Newsletter 11 October: Wondering whether our nation has the Leadership it deserves - or just accepts

Hi there,

Have been thinking a lot about leadership this past week. And how much business and politics could learn from the sporting world.

It was sparked by last Saturday when our webmaster Justin and I cracked an invitation to the big rugby game at Ellis Park. It was a rare spectacle that lived up to all pre-match hype. SA had history, home ground advantage and more talented players. Yet we lost.

On Sunday I sat enthralled as heavy underdogs, West Ham United, put 3 goals without reply past Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane. Again, the losing team had history, home ground advantage and more talented players on its side. And was well beaten.

Both matches were a reminder that a team that works together on the field will invariably beat a group of more talented individuals.

As Malcolm Gladwell’s new book chronicles, it wasn’t just in Israel where David beat Goliath. Underdogs win all the time. Largely through the use of calm, unruffled leadership with the confidence to dispassionately apply unorthodox tactics.

We’ve been paying a lot of attention to the subject on Biznewz this week. As you’ll see in the list of our best read stories, we’ve aired concerns about issues bedevilling our beloved country. In most instances, it comes back to leadership. Or, rather, a lack of it. From business. From politics. From civil society.

Our business leaders remain only half-committed to grasping the nettle on matters like labour relations and investing into the domestic economy. Our politicians are passionate but in many cases sorely lacking in the kind of expertise required to run a modern economy. Each side doesn’t trust the other. In a highly competitive world, their suspicion stops them playing as a team. And the nation loses.

As civil society, we have no room for righteous indignation. We increasingly accept the previously unacceptable. We’re no longer outraged by fragrant breaking of laws, turning blind eyes or, worse, participating in creeping corruption. It starts with chatting on the cell phone while driving or agreeing that R50 gift to a traffic cop.

What irritates is it need not be so.

Leaders are everywhere, including inside our Biznewz community. Like Pat Symcox, a regular re-tweeter of our articles, whose grit and leadership rescued the Proteas from many impossible positions. And another of our community members, Sharks rugby captain Wayne Fyvie, whose heart, intellect and leadership got his team back to win many games they should have lost.

Proven leaders like Pat and Wayne and hundreds more like them who perform heroically on public and private stages, are very much among us. Yet we allow too many incompetent, arrogant slackers to make our rules, to determine our collective direction.

There is an old adage that a country gets the political leadership it deserves. Do we?

Until next week.

Best
Alec