Leadership competencies of successful business leaders in South Africa

Abstract

With the advent of democracy, South African business leaders are confronted with numerous challenges like globalisation, cultural diversity, Black economic empowerment, transformation etc; that require innovative thinking, re-engineered approaches and improved competencies. This study focused on the leadership competencies required of South African business leaders within the financial services industry to deal effectively with these challenges and explored how the developmental needs of business leaders should be addressed. Contrary to initial predictions, transactional leadership was still prevalent within the industry and both White and Black executives continued to advocate and practice these competencies. However, corporate and individual strategies have been re-defined to incorporate transformational leadership competencies. This has required executives to modify their operating styles and leadership behaviours. With regard to servant leadership, legislation has required business leaders to focus on their interaction with employees, economic welfare and to increase social contribution. However the overall conclusion is that while banks are becoming “caring organisations” the primary focus will still be on shareholders. This business model is unlikely to change under the present capitalist and market driven economic systems. The application of African leadership competencies was a contradiction in practice. White executives were of the impression that their organisations had adopted African leadership competencies, but Black business leaders were more sceptical about its adoption. The core reason was that White executives did not necessarily fully understand these values, while Black executives were not represented in sufficient numbers to implement these values in practice. Leaders are further required to concentrate on their EQ maturity, as this will empower them to become more self-conscious, learn from experience and interpret the behaviour of others. The study concluded that for business leaders to be successful in the longer term they would need to display, advocate and practice the competencies of charisma, intellectual stimulation, inspiration and transformation, in conjunction with an appreciation of cultural diversity and Ubuntu. The most fundamental variable that proved successful for leaders was that they exhibited time for their people.