Articles Tagged Leadership

Silly little armies wearing shukas and carrying bows and arrows. People being attacked simply because they dare to stand for election. Rent-a-mob tit-for-tat protests. Idiots clapping and jeering as they burn effigies. Threats and counter-threats. Banned rallies. Insults and abuse. What a childish general-election campaign we seem to have in store. It is extremely worrying […]

“Lots of business leaders like to think that the top dog is exempt from the details of actually running things. It’s a pleasant way to view leadership: you stand on the mountaintop, thinking strategically and attempting to inspire your people with visions, while managers do the grunt work. This idea creates a lot of aspirations […]

“It’s the hardest thing to do as a leader, but it’s the most important thing. Whatever day it is, something in the world changed overnight, and you better figure out what it is and what it means. You have to forget what you just did and what you just learned. You have to walk in […]

“A decade ago, when one non-executive director joined the board of a paragon of American industry, a long-serving colleague told him, in private, “New directors shouldn’t speak up during board meetings for the first year.” That attitude is untenable today and, in fact, that board is much different now. But such comments are indicative of […]

The Paul Wolfowitz saga ran painfully long, but finally came to an end last week. Wolfowitz resigned as President of the World Bank, after digging in his heels and repeatedly stating that he would not step down in the middle of the huge storm involving his girlfriend. Mr Wolfowitz is widely regarded as a ‘neo-conservative’, […]

We had great hopes for our new women leaders in 2003, did we not? For the first time we saw a fresh batch of women, some veterans of the multi-party struggle, others young and zestful, taking meaningful positions in parliament and government. We hoped for a better, more sensitive, more thoughtful type of leadership than […]

This is a year in which we’re going to select new leaders in Kenya. That’s why we should take lessons in what leadership really means; from wherever we can get them, and long before we go to the polls. John Adair was in town recently, at the invitation of the British Council. He is the […]

Allow me to share with you some excerpts from a recent speech made by a candidate for the presidency: “We all made this journey for a reason. It’s humbling, but in my heart I know you didn’t come here just for me, you came here because you believe in what this country can be…In the […]

The World Social Forum is done, and the throng is gone. Nairobi had the honour of hosting the first African WSF; the assembled delegates had the honour of looking African poverty in the eye. “Another world is possible” was the slogan. And another world – a fairer, braver, more equitable, more sustainable world – is […]

We are still very traditional in our approach to business in Kenya. Most enterprises are owned by families; most look to the eldest son in the family to take the reins as the first line of succession. Anything wrong with that? It’s a time-honoured practice across the world: the eldest son must always assume the […]

We are impressed, are we not? Many had doubts and misgivings about what a visiting American senator could do for us. Many of us feared that Kenyans would take the visit of ‘one of their own’, and an influential one at that, as an opportunity to line up and plead for assistance. But Senator Barack […]

Last week Mr. Amos Kimunya was the youngest Finance Minister in my memory to present the country’s annual budget. And it showed. KPMG Kenya’s Richard Ndungu, writing in The EastAfrican, entertainingly described Mr. Kimunya as our Chief Plucker – a play on the meaning of his name in Kikuyu. And the Minister certainly proceeded to […]

Not too long ago, an offer of a position as a non-executive director was one you would accept with alacrity. Power without responsibility? Just four or five meetings a year? The company’s management does all the work, while I ask a couple of intelligent-sounding questions here and there and play the wise and experienced sage? […]

The smell of elections is in the air again. Perhaps it’s just the fallout from the Marsabit air crash, and the resultant by-elections. Whatever the cause, the kaleidoscope that is Kenyan politics is rotating again. New parties are being formed, and old ones unceremoniously dumped. Alignments are shifting, and ambitions emerging. Accusations of betrayal assault […]

This country appears to be obsessed with football – as long as it’s not Kenyan. We spend many months engrossed in the ins and outs of the English Premiership, La Liga and Serie A. And now we’re all preparing for the ultimate festival of international football – the World Cup itself. All Kenya, it seems, […]

If there’s one thing guaranteed to excite Kenya’s chattering classes, it’s the issue of leadership. Our leaders let us down every time, they complain. We have such great things going for us as a country; we should be a Singapore or a South Korea (or at least a Botswana). But we keep voting in the […]

In the light of recent events, we need to revisit the work of Jim Collins. I introduced his “Good to Great” project in this column recently. To recap, Mr. Collins and an army of researchers conducted a five-year project to answer the question: what is it that leads to greatness in companies? What attributes do […]

It’s nearly over. When the counting is done, we will know whether Kenya voted ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for a new constitution. The absurd campaigns, the squandering of billions on hot air and empty rhetoric will come to an end, and we must thank heaven for that. Until the next time. Meanwhile, a strange thing was […]

Jose Mourinho is the manager of Chelsea Football Club, the world’s richest such institution. It is bankrolled by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovitch, and has spent record-breaking amounts in the transfer market. So strong is the Chelsea squad of superstars that many analysts predict a long period of total dominance of world football. Yet the real […]

Can anyone of sound mind be against the idea of renewal? We see it in nature all around us, every day of our lives. The magnificent flower is in full bloom for a few days, and then its petals drop away and its beauty fades. The proud lion, monarch of the plains, is master of […]

It took a long time to build what South Asians have in Kenya today. Dana April Seidelberg called us ‘mercantile adventurers’: for more than 2,000 years we have been arriving on African shores as traders, investors and artisans, part of the age-old Indian Ocean trading triangle with its corners in India, Arabia and East Africa. […]

As the government passes its half-way mark in office, we can all be sure of one thing: we’re in for two-and-a-half years of high-decibel campaigning and low-principle scheming. Money will undoubtedly start to flow now: roads, clinics and schools will begin to emerge as judgement day starts to loom on the horizon. Equally, the number […]

My young son arrived on the planet last year and brought with him a message of profound importance. As I have spent the past few months playing with him and observing him, I have become aware of an unnerving fact: he watches me very, very carefully; and then behaves as I do. He sees what […]

Chief Executive Officers of Kenya should read John Donne: “No business is an island entire of itself; every organisation is a piece of the economy, a part of the main; if a consumer be washed away by the sea of poverty, Kenya is the less, as well as if a company were, as well as […]

Chief Executive Officers of Kenya: please pay attention. Your country needs your services. We are going to hell in a mkokoteni cart, and all men and women of vision, authority and management expertise need to step in to avert disaster. Assume, for a moment, that Kenya Ltd is your company, and you have just taken […]

Once upon a time, we looked at the people around us and respected many things in them. We saw certain virtues and placed a high value on them. We had quite simple people as our role models, and we tried hard to emulate them and live up to the ideals we saw embodied in them. […]

Conflict. Of. Interest. Three simple words in the English language which, when put together in Kenya, create a concept that appears to be a mystery to most. Judging by recent pronouncements by high-ranking people who really ought to know better, there is a need to go back to first principles where conflict of interest is […]

Kenya appears to be in the throes of “Obama Fever”. One of “our sons” has just become a senator for the state of Illinois in the USA, and the news seems to have triggered the onset of a strange affliction. The malady first cropped up in a small group of family members, but has rapidly […]