African Authors (47) Building Culture (54) Business Case Study (32) Business Fundamentals (37) Creative Leadership (35) Leadership Examples (35) Leadership Fundamentals (73) Personal Mastery (83) Powerful Habits (41) Resilience (45)
Leadership Fundamentals
#205: Your 2024 Survival Guide
Dear Friends Just four years ago, most of the world was in lockdown. In the next twenty-four months many of us lost loved ones, and some of us were grievously ill.…
#200: Know Yourself. Share Your Gifts. Manage Kindly (with inspiration from Ruth Carter)
Good morning good people Unless you’ve been heavily sedated for the past two weeks, you know that Ms. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has released a new album, Cowboy Carter. What you may not…
#199: You can’t fake leadership (lessons from Hitendra Wadhwa’s Small Actions Make Great Leaders)
Dear Friends I hope you’re enjoying your long weekend. Thursday night took me to Swedish alto-saxophonist Fredrik Kronkvist gig at The Olympia Bakery. If you’ll allow me some stereotyping, I…
#198: Confront the Facts (with help from A.E. Housman)
Dear Friends After last week’s letter, I received several emails sharing memories of other grandfathers who’d served in WW2 and other conflicts. Each email reflected on the pain that lived…
#197: Leadership Lessons (from Colonel John Boyd)
Dear Friends On 6 March, one of my teachers, Prof Edward Webster passed on. This weekend was his funeral and memorial service. It is said that when an elder dies it…
#195: Who is accountable? Everybody = Nobody
Hello dear friends In November, Mr. Siphiwe Mpye, editor of Business Day’s Wanted Magazine challenged me to write a piece that held both December’s festivities and where we were in…
#194: Preach to your choir (thank you Robert Reich)
Happy Sunday friends If you love owls (who doesn’t?) Hirokazu Kozakai’s ‘O Wise One’ will make you smile. Last week, I told you that Cape Town gallery Southern Guild was…
#191: Being Effective (Part Two)
Dear All My holiday break, of course, included wine, I live in Cape Town after all. There was a lazy Winemaker’s lunch beneath Rust en Vrede’s oaks. Despite summer’s heat,…
#190: How To Be Effective/Lessons from Peter Drucker
I apologise. I know that all effective conversations have four components – establishing relationship, deepening understanding, exploring possibilities, and agreeing action. Last week, I ignored this. It was a month…
#189: How to Be Successful (& eat well)
Good morning my dear friends We’re back. I trust you have had a good start to your year. I started my year compiling my 2024 reading list (These were my favourite books…
#187: Questions for powerful reflection
Dear friends Thank you for your messages after last week’s letter. Although it broke format and ran much longer than usual, it appears it resonated. I appreciated the feedback and the…
#181: Leadership Lessons (from Rassie Erasmus)
“If you want to achieve something you’ve never achieved before, you have to do something you’ve never done before” – Rassie Erasmus Dear friends This Simons Town week has been…