is from the United States of America. When the 56 signatories of the Declaration of American Independence met in the State House of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia on the 4th of July 1776 to append their signatures to the famous document on declaration of America’s Independence this is what they said: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor”.

The signers of American Declaration of Independence, twenty-three lawyers, fifteen merchants, five plantation owners, four physicians, three scientists, two land speculators, one farmer, one military man, one lawyer/musician and one Minister, showed tremendous courage and bravery by willingly putting their names on that document. They knew full well that they were committing treason against England and they knew the penalty was death. Their commitment to the United States of America led to the creation of what is still the richest and most powerful country in the world. Ghana has not yet seen the type of closed, united, committed, focused, and dedicated leadership that is ready to sacrifice for future generations of Ghanaians. We have not had leaders who see beyond the next elections and plan for future generations. If a few leaders of this country, relying on the protection of divine providence, would mutually pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor for the development of Ghana, there would be a palpable change within 2 years. May be there is no sacred honor or fortune to pledge on.

The political corruption that is gradually gaining root in Ghana is very disturbing. When it comes to choosing leaders to run the political parties and the nation it is no more a question of looking for selfless and competent individuals who have what it takes to move the nation forward. It is more of who is loyal to powerful individuals who want their interests to be served after the power
is won.

I expect anyone who wants to lead this country to tell the nation now how things are going to be done differently so that young people would begin to have hope and stake in this country.

Our leaders have devalued themselves to the extent that they think only foreigners can help us out of our misery. How can someone tell us that he is waiting for a loan from some other countries before roads, schools and other infrastructural projects can be executed?

Our leaders seem to know it all and can develop this country without Ghanaians. After all they do not need Ghanaians to travel around looking for loans, grants, and handouts. They do not need Ghanaians to build the infrastructural projects. As it is, those who give out the loans also provide the highly qualified and skillful workers from their country to get the work done.

Our leaders’ understanding of development seem to be only the provision of infrastructure. No country ever developed by borrowing to build infrastructure. ‘Something’ else must be built on the infrastructure. That something is the true development.

As far as I am concerned the many roads, interchanges, schools, hospitals, wells, electricity, and other infrastructural projects, erroneously called development projects, do not alone determine the success of a Government. Rather 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.

We need attitudinal change. We should realize that the overall development of the nation, including the economic, social, cultural, and technological development is the responsibility of the Ghanaian. Mr. Future President, the men, and women to solve the myriads of problems facing us are here at home and in the diaspora. They have to be found and encouraged to perform. The task of political
leadership is to unearth the actors needed to transform the nation. If we say we have the men, let us use the men and not the boys.

We should exorcise the ‘beggar mentality’ from our lives and accept that our poverty is self-inflicted and it is absolutely unnecessary.

We pride ourselves as having been endowed with abundant natural resources. That is true but it is also important to know that natural resources have no natural owners. The real owners are those that have the technology, skills, and the financial power to exploit those resources. They are the ones that take 90% of the mineral and other resources and leave a mere 10% for the host country.

It really beats my understanding that our leaders do not seem to realize that the real difference between the developed countries of America, Europe, Asia and the Far East and the underdeveloped countries of Africa lies in their technological capability. This capability has been defined as the extent to which countries access, utilize, and create science and technology for the solution of socio – economic problems. Technology has the track record of solving developmental problems. Our modern world is driven by technology. Energy, agriculture, medicine and health, clean air and water, transportation, sanitation, management, utilization, and conservation of natural resources — all are based ultimately in science and technology. So, it is obvious that to be a part of that world, there must be science and technology elements in the development process.

Despite efforts to alleviate poverty, Ghana still exhibits chronic inability to alleviate poverty. Poverty alleviation means, for many people, being able to afford nutritious food, access to clean water and sanitation, energy, safe shelter, education, and a healthy environment. Since science and technology have a historical record in providing solutions to poverty problems, any efforts to alleviate poverty will not succeed without innovations in food production, water, energy, and health provision and in general economic growth. We must understand that Science, Engineering and Technology will give us the capacity to manufacture machines, develop processes and materials and exploit our abundant natural resources for national development. If we do not develop the capacity to manufacture machines that will work for us, we should as well forget about any dream of developing the Nation. No country ever developed without the capacity to manufacture machines. If we characterize Ghana as an agricultural nation, we do so by default because we cannot do anything else. We will continue to run the Adam and Eve, Cain, and Abel economy: planting yams and rearing animals. We have not advanced to Noah’s economy. He built a sophisticated ship that saved humanity and other forms of life. About 2200 years ago, the Chinese built the over 6300km Great Wall of China, without any assistance from the World Bank but we in the 21st Century have closed our minds to technology and need assistance to construct everything, including toilets. We need to constantly remind ourselves that the POVERTY GAP is a TECHNOLOGY GAP.

Again, our development should be driven by our ability to understand, interpret, select, adapt, use, transmit, diffuse, produce, and commercialize scientific and technological knowledge in ways appropriate to our culture, aspirations, and level of development.

Ghana needs a new brand of leadership. It is unacceptable that about 80% of inputs into agriculture, education and health are from foreign sources. It is a shame that a major thrust of our economic policy is to try as much as we can to attract foreign investors. Good as foreign investments are we just cannot sit down and think that without confronting our problems ourselves we can still be prosperous.

To my mind Ghana is unable to attract significant Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). Any country that does not take the development of her human capital seriously finds is difficult to attract Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). The high-income developed countries with well-developed human capital are not only the major source of direct investment, but they are also the major recipients. China and the United States of America are the major recipients of FDIs in the world.

There is ample evidence that multinationals are more active primarily between similar, high-income countries and that outward direct investment in particular is associated with skilled-labor abundance. Even when a multinational decides to invest in a developing country with low human capital base the type of investment is the vertical one in which the production process is geographically fragmented by stages, the capital-intensive intermediates being produced in the home country of the multinational and the labor-intensive stage produced in the host country. This is in contrast to the horizontal investments in which the multinational carries on basically the same activity in the host country as at home, for example, German investors producing the same cars in the United States of America as they do in Germany. This type of investment is almost non-existent in Ghana.

Finally Mr. Future President, I believe that the greatest asset of a nation is the trust and confidence of its people. This should, however, not be taken for granted. Leadership must also fight for this great asset by working hard with even-handedness for the people in all honesty. This asset has been and still is being squandered through misgovernment and corruption to the extent that leaders are not trusted and citizens do not see that they have a stake in their country and its future.

Most Ghanaians do not see any virtue in working for the future of their country. Our leaders have not been able to invoke in the citizens the spirit of nation building. Mr. Future President how are you going to rectify this situation?

God bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong.

 

A PELE Note

Prof. 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. This Open Letter was written by the good professor on 31st August, 2023. Perbi Executive Leadership Education (PELE) contacted him for his original typed up version on September 20, 2023 to republish here in toto, unedited whatsoever. He is scheduled to speak in-person at the John Maxwell Live2Lead Conference in Ghana on Friday October 6, dubbed Leader Day.