Truly Global Leadership

by Jeremy Solomons?

(This is an edited version of a chapter written in a new book,?Voices for Leadership, that was published in March 2022)

“We never know the reality of things: we see only what we are aware of. It is our consciousness that determines the shape of the world around us – its size, motion and meaning.”?(Nawal El Saadawi, Egyptian feminist and writer)

Over 20 years ago, the revered former General Electric CEO, Jack Welch, said: “The Jack Welch of the future cannot be like me” and yet to this day, much?global leadership development is still based on research and ideas emanating from Europe and North America.

Great work is certainly still being done on both of these continents but if leadership is to be truly global, now would seem to be the right time to challenge any?long-standing traditions and expectations; break free from?self-imposed limitations; expand horizons; and listen to the 90 per cent of the world’s population, who live beyond the Northern Atlantic shores and who harbor many sources of global leadership ideas, insight and inspiration - both ancient and modern. Here is a small selection from across the globe and from across time:

Around 2,500 years ago, it was Lao Tzu - Chinese philosopher and author of the “Tao Te Ching” - who foreshadowed modern-day communitarian and servant leadership when he said: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

Likewise, his contemporary Siddhartha Gautama - who founded Buddhism in India - predated the modern focus on mindfulness and self-leadership with such words as: “The mind is everything. What you think, you become.” and “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”

More recently, there was the fearless Ashanti Queen Mother, Yaa Asantewaa, in what is now modern-day Ghana. Her call to arms against British colonialism in the late 19th?century inspired more recent trends in?women’s leadership: “If you, the men of Asante,?will not go forward, then we will. We, the women, will. I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight till the last of us falls on the battlefield.”

It is not only individual leaders’ words that instruct and motivate but also traditional concepts within societies and cultures outside Europe and North America that are fundamental to their modern ways of being, thinking, acting and leading.?

In Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, people talk about ‘Respeto’, which loosely translates as ‘respect’, but this does not fully capture all of the nuances of this traditional cultural value and how it relates to leadership.?

‘Respeto’ is more than just respecting others. It is a very conscious awareness of the relative layers of hierarchy and authority and knowing the precise degree of obedience, deference, courtesy and public behavior required in a given situation in relation to other people of a particular age, gender or social status. Sometimes, it could show up in something as simple as whom you say “good morning” to at the office and how and when.

In the TikTok age, this may even show up in viral videos of mothers enforcing ‘Respeto’ with the deft precision of a thrown ‘chancla’ (or ‘flipflop’) in the direction of a child offender. Not to harm them but more to remind them who’s the boss.?

In Japan, there is ‘Nemawashi’, which means ‘laying the groundwork’. But it is really more than that. It is a gardening term which literally means “binding up the roots” for transplanting a tree. In Japan, an arborist would take great care to cut and clean each root, neatly wrapping them up, making sure that the tree is fully prepared to thrive in its new location. Likewise, a Japanese leader would smooth the way for any large-scale change by conducting unofficial pre-meetings to get input from the ground up prior to the formal meeting to discuss and confirm consensus on the proposal, thereby ensuring no big surprises - or ‘broken branches’.

Many people around the world already know about the Nguni Bantu term ‘Ubuntu’, which is usually translated as?"I am because we are”. This powerful concept relates to ‘humanity’, ‘community’, ‘interconnectedness’ and ‘togetherness’, and has been consciously embodied by South African leaders and influencers, such as Nelson Mandela, his daughter Zindzi and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who once said: “We need other human beings in order to be human.”

But there is another term that is less well known outside South Africa and has been particularly relevant during the Covid pandemic when the need for compassionate leadership has come to the fore. It is the Zulu word ‘Sawubona’, which literally means ‘I (or we) see you’ and highlights the importance of recognizing other people’s innate and deep worthiness, dignity and honor. The usual response is: ‘Yebo, Sawubona’ or ‘I (or we) see you too”.?

For many, it is a “deep witnessing and invitation to explore possibilities of helping each other on our journeys”, says Sharda Naidoo, a development economist in Johannesburg.?

And here in Rwanda - where this writer lives – there is the traditional and very practical, collective leadership concept of ‘Umuganda’ – or ‘Community Service’ – that was revived after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis. Until COVID-19 hit in early 2020, the whole country of Rwanda would shut down on the last Saturday morning of each month to allow whole villages, neighborhoods and streets to come together to do public service, such as fixing an old person’s roof, clearing clogged drains or building a community center.

No single continent, country, culture, institution or thinker has?the?right?answer or prescription for what makes a truly global leader. But it would seem wise for both current and emerging global leaders to free themselves from any pre-conceived notions of success and look beyond the obvious and familiar to discover a whole wide world of ideas, insight and inspiration. Or in the words of the 13th?century Persian poet Rumi, “Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?”