What is Integral Leadership?

Introduction

Leadership is a topic that has fascinated me since I was a teenager. I was elected Junior Mayor of Sandton at the age of 15, and discovered that my ability to lead the Junior Town Council was inadequate, chiefly in the sense that I struggled to motivate my fellow town councillors to carry out the work required in their respective portfolios. This meant that the Junior Mayoress and I ended up shouldering much of the work ourselves. Despite all that, we achieved amazing things, including planting 10 000 indigenous trees to keep Sandton “clean, green and serene”; raised many millions for black charities from Folk, Rock and Pop concerts, and much more.

My next leadership challenge arose when I became involved in student politics at university. By this time I’d read many weighty tomes on psychology, leadership, management, philosophy and politics, and found some models to help me navigate the treacherous shoals of police spies, anti-apartheid politics and campaigns to free Nelson Mandela. I managed to be a bridge between the more extreme black power movements in the black universities, the white leftists and African Socialists, the liberals and progressives, as well as the conservatives, with whom I had played rugby. They were dangerous times- some of my friends were arrested and tortured, and a few died in police custody.