Integral Ubuntu Leadership

Book excerpt: The four worlds as we know them today, the North, West, South and East, are out of balance. The West and the North generally dominate on a global scale while the South and the East lag behind. This also happens at individual, societal and organisational levels. It is clear that there is a need to change the way we lead our organisations in business and the way we think about leading in politics. Here is a comprehensive exploration of the Integral Leadership challenges of the twenty-first century. The author combines the African philosophy of Ubuntu or humanness, the cornerstone of African thought and life, with the concept of Integral Leadership, with particular reference to Lessem and Schieffer’s combining, in their 2010 book Integral Research and Innovation, of nature and community, culture and spirituality, science and technology, and politics and economies. This connectedness in the new paradigm of wholeness and relatedness goes beyond the relationships of human beings alone and involves experiences with nature and community. Leadership is viewed from an indigenous and exogenous perspective, bringing together a newly Integral approach, which will also introduce industry ecology and knowledge ecology as an evolution of the Ubuntu philosophy. The author offers a unique forum through which to commit to paper the operationalisation of the Integral Ubuntu Leadership model in catalysing development efforts and in CARE-ing for communities and societies.