A SELF-AWARENESS Gap
(Influential Leadership Behavioural Attributes: 3 of 8)
MURDER. CORRUPTION. POWERLESS. DRY TAPS. POTHOLES. JOBLESS. HOPELESS…
South Africa is a failed state.
It is not an accident.
It has taken much effort—over decades—more than we might care to admit.
So, who has done this to us?
Politicians? Workers? Capitalists? Uneducated? Bosses? Whites? Atheists? Poor? Wealthy? Blacks? Socialists? Believers? Generation ABZ?
Yes.
All of these.
Fellow South African Citizens, we are all here—it is all of us.
Whatever simple label we care to hang up, we are covered—you and me.
South Africa’s failure belongs to each of us—we are a failed people—we did it to ourselves.
We have done this to ourselves?
Why?
A self-awareness gap.
To be self-aware is not just to know ourselves, but as important, it is whether we know and feel how it is to walk in other’s shoes. Being self-aware is a two-way street.
Self-awareness is also about personal responsibility – acknowledging that we have social agency.
The eight influential leadership behavioural attributes are all equivalent, they must all be present, but we tag being self-aware as the first amongst equals, because it places us and other people at the centre of our leadership practice.
So, where there is a self-awareness gap, there is a leadership gap, and where there is a leadership gap there is failure. If failure becomes culturalised and systematised, it becomes systemic failure.
This, sadly, is where South Africa is.
So, where to now?
- Emigrate
- Semi-grate
- Gates, walls, razor-wire, un-electrified fences
- Guards and armour plating
- Go off the grid
- Greed – each for ourselves
- More indifference…
It need not be the end.
As we have placed ourselves in this position, so we can take ourselves out.
The only question that remains, is whether we shall.
Influential leadership is founded on the premise that we each enjoy social agency, the capability to think critically, choose smartly and act purposefully – to influence and shape our and others’ lives for the better.
If this practice had been applied over the past 400, 200, 50, 20 years, would we be where we are today?
Mai, if I apply it in my life, and you in yours, and the next in theirs… where shall we be, where will South Africa be, in 5-, 15-, and 50-years’ time?
Regards,
Colin Donian
CEO: Karoo
Shaping lives for the better
