Leadership - Africa's Real Challenge

The line up of speakers was simply top-of-the-range. From Tom Peters to Rudolph Giuliani, Carly Fiorina, Scott Bedbury, Hernando De Soto, Michael Porter, Daniel Pink, Clayton Christensen, Wiseman Nkhulu, Charles Villa-Vicencio, Nikolaus Eberl and Rev Jesse Jackson, the presentations were everything from insightful to thought-provoking, graphic, and spell-binding.

At the end of the summit, it became easy to connect with the opening address of Tina Schneidermann, President, Global Leaders, who aptly watered the appetite of delegates. “The invaluable and inspiring insights which you will hear over the next few days will help you prepare, motivate and embrace the latest tools for building a new African leadership framework, a way of thinking that harnesses the very best of Western and African thought leadership,” she said.

Dr Nikolaus Eberl contextualized the discussions by introducing The IziCwe Code of brand leadership taken from the heroic feats of Emperor Shaka Zulu. He translated the battle tactics of the Zulu warrior of ancient times into modern day techniques of leveraging business brands, most notably of which is the categorization of employee commitment to the organization. These are total commitment, active compliance, reluctant compliance, apathy, and terminal apathy. The core elements of the code are what he called the 7 secrets of IziCwe - reaching for the throne; sharpening your spear; reinventing the battle; dressing to kill; busting the terror; embracing your enemy; and sharing the spoils. The use of traditional battle video pictures to capture his point made Eberl’s presentation both unique and exotic, inputting the African touch to the discourse on leadership at the summit.