History South Africa was fortunate that during the transition to democracy we were blessed by extraordinary leaders. These leaders were made in the fires of the struggle for a “country that belongs to all who live in it”.
Do we have the same quality of leadership to help us resolve the challenges of the present? And what are the conditions in which such leadership can emerge?
A discussion of this question in the early days of GIBS, lead to the launch of the Nexus programme in 2001. Nexus brings together a group of emerging leaders from business, government and civil society to develop insight into the current reality of the country and deepen their capacity to lead change and manage complexity.
Nexus has been successfully running on an annual basis ever since.
In 2005 GIBS took the strategic decision to significantly expand this work with the appointment of Professor Gill Marcus to lead the new Dialogue Circle. New initiatives in the fields of senior management development, dialogue, women’s leadership, social entrepreneurship and youth development were created. This unit became one of the five pillars of GIBS.
After running these programmes and additional initiatives for the last five years the decision was taken in 2010 to develop a Centre for Leadership and Dialogue at GIBS. This would include the former work of the Dialogue Circle but would also expand our work to:
- host strategic dialogue on issues critical to South Africa’s future
- share the lessons of South Africa’s transition and negotiated settlement with international partners
- build leadership programmes that give deep insight into our socio-economic and political context but also the tools and skills to create societal and organisational change.
“Dakar (Dakar Conference 1987) symbolised a turning point for South Africa.
It recognised that the future is not inevitable but could be determined
by human work to construct a better world.”
Paul Graham, IDASA
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