Thursday,August 03, 2017 9:00AM / Dr Hischam El-Agamy 

“Developing more business leaders is crucial if Africa is to address bigchallenges such as poverty, economic volatility, poor infrastructure, corruptionand weak public governance.” 

Aquote Nelson Mandela once said with regards to leadership made me think aboutthe kinds of qualities that are needed by leaders of business in Africa todrive economic growth. “A leader”, Mandela said, “is like a shepherd. He staysbehind the flock, letting the most nimble go on ahead, whereupon others follow,not realising that all along they are being directed from behind”. 

Ithas become fashionable to use short slogans to describe Africa’s potential. Oneweek the continent is the last frontier of globalisation. A week later it’s thenew China. Then it’s the land of opportunity. And so on. 

AlthoughI’m bullish about Africa, this constant search for an elevator pitch is toosimplistic. With 54 countries and nearly 1 billion people, the continent is toodiverse and complex to be treated as a single entity. A more interestingquestion is to ask what kind of skills business leaders need to help stimulategrowth and improve people’s lives in Africa. 

Demandand supply

Managersand business leaders create and stimulate the growth; they are the engine ofgrowth. While there are proudly successful African business leaders andmanagers in each country on the continent, they remain limited in their numbersand with the lack of specialised institutions to develop these kinds ofleaders, the continent is facing one of its most critical challenges. 

Developingmore business leaders is crucial if Africa is to address big challenges such aspoverty, economic volatility, poor infrastructure, corruption and weak publicgovernance. 

TheILO recently estimated that 28% of Africa’s 392 million-strong labour force hasa wage-paying job (not counting informal and temporary jobs). That’s about 110million people. It is estimated that Africa will need around 10 millionmanagers to manage this labour force. 

Totrain young executives and sharpen up seasoned ones, Africa needs morespecialised business schools, not just universities, adjusting their curriculato meet managers’ learning needs. According to a recent report by AfricanManagement Initiatives (AMI), Africa has roughly 90 business schools offeringan MBA, or one for every 11 million people. India, by contrast, has more than1,500 MBA schools. 

Africanenterprises and business leaders should be the catalysts in developing businessschools that not only expose executives to international best practices, butalso adapt these to African business realities.  

Four key skills

Todrive their companies’ long-term growth in Africa while also achieving quickwins, business leaders need several specific skills. I would highlight four: 

1.  Critical thinking iscrucial for innovation and for sustaining African resources for the generationsto come.

Managerswho can analyse and evaluate differing views could make the difference betweensuccess and failure for a business in Africa. They are most likely to learnthese skills on the job and at business school, given the poor state of manyAfrican countries’ primary, secondary and higher education systems. Topexecutives, in African enterprises, also need to encourage critical andcollaborative thinking among employees who have less privileged educations.This is not an easy task, but it could be the difference between success andfailure for the enterprise. 

2.Managing complexity is another must for executives in Africa.

Besidesrunning complicated businesses, they also need to manage multiple stakeholderssuch as communities, clients, suppliers and employees. Africa’s businessclimate is getting better, but it remains complex and challenging. This ispartly because much of the continent still lacks the basic infrastructure thatdeveloped countries take for granted. Take power supplies. 

Managersof African operations need to ensure that their business has backup electricityand even in some cases a backup of the backup. In addition, Africa is still afragmented market. Managers must navigate very different rules, regulations anddynamics in different countries. This can make it complex, inefficient andexpensive to do business across African borders. Good stakeholder management isalso vital in Africa, where factories and supply chains tend to have strongerties to communities than they do in developed countries. Managers ofenterprises in Africa’s villages, towns or even cities are often responsiblefor ensuring the nutrition and healthcare of their employees (and possiblytheir families too), as well as the good functioning of local schools. 

Theymight sponsor local sporting activities too. There is also an expectation, fromthe local communities, that companies should continuously create jobopportunities for people entering the workforce, either directly or at otherpoints in the supply chain. 

3.Expecting the unexpected is skill number three

Managersin Africa must be able to deal with disruption—not only from competitors, butalso from political uncertainty and social unrest. Businesses pretty muchanywhere in the world have a yearly budget and a plan for the next three tofive years. African companies have these too, but their top managers also needto have additional scenarios for when external events don’t go as planned. Theymust be aware of social, political and economic trends in each country and tryto anticipate events and risks that could affect business performance. Thisrequires talented managers with very deep knowledge and understanding of therealities around them. This management style is not always understood outsidethe continent, and there are sometimes tensions when a multinational firm’sheadquarters asks an African subsidiary to follow standard procedures withouttaking local or regional realities into account. 

4.Developing execution capabilities is becoming increasingly important

Managerseverywhere need to identify problems, decide on a possible solution and putthis into practice. The specific challenge for business leaders in Africa isensuring that plans get executed from top to bottom within an organisation.This is no easy task, since poor education systems have resulted in big skillsgaps between upper management and the workforce. African business leaders notonly need to be role models in executing projects; they also need to mentortheir teams to apply these disciplines and cascade them further down thecompany. 

More leaders wanted

Despiteits challenges, the African continent has enormous potential, and businessleaders have a big role to play in unlocking it. While there are a lot oflessons that could be learned from successful business leaders and managers inAfrica, the upcoming ones will have to be critical thinkers who can managecomplex businesses and multiple stakeholders, handle unexpected events andexecute crisply. 

Inaddition they need to be excellent mentors and inspire the staff and labourforce to achieve great results in, sometimes, very challenging contexts.

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