Leadership in Africa: A call to courage, ingenuity and human-centred innovation

Mail & Guardian

2 days ago

In today's world, leadership is no longer about command and control. It's about clarity in chaos, courage in contradiction, and compassion in complexity. As an African woman and engineer in financial services, I've seen firsthand how the demands on leaders have shifted, from technical expertise to human, centred wisdom.
The modern leader must be more than a strategist. She must be a storyteller, a coach, and a meaning-maker. Financial performance still matters, but it now shares the stage with disruption, generative AI, human potential, and trust. These are the new currencies of leadership.
As Leena Nair, CEO of Chanel reminds us, 'Do the tough things, do it decisively, but do it with compassion. Do it keeping the human being at the end of it in mind.'
In Africa, this sentiment resonates deeply. Our continent is a paradox of promise and pressure, where economic inclusion and digital innovation are colliding in real time. Leadership here must go beyond boardrooms. Leadership must show up in communities, in classrooms, and in the informal economy. It must safeguard dignity while driving transformation.
We are being called to lead not just with intelligence, but with ingenuity. Not just with frameworks, but with empathy. And not just with authority, but with authenticity.
Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini, authors of
Humanocracy
, put it plainly, 'The most resilient organisations are those where every individual feels empowered to contribute, innovate, and lead, not just those at the top.'
This is especially true in Africa, where the transition from education to employment, from informal to insured, and from excluded to empowered is not theoretical—it's urgent. Our leadership must be agile enough to respond to disruption and grounded enough to build trust.
AI is now both a tool and a test. It's forcing us to ask: what is the true value of human leadership? And the answer is clear—empathy, judgement, vulnerability, and compassion are more critical than ever. Research confirms that soft skills often outweigh technical know-how in the age of AI. Employees want leaders who can balance technology with humanity, and who can translate these skills into workplaces that respect and uplift.
This has consequences for how leadership needs to evolve over the next five years. Leadership has long been mistaken for charisma or seniority, but true leadership is grown and shaped through failure, feedback, and personal reflection. Companies cannot afford to over-index on tenure, compliance, and familiarity, especially in sectors where the solutions sold are promises instead of products. Trust, in financial services, is a currency and long-term growth depends on how human capital is nurtured and engaged, not just on quarterly gains.
Old Mutual has weathered its fair share of storms over its 180 years in the financial industry and is not immune to the disruptions across genAI, next-generation technology and geopolitical uncertainty. However, the company is leaning into it because, at its core, it is a company that deals in complexity: lives, legacies, and the future. These concepts are deeply personal and expect the business to marry machine intelligence with human empathy, that the best parts of generative AI are connected to qualities that no algorithm can replace.
This approach removes the sense that genAI is wedged in because it is so ubiquitous but rather used as a tool that helps model risk, detect fraud, process claims and support customers and advisors. It is accelerating what companies can do, but it is also pushing leaders to rethink why these companies do it. Is it automation for its own sake? Or is it augmentation that creates space for people to use their insights and intentions to deliver strategic value?
Ingenuity is not about innovation, but intention and the difficult decisions that define leadership in times of flux. Leaders need to know when to pause, when to persist and have the courage to create a culture where diverse thinking is encouraged and nurtured. The future will be led by companies that can reframe the value equation and that recognise how performance cannot come at the cost of people, and technology cannot replace trust.