Umbusi Ziqalo Blog

Written by: Umbusi Ziqalo an Author and Thought Leader in Transformational Leadership.  Follow at: https://www.instagram.com/umbusiziqalo I have never met a person who courted defeat. Victory at all cost, victory no matter the opposition. But in recent days, we saw for example an exodus of leadership from the official opposition in South Africa. What is going on. We saw leaders whi did not want to stand and fight. What would they fight for? Purpose: the very purpose for which they joined their party Vision: the very project they envisioned for South Africa Conviction: now we know that they were not willing to stand and fight against their opponents Passion: they had not believe in the project enough to stand and fight,  even if it means personal risk Character: history will judge them as men who resigned from the project they loved Influence: for now,  they have lost the influence, they have a long way to go in fixing it Legacy: for now, they have ...

"We are all human" The saying that awaits, ready at the lips of excuse, "i am only, but human" ... Self Control is an inherent human construct, built into our constitution. "When life demands nobility from humans, it is because, its built within our constitution (human capacity)" - Umbusi Ziqalo | Author| Speaker| We are self-regulating beings, capable of unlearning old habits and learn new ones, whether by force or by choice. The willingness to master-self is the beginning of the transformation. Self-Mastery is a daily chore that must enslave its student, before the student becomes the master of self. A true noble is at pain daily, conquering self, galvanizing the mind, subduing the senses and passions. Humilty and Self-Sacrifice will never take root, unless given free reign, daily. The impetus and the very impulse to shout, to demean, to hurt and to ridicule, must be kept in check, starved and eventually disempowered. All the riches of this world...

One of the Cardinal Pillars of a Leader, in leveraging influence for the (vision's) course, is receiving and dispensing trust. This applies from the team, to the eco-system, to family and other close constituencies. Measured Trust? Yes. Because the nature of leadership is magnetic. In any magnetic field, there is a charge, an electrical current emanating from the magnets. Because some magnetic poles are positive and some are negative, repulsion and attraction takes place. You may therefore be a positively charged leader, but without the right materials that respond to your magnetic vector, you will never achieve.  You are your team. Your progress is your inner core of trusted people.  Hence leadership trust, both received and dispensed, must be mearsured. As Nations of the world and teams in organisations, we must mearsure the trust we afford leaders, and as leaders, we must mearsure the trust we afford the core teams we allow to the inner core. Umbusi Ziqalo is a Speak...

You are what you settle for. It is not an accident where you find yourself in life. You are where you settled to be, consciously or otherwise. Settlement is a destination chosen and settled for in the mind. Settlement in simple terms means arrival, and deciding to stay. It means making a decision. It is not true therefore, that circumstances have brought you to where you are, it is you who decided to stay where you are. Your level of growth and progress, both personally and professionally, is a construct of your settlement, a function entirely of your choice. It will take honest personal reflection on your part, to move from where you are. Stop the blame-game, stop the blame-shifting, stop the blame-economy, stop the blame-currency, and stop associating yourself with the blame eco-systems. These few blame-proxies are weighing you down and not designed for your support and growth. Get up, with a radical mindset, and move. Umbusi Ziqalo is a Speaker and Thought Leader in Transforma...

We have often heard that the key to working in your Iceberg, is to lower the waterline. It is probably true. However, a more disruptive way is to invert the Iceberg, turning it up side down.  Do not think out of the box, but throw away the box.  We are called upon to be fantastic and genius, not to be at the top. Our icebergs therefore need to be inverted. The icebergs of education before work, need to change to work becoming our university, and formal university becoming our promotion. We need to invert our icebergs as well, by getting our thinking to look way differently than how it looks now.  We need to believe the opposite of what we believe now,  that it is possible to be good, without expecting anything back. Inverting our icebergs means commitment to a new way of eating and maybe a new routine for sleep time. It means new revolutionary friends. Invert your Iceberg. Umbusi Ziqalo is a Speaker and a Thought Leader in Transformational Leadership.

Why we need to move from an “either/or” to a “both/and” view of priorities. While corporations face constantly competing demands for resources, we still talk about moonshot long-term strategy. How can we sync ambitious aspirations with maintaining our business-as-usual which funds these innovative and profitable visions of the future? In today’s uncertain world, employees need a way to make sense of competing demands that create tension. Such conflicting demands include planning for the long term and operating in the short term; acting globally while dealing with local needs; collaborating and competing with other companies. An important tension for firms at the moment is the need to be profitable but also to be socially and environmentally oriented. As everything shifts (such as managing other cultures in an accepting way instead of expecting them to fit into one-size-fits-all roles), our “either/or” ideals around leadership are oft...