You want to have a leader who is willing to create the space for other talented people to also be seen.
Phuti Mahanyele-Dabengwa
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The current proposition is that leadership is the absence of self-interest, and these two; leadership and self-interest are two sides of the same coin. The absence of self-interest is the presence of leadership just as the absence of cold is in fact the presence of heat.
Phuti Mahanyele-Dabengwa is a powerhouse in business and leadership. She is currently the CEO of Naspers SA and former CEO of Shanduka Group. She has held various roles in her career, having worked in New York as well as South Africa. Her story is one of success through self-empowerment, self-envisioning, believing in oneself as a leader – which she believes we all are, and having the tenacity to be able to be who you are supposed to be.
In 2004, Phuti was due to join Standard Bank in two weeks when she received a call that altered her already rising trajectory to stardom. On the call, she talked to the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa who wanted to meet with her about her joining Shanduka. She accepted the invite and attended the meeting. She says, what was amazing about meeting Cyril was how humble he was and how he accommodated her. It was in that meeting that she decided to not proceed with Standard Bank but join Shanduka. Phuti says it was amazing how someone could have such incredible life experiences given his achievements but yet remain a humble and ordinary person. She was extremely touched by this humility and it convinced her to join the company. This was the kind of relationship he had with everybody from the guard at the gate to the directors of the company. She recounts difficult discussions the board would have and thinking how Cyril had the power to make different decisions given his rights as a shareholder and yet, he wouldn’t and would rather go with the view of the board. This astonished her!
This is the leadership Cyril would constantly display, by putting his self-interest aside and thereby working for others and allowing them to shine. He knew the secret of success lay in this. By displaying leadership, you attract amazing people to you who in turn work with you to drive your vision forward. You show them that you are there for them, not yourself. Of course, this must all come from a genuine place otherwise though it may work in the short-run if that’s all you’re after – to please yourself, you run the risk of being undone quickly. So, Cyril constantly displayed leadership to all because he believed in it.
When Phuti was with Shanduka and during the hiring process of a managing director of one of their companies, Phuti says the experience and knowledge was taken of the potential candidate. After the potential candidate’s skills and capabilities had been assessed by others in the hiring process, Phuti would come in typically towards the end to assess the character of that person as that is what’s most important and enduring. From her experience and observation, you would have leaders that have the capabilities and experience, but as people and leaders, are very poor. That really affects the business negatively because you’d find you have an amazing leader at the top but the rest of the team is not talented. The problem would be that the talented few in the team would not be brought up to the surface. You want to have a leader who is willing to create the space for other talented people to also be seen.
To put it in other words, you want a leader who can sacrifice their self-interest and realize that leadership is about shining the spotlight on others and allowing them to grow also. This is the other side of the coin. As a leader, you choose the leadership side and put the self-interest side down. That’s how you win!
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Here’s the video of Phuti’s interview: