Raphael John-Lall

Busi­ness­woman Nan­di Man­dela, who is the grand­daugh­ter of South African free­dom fight­er and for­mer pres­i­dent, Nel­son Man­dela, be­lieves more needs to be done to thrust women in­to lead­er­ship roles in the world of busi­ness and in gen­er­al.

Fifty-six year-old Man­dela was in T&T last week, where she was the keynote speak­er at a sem­i­nar host­ed by the Caribbean Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance In­sti­tute en­ti­tled “Women Lead­ing Change: break­ing Bar­ri­ers, Build­ing Lega­cies” at the Hilton Ho­tel, St. Ann’s.

On Thurs­day, she did an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian on her thoughts on women in lead­er­ship roles, the progress of women in South Africa’s econ­o­my, one of the world’s largest and her grand­fa­ther’s en­dur­ing lega­cy.

Man­dela said she is a de­vel­op­ment con­sul­tant in the area of trans­porta­tion plan­ning and hous­ing con­struc­tion.

She is al­so a founder mem­ber of New Ground In­vest­ments Ltd, a prop­er­ty de­vel­op­ment com­pa­ny, and Natholigugu In­vest­ment Ltd, an in­vest­ment com­pa­ny owned by women.

On his vis­it to T&T in April 2004 and in an ad­dress to an au­di­ence of 20,000 at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, her grand­fa­ther thanked T&T for help­ing South Africa to over­throw the op­pres­sive apartheid sys­tem.

She spoke about some of the chal­lenges that women face in the busi­ness and cor­po­rate world not on­ly in T&T but glob­al­ly.

“Women have a lot of chal­lenges in the work en­vi­ron­ment. Even though most of us are work­ing very hard, we are passed over for pro­mo­tions. Our hard work is not recog­nised. I be­lieve that women should be at the fore­front of fight­ing the bias against women and the dis­crim­i­na­tion against women. So, to be able to do that we need to make sure that there is ed­u­ca­tion, women have good skills, we con­tin­ue to de­vel­op our­selves and al­so be­come men­tors to the tal­ent that is com­ing up so that we can see more women com­ing in­to lead­er­ship po­si­tions.”

She al­so said once women have bro­ken the glass ceil­ing, they need to bring their “unique skills” as women to the board­room to help build busi­ness­es and or­gan­i­sa­tions.

“This is to build an en­vi­ron­ment where peo­ple can thrive and en­cour­age peo­ple to be in­no­v­a­tive in their jobs and give the best of them­selves be­cause as women at home, we bring up our chil­dren. It is as how we be­have in the home en­vi­ron­ment be­cause we are lov­ing and we need to bring some of those skills in­to the work­place so that we can build or­ga­ni­za­tions and com­pa­nies that thrive and leave every­one work­ing to the best of their abil­i­ty and be able to grow the com­pa­ny.”

She al­so opined that women make bet­ter lead­ers than men.

“The chal­lenges that all women ex­pe­ri­ence whether it is in South Africa, the African con­ti­nent, the Caribbean is­lands and T&T and glob­al­ly, we ex­pe­ri­ence the same chal­lenges. When we ac­tu­al­ly have op­por­tu­ni­ties to go up, it is al­most like you are go­ing up a bro­ken lad­der and you are sup­posed to get to the top. They stop you from go­ing to the very top. So, as women, we need to make sure that we set our­selves and claim our space at the ta­ble be­cause there is ab­solute­ly no rea­son why women should not be in lead­er­ship po­si­tions. For me, women ac­tu­al­ly make bet­ter lead­ers be­cause they make sure than every­body lis­tens to what works for them, they en­cour­age them to be in­no­v­a­tive. When you do that, peo­ple feel that they are part of the so­lu­tion and when you give them a voice, they will be com­mit­ted to work hard­er to make sure that the com­pa­ny be­comes a suc­cess.”

She said women be­ing care­tak­ers in the home and al­so hav­ing a place in the pro­fes­sion­al world is an ex­am­ple of them “mul­ti­task­ing”.

“Even when both hus­bands and wives are work­ing and the roles in the home en­vi­ron­ment, women still do far more than men do. So, even in our work spaces when we un­der­stand that women have to be re­spon­si­ble for child­care, help­ing with the home­work and most of the oth­er chores at home, we need to be sen­si­tive to that when it comes to the work en­vi­ron­ment. If you give women peace of mind, they do not have to wor­ry about who is tak­ing care of the chil­dren. They, them­selves are go­ing to give their best at work.”

South Africa’s ex­pe­ri­ence

Man­dela al­so spoke about the role women play in South Africa’s econ­o­my, the largest, most de­vel­oped and most in­dus­tri­alised on the African con­ti­nent.

South Africa’s US$863 bil­lion econ­o­my is the 33rd largest in the world and rep­re­sents ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12 per cent of the African con­ti­nent’s to­tal Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct (GDP).

She said it is “dis­ap­point­ing” that women have not made as much progress as they should have in an econ­o­my that is as de­vel­oped as South Africa.

“Women in terms of South Africa’s pop­u­la­tion are more than 50 per cent, but when it comes to lead­er­ship, they are far less and if they make 30 per cent that would be too high in the busi­ness cir­cles. In fact, when my grand­fa­ther was pres­i­dent, he made sure that the per­cent­ages for women in South Africa’s Par­lia­ment in­creased. Dur­ing his pres­i­den­cy, he had more than 30 per cent women in cab­i­net po­si­tions. How­ev­er, be­fore that, it was less than 10 per cent. “

She al­so com­plained that South Africa’s busi­ness sec­tor is still “lag­ging” be­cause there are not enough fe­male busi­ness lead­ers.

“The busi­ness sec­tor in South Africa is still lag­ging be­hind be­cause on av­er­age there are about 25 per cent of women in lead­er­ship po­si­tions. There is ab­solute­ly no ex­pla­na­tion for that be­cause women do their share of hard work and they should be recog­nised. The ma­jor rea­son why they are not in those po­si­tions is be­cause there are bi­as­es and dis­crim­i­na­tion against women. That is the on­ly thing that is stop­ping women from get­ting to se­nior po­si­tions. The sit­u­a­tion is not on­ly unique to South Africa and Africa but it is a glob­al phe­nom­e­non. Glob­al­ly, the per­cent­age of women in lead­er­ship po­si­tions is just about 30 per cent, which on its own is un­ac­cept­able.”

She point­ed out that in the same way there are “boys’ clubs” for male busi­ness lead­ers, women need to have the “sis­ter­hood cir­cles” where the build con­tacts with each oth­er and bond to­geth­er to move up the cor­po­rate lad­der.

“Women need to come to­geth­er and sup­port each oth­er and share best prac­tices. Men con­gre­gate around bars, they go to golf tour­na­ments and they spend time to­geth­er. Women al­so need to cre­ate their own cir­cles where they can sup­port each oth­er and iden­ti­fy young tal­ent.”

Man­dela’s lead­er­ship lega­cy

Man­dela al­so spoke about the im­por­tant lega­cy and ex­am­ple that her grand­fa­ther left not on­ly for women but busi­ness lead­ers and the world in gen­er­al.

She said her grand­fa­ther was the first pres­i­dent of a mod­ern and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic South Africa, who led by ex­am­ple.

“When he was mar­ried to my grand­moth­er, they were both work­ing. My grand­moth­er Eve­lyn was a nurse and my grand­fa­ther was a lawyer and Madi­ba’s (Man­dela’s trib­al name) moth­er took care of the chil­dren when they worked. When they came back from work, my grand­fa­ther would bathe the chil­dren and af­ter din­ner put them to bed. He led by ex­am­ple and imag­ine how pro­gres­sive this man was for his times.”

She al­so said Man­dela was a firm be­liev­er in a mer­i­to­crat­ic sys­tem both for busi­ness and po­lit­i­cal life.

“When he was in­vit­ed by big busi­ness, for diplo­mat­ic vis­its and oth­er glob­al events, he made sure that he looked af­ter the needs of the less priv­i­leged peo­ple. For ex­am­ple, if he went to a ban­quet, he usu­al­ly made sure he ar­rived ear­ly to make sure that he in­ter­act­ed with the peo­ple that no one paid at­ten­tion to. He would usu­al­ly go to the kitchen and he greet­ed the peo­ple who pre­pared the meals. So for Man­dela, whether you are a sweep­er, a clean­er or some­one who cooks meals or a cap­tain of in­dus­try in his eyes, every­one was im­por­tant. That is a les­son we need to learn.”