Nankhonde Van Den Broek
Top 30 Coach in the World – Global Gurus and Founder & CEO at Zanga African Metrics
Collaborative Global Leadership Development
Episode Summary
I enjoyed discussing leadership development in the land of Zambia and the continent of Africa with one of the Top 30 coaches in the world—Nankhonde Kasonde-van den Broek! Listen to this episode to understand how she helps develop leaders locally to impact globally.
Detailed Episode Summary
https://c-suitenetwork.com/advisors/collaborative-global-leadership-development/
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Bio
Nankhonde Kasonde-van den Broek is a development activist and serial entrepreneur. She is the Founder and Lead Consultant at Nankhonde Kasonde Consultancy, Founder and Creative Director at KHONDE (www.khondezambia.com), Founder and CEO at ZANGA African Metrics (www.zangametrics.com). After a decade of working in international development and international finance globally with the United Nations and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, she returned to Zambia to pursue her purpose and desire to contribute to her country’s economy the broader African development agenda.
Nankhonde is an internationally certified Executive Coach &; Organizational change architect. She has over 20 years of experience in multinationals, international organizations, and Governments. She is an accomplished professional with a wealth of African, international and multi-cultural knowledge in designing and leading large-scale change across multiple sectors.
Nankhonde has lived and worked in New York, Geneva, Dakar, and Lilongwe. She has traveled extensively and supported programs across Africa and South East Asia. Nankhonde is a member of the Africa List, a group of future African Leaders in emerging markets (cohort 2020). Nankhonde is a Marshall Goldsmith 50 Global Leading Coach and a member of the MG100. She is a Board Member at the Lusaka Apex Medical University in Lusaka, Zambia, and a Board Member at Sanlam Life Insurance Zambia Ltd (Part of the Sanlam Group, South Africa). Nankhonde is a graduate of the renowned HEC Paris Business School (France) &; Oxford University (U.K.) joint Executive Specialized Masters Degree in Consulting &; Coaching for Change. In addition, she holds an MBA specializing in Project Management from the African Institute of Management (Dakar, Senegal), an MSc in Management from the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi (Quebec, Canada), and a B.A. in Management from Webster University (Geneva, Switzerland). She is fluent in French and is married with two children.
Website
https://www.zangametrics.com/
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nankhondevandenbroek/
Leadership Quote
“It takes extraordinary effort to stop doing something in our comfort zone (because it’s
painless or familiar or mildly pleasurable) to start something difficult that will be
good for us in the long run.” Marshall Goldsmith
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Transcript
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Welcome to the Keep Leading!® Podcast, the podcast dedicated to promoting leadership development and sharing leadership insights. Here’s your host, The Leadership Excelerator®, Eddie Turner.
Eddie Turner:
Hello, everyone! Welcome to the Keep Leading!® Podcast, the podcast dedicated to leadership development and insights. I’m your host Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®. I work with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact through the power of executive coaching, masterful facilitation, and motivational speaking.Leadership development. This podcast is dedicated to it. It’s critically important around the globe. Today, I want to talk about how we develop leaders, specifically in Zambia, and how by taking a look at how leaders are developed in Zambia at a micro level how when we maximize at the macro level we can see the view of how developing leaders locally has significant implications for global leadership development at the macro level. To do that, I’ve invited an expert on this topic. I’ve invited Nankhonde van den Broek. Nankhonde is a development activist and a serial entrepreneur but she’s much more than that. I want to let Nankhonde tell you more about her background and then we will begin our discussion.
So, Nankhonde, welcome to the Keep Leading!® Podcast.
Nankhonde:
Hi, Eddie. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be with you and your audience today.
Eddie Turner:
Nankhonde, it is my honor to have you. I am just thrilled that you accepted my invitation to be a guest on the show. Tell my listeners more about you and your incredible background.
Nankhonde:
Thank you. I’ve been an executive coach for the last 10 years and my primary purpose has been to develop leaders in Zambia and across the African continent. And doing this has really been driven by a number of things that I believe have a thread throughout the last 20 years of my life. And as a person who believes in the potential of Africa and investing in its people, I think my career before becoming an executive coach really was pronounced around global development and how the world is connected. So, before becoming an executive coach, I spent about a decade working for the United Nations in different countries. So, from New York to Geneva and then on the African continent, living in Senegal, I speak French and also Malawi, I was privileged to appreciate how the plight or global human cause can be supported to achieve exponential results. And being part of that vehicle and machinery that is driving development across the world helped me to understand the key assets in development, people. And coming out of that career, I went on then to transition into not so much building and supporting projects on the ground but looking at how I have skills and talent and a passion for people and translating that into leadership development and that’s how I got to where I am at. And to do this, I studied at Oxford and ATC Paris because I wanted to not only specialize in people but appreciate the wider change. And I think our age and times right now speak to a new time, a new era. And so, working on developing leaders in the context of continuous evolution and VUCA world has been something that I have gone on to work on in this context but also contribute globally because as we build leaders in Africa, we’re also contributing to the global agenda for our human development.
Eddie Turner:
That is just simply wonderful. Your background is so rich and that’s why I wanted you to tell that. You can tell that far better than I can. Now, people should know you’re not just an executive coach as you’ve described yourself. Nankhonde van den Broek has just been recognized by Global Gurus as one of the Top 30 coaches in the world. So, congratulations on that recognition for 2021, Nankhonde.
Nankhonde:
Thank you very much. It’s quite humbling to be recognized on the list that has the names of people I read, I learn from and whose tools, whose methods have really shaped me to become who I am.
Eddie Turner:
Well, you deserve it. The work that you’re doing is nothing short of extraordinary and the impact you’re having. And I’m glad you made that other distinction that I did not make. It’s not just Zambia. You are also impacting the entire continent of Africa with your work and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. I find you fascinating when we speak. In fact, you and I met during the pandemic as a part of Marshall Goldsmith’s family of the MG 100, the top coaches that he’s brought together. And during the pandemic, it’s easy sometimes especially for those of us in the west to really have a little bit of myopia and we are just not looking outside of our own lens and by talking to you, you said something that stopped me dead in my tracks. We were talking about the assistance at the time the United States was giving to small business owners and giving to individual families. I really don’t mean to put you on the spot but I am going to put you on the spot. Do you remember that conversation? It’s been probably a year now but you said about Zambia it’s very different.
Nankhonde:
Yes, I vaguely remember the conversation. And I think what was interesting is the pandemic is everywhere and the experience, I think, at an individual and collective level has been traumatic to different degrees but the context in which it’s being experienced does have some differences. And as a result, our approaches to supporting each other through it and out of it can vary.
Eddie Turner:
Yes. And Marshall was bringing us together and that played a significant role in my life in getting myself and family through the pandemic because Marshall basically, I’d say, took us to another level. He always had us above and beyond and we knew kind of what was going to be coming down the pipe two or three days, in some cases longer, before it was showing up in the news just because of the access to experts he has and who he was putting us in touch with. And so, when we were talking about the assistance that we were getting to the United States resources, you made it very clear to us, “Listen, that’s not available here in Zambia. There is no aid coming. In Zambia and other parts of Africa, people must be more self-sufficient and become more resourceful.” Can you talk about that?
Nankhonde:
Yes, I recall, I think, discussing or unpacking the word ‘resilience’, what does it mean because by virtue of being in a developing country and on a continent that is still in progress, resilience is innate. And I think one of the challenges that the pandemic brought was the need to be self-sufficient because people did what people do. You protect yourself first. So, even in an airplane, they tell you to put your mask on first before you try and help anybody else and that’s what people did. It actually revealed a number of gaps and weaknesses in a lot of countries and different countries responded to support their own people first. And as a result of that, it was quite clear that from an African perspective, we would need to figure out for ourselves some of our own response as the rest of the world decided what it could do for us. And I think that resilience and resourcefulness has meant that we’ve often had an opportunity even within crisis to see things differently but also to develop our own mechanisms. And I think that’s what we’ve done. It has been hard. The first wave was not as bad as the second. And as we brace ourselves potentially for the third wave and the arrival of vaccines into the country, we still are resourceful, we’re still working out how are we going to work with the resources that have been allocated to us because, as you can imagine, we have not been given even now as many vaccines or have been able to procure as many vaccines as some of the more richer developed countries have been able to. So, you can’t just sit and wait. You have to take action. And I think taking action is how we lead in our context.
Eddie Turner:
And take action you did. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you because what you explain here about resilience, you’re doing this with leadership development. And your perspective is just simply, I think, insightful and it’s having an impact. So, how are you developing leaders in Zambia?
Nankhonde:
So, my role has been to really from a macro level appreciate that if we take Africa and then bring it down to Zambia, 60% of our population is under 25, meaning that we have what we refer to as a young demographic dividend.
Eddie Turner:
I did not know that.
Nankhonde:
Yes. There’s a huge opportunity to get leadership development right now for this demographic dividend. And working with multinationals, the government and international organizations in Zambia, my role has been primarily to support them to develop leaders within the context of their strategic objectives but you can’t do that out of the context of what’s happening in the country that 60% of the population is under 25. And how do we then shape how they will lead in the future right now. And working at the C-suite level, it occurred to me that there were opportunities earlier to develop these leaders and to support them on their trajectory to leadership positions, to executive positions before they got there. And that’s why, a lot of my work has been to support the middle belt, the middle tier and middle managers because for us that is the key to our growth potential and future. And so, my leadership development programs are really focused around increasing self-awareness around the people I work with and creating personal development strategies for themselves, their own personal visions because, as you can appreciate, we come from a background where poverty is real and many of the people I work with come from situations that have not always had opportunity. And so, you take the opportunities you have. So, how do we help people design and create a new future for the country and a new future for this continent if they don’t have the skills? And it starts at an individual level. So, first, creating that vision and increasing self-awareness of the opportunity to actually realize it and then second, you have to develop the technical, the hard skills of managing and leading. And I think that toolkit is something that we share as global best practices on how to not only develop organizations and businesses but scale them and take them to become impactful into the economies in which they are also supporting. And then, thirdly, looking at not hard skills but soft skills, how do we get people to appreciate that once you transition from technical into strategic leadership, it’s about people and it’s about how you behave, how you work with others and how you generate results through others and your legacy is actually part of that process and journey.
Eddie Turner:
Fascinating. And you introduced a new component here that is worth highlighting. You’re doing this in the face of immense poverty in many cases.
Nankhonde:
Yes, we are a developing country and Zambia is one of the emerging markets on the continent. So, there has been growth at the national level but set back by the pandemic. And we have been growing as an economy. We are a stable country. And the dynamics and characteristics of Africa are different. The regions have their characteristics but Zambia in southern Africa has been stable and peaceful. And although we were in the economic crisis before COVID, which has then been compounded by COVID, we do face these challenges of not only trying to build a country but build the systems and also support the businesses that are going to be part of the partnerships that will take development not only as a responsibility of government but the private sector and individuals as well. So, the context is we are developing this country. Everybody is contributing to the development in a different way to developed countries where I think there is a sense more of opportunity and access around you. Here we don’t have that. So, we have to create it. We’re building it.
Eddie Turner:
And as a result of not having the resources that other countries have, as a result of needing to be more resourceful and resilient, as you’ve mentioned, what would you say is the impact that has on the leaders you’re developing?
Nankhonde:
So, I’ll answer this in two ways. There’s the history of Zambia and there’s the history of acquiring independence in 1964 from the British. And that history has in it a dynamic that had an impact on the type of leadership that has been produced. So, the primary goal initially was to gain independence to be able to self-rule and govern. And post the sort of physical freedom the next goal was and continues to be economic freedom, being able to not only build a thriving and robust economy but also one that can support its own people and even extend beyond our borders to the region. So, there’s a historical element to the leadership style and the leadership qualities that we have had and are evolving. And over time, what we’ve been able to do is move from leaders who were developed to provide guidance and direction and support even what I would call our traditional systems to change and develop the country in ways that were more directive. And so, we had followers. And now as the world evolves and changes, we need leadership not just at the top. We need leadership at every level. And so, that is our current work and our current opportunity is breaking down leadership in Africa to develop leaders who can come forward not only because they’re invited to do so but because they have the confidence, the courage, and the skills to appreciate that we are building a different leadership DNA. I almost feel like we are rewriting the source code for what it means to be a leader in Africa today and that is our work. So, for me, this is fundamental in developing leaders in Africa. You must understand where we’re coming from.
Eddie Turner:
Tell me more.
Nankhonde:
When I refer to developing leaders in Africa, and you’ve got to take it from the historical context and then to the future perspective of where we want to go, it’s important to understand that at independence we were coming out of oppression and suppression by the colonial rulers and, in Zambia, the case was the British. And at independence, our leaders were part of the struggle to get us physically free. And that meant that a lot of the population before that were coming from a mindset and a construct of being told what to do – “Go and sit there. Do this. You’re only allowed to shop here. You can only go to these schools. As natives, you can only do this.” And so, you can imagine we’re coming from a population where we had traditional leadership structures that were broken down and put aside in order to bring in a new system of government and management that was imposed. And so, at independence, it now meant that the leaders had to define a new leadership style because the cause was achieved, the goal was achieved to get independence. And that’s been our struggle as Africans to now understand that the agenda now and the work for leadership development is to build the systems that are going to develop the economies, grow the schools beyond what we inherited at independence and develop the kind of infrastructure that’s going to actually allow us to succeed and excel and have populations that are thriving. And so, when I talk about evolving the leadership here, I’m talking about rewriting the source code for the leadership style we inherited or the leadership mindset we inherited. And I am part of an army of coaches across the continent who understand this and appreciate it that whenever we get a client, whenever we go to work with a big company, a small company or speak to a small group of young people, we appreciate our job. We are going to be responsible and held accountable for driving the transformation and the evolution of the leadership DNA in Africa to create the leaders of the Africa we want in 50 years. And so, I’m part of an army of coaches working in different sectors. And I must give them recognition because on the African continent, there are many people driving leadership development so that we can actually break the mold we inherited and redesign our own. And that’s why, I’m so passionate about Zanga African Metrics because that’s about now getting to the next level of even designing the tools and the references and the metrics we use because we appreciate historically where we’re coming from. And when we got independence, for example, in Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, our first president, he knew that he had several tribes to unite in addition to this transition from the British to the Zambian. And so, his philosophy and one thing that we continue to live by in Zambia and unites us, we still have differences, but there’s one thing, when you speak to a Zambian, we say “One Zambia, one nation” because Kenneth Kaunda’s philosophy was humanism. He knew that “I must unite these people around the fact that they’re human first before I take them to that they’re Zambian and then they’re their respective tribes because at the human level, we need to build this country. We can’t build it from division.” And so, for me, that whole philosophy really sticks to my mind when I’m working with my clients and when I look at the opportunity for transforming leadership development because we’re transforming humanity on this continent. And so, this is why I thought it’s so important to get the historical perspective of where we’re coming from because it’s not just about building competencies and capabilities. It’s actually transforming the mind.
Eddie Turner:
Powerful, simply powerful. Nankhonde, thank you for giving me more clarity around that. You really are writing the DNA and you make it clear the reason it needs to be rewritten at the DNA level. That’s a very appropriate phrase to use. I’m getting chills just talking to you because it’s making me think about the work that I’ve done in terms of researching or listening to stories of people who’ve talked about what it was like for the American slave. So, similar there in the colonization of Africa, a form of slavery, in that yeah, you’re not used to making decisions. So, it’s one thing for people to tell you you’re not a leader. It’s something else when you tell yourself you’re not a leader. And you tell yourself that because you’ve never had to lead. Other people have always led you, told you what to do, did the thinking for you, you weren’t even allowed to think and in many cases weren’t allowed to be educated. So, when you now are put in that position, you don’t know, you truly don’t. So, it gives new meaning to the words leadership development. It has to be developed and you’re coming from a deeper place to have to build up from than with some other leaders where you don’t have to go as deep.
Nankhonde:
Yes.
Eddie Turner:
Wow! Fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. That’s rich. Thank you for illuminating us with that nugget.
Nankhonde:
You’re welcome.
Eddie Turner:
I love that. That is fascinating, Nankhonde. And I asked that in part also, Nankhonde, because I was thinking about how sometimes when people have to work harder to get something, they end up better as a result. And so, it sounds like certainly that’s what’s happening in the great nation of Zambia and for the 80 … This podcast is downloaded 80 countries. So, for leaders who are looking for leaders, tell them why Zambia is not a place to overlook when they’re trying to broaden their talent bench.
Nankhonde:
I think what’s interesting and what’s happening is, as the young population, looking at the opportunity, sometimes being a few steps behind the rest of the world can be good. And I say that and I’ll give you the context for it. Because it means you can learn from others, you can learn from mistakes that others have made who have gone ahead. And so, we’ve been able to make strides, especially in terms of, I’d say, the financial sector and fintech. We’ve been able to find ways to drive change on the ground for the benefits of the of Zambia but also across the continent. And I think Zambia is a very interesting population because Zambia is highly educated. We place high value on education in Zambia. And whilst there is still a lot of opportunity to increase literacy levels and access to education, the fact that education is one of the primary values in most families, and I could even extend it to a national level, means that the value of education, means the value of progress, the value of information and knowledge, that can drive change. And so, as a market, I think Zambia has developed talent in different sectors and that gives an opportunity to look at Zambia as not just a place to invest in but a place to work with and a place where, I think, rather than aid, collaboration and trade are becoming increasingly more important as we see the impact of globalization and the multinationals, for example, that I work with here, I’ve seen the opportunity in Zambia and at the same time have seen that you can’t just come with a cookie-cutter approach. You can come in, you can appreciate the opportunity in Zambia but working with the people, understanding the people and helping create or co-create success is a fantastic opportunity right now in Zambia. So, there’s talented population, there’s a young population and there is a great opportunity to be part of the next, I would say, 20 years of Zambia as part of the wider African Union vision.
Eddie Turner:
Thank you.Well, I am talking to Nankhonde van den Broek. We’re talking about collaborative global leadership development and how developing leaders is a local and global collaboration. We’ll have more with Nankhonde right after this.
This podcast is sponsored by Eddie Turner LLC. Organizations who need to accelerate the development of their leaders call Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®. Eddie works with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact. Call Eddie Turner to help your leaders one on one as their coach or to inspire them as a group through the power of facilitation or a keynote address. Visit EddieTurnerLLC.com to learn more.
This is John Perry, organization and leadership development consultant and strategic coach, and you are listening to the Keep Leading!® Podcast with Eddie Turner.
Eddie Turner:
We’re back, everyone. I’m talking to Nankhonde van den Broek. We’re talking about collaborative global leadership development. Developing leaders is a local and a global collaboration. And specifically, we’re talking about how it starts there in the nation of Zambia and then goes from a micro level to a macro level to Africa and beyond.Nankhonde, before the break you were telling us about the fascinating work that you’re doing and just the impact you’re having there in Zambia. Now, your leaders are being developed. The stat that you gave me just blew me away. 60% of the country is 25 years or younger, which means that if you develop them properly, my, what a future for the nation and the world. So, tell me more about the collaborative component of leadership development.
Nankhonde:
So, we have one planet and as a result, because we share this home, one of the key things I believe in collaborating around leadership development is developing leaders who fully appreciate that we have a responsibility and we are also connected by the very means of just existing on this earth. And as a result of that, if we look at what we’re trying to achieve here in Zambia is to help people reduce poverty, have better lives for themselves. And the degree of poverty varies across the continent and it varies even across Zambia but from a bigger picture perspective, we’re all trying to live a better life that we can find fulfilling and be successful in. And that requires looking at the different aspects of life and living that connected. And this can be either education, health, nutrition. It can be gender equality. It can be all sorts of different areas. And I like to refer to the sustainable development goals of the United Nations because I think that umbrella of 17 goals brings together our global collaboration. And so, when you take those goals and you break them down and bring them to the level of Africa and then Zambia, collaboration requires us in Zambia to appreciate, for example, what it means to reduce poverty, what it means to build a health system and what it means to be able to provide education and promote or support women and empower them. And so, collaboration, for me, is about what the efforts that Zambia makes to achieve those goals has a ripple effect or domino effect on the progress of the rest of the world and how together, working on different areas, we can actually achieve results. And leadership development, for me, is how we achieve those results and the people who lead us to those results, wherever they are, at the top here strategically but as we work within organizations, my role is to support the competencies and the skills of people who have given me or I have been entrusted to, to acquire across their journey of their career the ability to contribute to those bigger pictures and those bigger goals. So, whether they’re working in a bank, I work with banks here, whether they’re working for nonprofit organization that is dealing with shelters for women and gender-based violence or whether it’s working with academia in private universities, it’s important to recognize that when we’re developing leaders in their context in their organization, they’re also contributing to a larger goal. And so, for me, developing leaders through my work in Zambia is about understanding that and contributing to that. And the people I work with don’t always make this relationship or this connection but I believe one of my purposes, the reason I was created, is to contribute to my generation. And all my experiences to date have led me to be in this position to see both of these pictures and see the opportunity that I am a bridge to connect.
Eddie Turner:
And to the point that you just made about developing the competencies in the leadership of the people entrusted to you, you said so nicely that you were put here to help others in this time. You’ve created the Zanga African Metrics as an assessment to that end. Can you talk about that?
Nankhonde:
Yes. I am western trained and I have had the privilege of having been given the opportunity to be educated abroad. And this education has meant that I’ve been able to bring back best practices to Zambia but over time, I started to notice a disconnect between the tools I was using to support the people entrusted to me and how they actually achieved or realized change in this context and in this culture and I looked for tools that could appreciate a bit more the cultural and the social influences that affect how we actually show up at work and these behavioral insights that are driven by the local culture and even just the virtue of the developing country context. And I couldn’t find any. So, I decided to look into this and develop one. And Zanga African Metrics is about it. It is about encouraging a conversation across the African continent to start developing tools and products and services using our intelligence, using what we know from our traditions, from our cultures but also building from the foundation of global best practices. So, I’ve learned and, as you mentioned Marshall earlier, I’ve learned from some of the best in the world but how do I make that land here in Zambia whether I’m working in a program for a multinational company or whether I’m supporting a community program in a province or across the country, which I’m actually doing right now, how do I help that transfer of knowledge and be a catalyst for that change or an interpreter of the intent of the tool into this culture so that it can drive the results that will be sustainable here. And so, that’s what Zanga African Metrics is about. It’s about developing tools by Africans for Africans that will increase our own self-awareness of how we do achieve results here and how we can encourage more norm groups and comparison groups that are from the continent. And so, my psychometric assessment is building a Zambian norm groups or reference groups that we can use to continue to develop leaders because I have tools and I have some tools that are American and European and they have comparison and norm groups that support you to appreciate where your average is or where you stand vis-a-vis dysfunctional in the context maybe in London or New York. And I thought “Well, let’s have some tools that give you the context and the comparison closer to home. Lusaka, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos, Abidjan. Let’s start looking at that from an African perspective.” I do believe we know enough now and can adapt some of these frameworks and methods to develop tools that are consistent and deliberate for our culture, for our society and for our people. And I’m not denying the impact of the tools that have built me, the tools that I use and worked with from the west. I’m building on them and adapting them. This is a partnership and a collaboration, I believe, that is very powerful and impactful.
Eddie Turner:
You’re just amazing. You are so amazing. That is phenomenal. And the reason I was intrigued by what you did is because it was very similar to what was, at one time, a challenge for some people in the school systems here in the States where the questions were written to where if you weren’t from a certain background, you just couldn’t understand, you wouldn’t give the right answer. So, I love what you’re saying there that you’ve given them something that has a norm group against their own but then, yes, you allow them to go out and then benchmark themselves against the rest of the world and you’re bringing the best of your education. By the way, you speak four languages? Tell us those languages again.
Nankhonde:
So, I am fluent in English and French and I also have my two Zambian languages Bimba and Nyanja which are more working knowledge, I believe, rather than actual written because we come from a [inaudible] culture. So, the languages have been adopted that way.
Eddie Turner:
Beautiful. So, you’re able to bring that back to let people still be true to their native tongue, their native culture but then to be able to be global leaders on a bigger stage, you’re letting them see how they measure up and then you’re sharing with them the best of both worlds, which is simply magnificent, and allows them to build the bench strength there in Zambia and on the continent of Africa that can impact the world.
Nankhonde:
Yes, yes.
Eddie Turner:
You are just amazing and I’m so glad you took some time to talk with me today. What’s the main message you would like to make sure that everyone listening to the Keep Leading!® Podcast walks away with from our conversation?
Nankhonde:
I think it’s important for me to share that we’re designing this future together, we’re designing where the world will be in 50 years together right now. And whilst we’re sitting in different places across the world, I think it’s important to take note and increasingly more of what’s going on in different countries so that nobody has the monopoly on intelligence around what the world would look like and what would make it successful in 50 years. And so, we are co-creating this together. And as we develop the leaders that are going to take us to this future, I think it’s important for us to acknowledge the efforts that we are all making and providing ingredients towards this meal that we’re preparing together. So, I want people to take away that we are designing this future together. And to design it together means being able to see each other and hear each other and listen to each other, not to overtake or overrun or dominate the other but rather we’ve got to take the elements of what works from each other and pull them together in service to sharing this vision for the world and how we want to show up as a people in 50 years. And it’s important to say that because I may not be there, you may not be there but we would have contributed to what our children will inherit.
Eddie Turner:
Thank you. What’s the best advice a leader ever gave you or a quote you use to help you keep leading?
Nankhonde:
I love a quote from Kwame Nkrumah. Kwame Nkrumah was the first prime minister and president of Ghana. He took them to independence in 1957. And he said “We face neither East nor West. We face forward.” That is so powerful for me because he was talking about a time where there was a potential divide for Africa to choose either the East or the West to support them and lead them. And he made it clear that this is not about picking sides. This is about keeping our eyes on the ball, where do we want to go together and then how are we going to work it out to cooperate and support each other to get that.
Eddie Turner:
I like that. Thank you, Nankhonde. Where can my listeners learn more about you?
Nankhonde:
I am on LinkedIn, Nankhonde van del Broek. And I also have a website ZangaMetrics.com. I’m also on Twitter and that’s Nankhonde.
Eddie Turner:
Excellent. We will put that in the show notes so people can click on those easily to connect with you. And I encourage everyone listening, connect with Nankhonde, follow her on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn, visit her website. She is doing, as you heard on the episode here, amazing work and I am just so thrilled that you came here to be on the Keep Leading!® Podcast to share what you’re doing to impact locally and globally.
Nankhonde:
Thank you so much for this opportunity, Eddie. It’s been a wonderful conversation and pleasure to join you and the global audience listening in.
Eddie Turner:
Thank you so much.And thank you for listening. That concludes this episode, everyone. I’m Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®, reminding you that leadership is not about our title or our position. Leadership is an activity. Leadership is action. It’s not the case of once a leader, always a leader. It’s not a garment we put on and take off. We must be a leader at our core and allow it to emanate in all we do. So, whatever you’re doing, always keep leading.
Thank you for listening to your host Eddie Turner on the Keep Leading!® Podcast. Please remember to subscribe to the Keep Leading!® Podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen. For more information about Eddie Turner’s work, please visit EddieTurnerLLC.com.
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The Keep Leading!® podcast is for people passionate about leadership. It is dedicated to leadership development and insights. Join your host Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator® as he speaks with accomplished leaders and people of influence across the globe as they share their journey to leadership excellence. Listen as they share leadership strategies, techniques and insights. For more information visit eddieturnerllc.com or follow Eddie Turner on Twitter and Instagram at @eddieturnerjr. Like Eddie Turner LLC on Facebook. Connect with Eddie Turner on LinkedIn.