Address by Public Protector Adv. Thuli
Madonsela during the Higher Education Resource Services-SA
Academy Opening Dinner in Cape Town, Western Cape on Sunday,
September 09, 2012
“Women in Leadership”
Programme Director and Chairperson of HERS-SA, Prof. Karen
Esler;
Vice Chancellor of the University of South Africa, Prof.
Mandla Makhanya;
Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Witswatersrand,
Prof. Yunus Ballim;
Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Prof.
Crain Soudien;
HERS-SA Director, Dr Sabie Surtee;
Members of the HERS-SA Board present;
Distinguished guests;
Members of the media;
Ladies and gentlemen;
It is indeed a great honour and privilege to
address you tonight. I am sincerely humbled by the HERS-SA
leadership for believing that I have insights worth sharing
with the HERS community on the subject of Women in
Leadership. I am particularly grateful for the opportunity
to contribute to HERS-SA’s noble cause of addressing the
critical shortage of women in senior positions in the Higher
Education (HE) sector in South Africa. I have no doubt in my
mind that the giant strides that have been made with regard
to putting women in decision-making in the HE sector are
partly due to the diligent contribution of HERS-SA in the
last ten years. Today we have women such as Professor De La
Rey, and others at the helm of leading academic
institutions. Over the years we’ve had women such as Prof
Mapule Ramashala and the Wits University’s former Vice
Chancellor Professor Norma Reid-Birley, among others also
leading key HE institutions. Of course a lot still needs to
be done but we have a lot to celebrate and young women today
have a critical mass of role models. I can say without fear
of contradiction that women in the HE sector today stand on
shoulders of giants who pioneered the way under very
difficult circumstances.
Perhaps due to my teaching background, including my brief
stint in the HE sector, I have a tendency to commence with
definitions. Pardon me for doing the same here. I also have
a tendency to pose questions, some of which I answer while
others I leave to the audience. I have decided to focus the
following key questions:
• What is leadership?
• Why is it important to have women in leadership positions
in the HE sector and broader society?
• Do women in leadership positions face different challenges
in comparison to men?
• What leadership lessons have I learned from women pioneers
and my journey through life, particularly since becoming the
Public Protector?
• How do women in leadership play a meaningful part in
supporting and strengthening our constitutional democracy in
the next phase of our nation building journey?
The meaning of leadership
What is leadership? During a Public Protector Leadership and
Team Building Retreat held under the theme “Leading a
Purpose Driven Organisation” early this year, this
question elicited as many responses as the number of
participants. However, there were common threads in all the
responses. One of those was the power to influence others or
the act of influencing others. In my book on Gender and
Leadership, I settled for a simple definition, which
regards leadership as follows:
“Leadership involves the act of causing other people
to move towards some goal or direction you desire, or to
behave in a particular manner.”
Simply put, leadership involves influencing to embrace and
successfully pursue a cause or vision. If we accept that
leadership involves influencing people we must accept that
being placed in a leadership position is not the same thing
as being a leader. We must also accept that some people
occupy top decision-making positions without ever stepping
up to exercise leadership. This reminds me of a Women’s
Leadership Seminar my sister and I hosted at the University
of Pretoria more than a decade ago. One of the speakers, Adv
Mojanku Gumbi, commenced her talk with the comment, “If
you think you are a leader, look behind you. If no one is
following then you are deluding yourself for the reality is
that you are not a leader.” As women in
decision-making trying to establish our foot prints as
leaders, this was not exactly what we wanted to hear. We
wanted to be told we were leaders. But as we reflected on
her message throughout the seminar, it made a whole lot of
sense.
The value of having women in leadership
The next pertinent question is why is it important to have
women in leadership in the HE sector and other sectors of
society?
Firstly having women in leadership is a human rights issue
and specifically a matter of the right to equality. Women as
human beings deserve to be treated with equal consideration.
This is part of the right to equality entrenched in section
9 of the Constitution. When the Constitution promises to
“Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the
potential of each person”, that promise, which is
found in the preamble, is made to all the women and men of
South Africa.
Actively placing women in leadership also gives expression
to the value of non-sexism, one of the foundational values
of our democracy, which are enshrined in section 1 of the
Constitution. Among the foundational values is “the
achievement of equality” which places a positive
responsibility on those in authority to actively promote
equality. Active promotion of equality, includes positive
measures to advance women, including putting them at all
levels of decision-making in all areas of society.
The proposed Gender Equality and Women Empowerment Bill
seeks to strengthen the regulatory framework for complying
with the positive duty to promote gender equality. So does
Chapter 5 of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of
Unfair Discrimination Act, 4 of 2000. Incidentally this part
of the Equality Act is yet to be implemented more than12
years since the Act was enacted.
This takes us to the other key reason for women to be placed
in positions of power. Former President Nelson Mandela once
said the following:
“As long as outmoded ways of thinking prevent women
from making a meaningful contribution to society, progress
will be slow. As long as the nation refuses to acknowledge
the equal role of more than half of itself, it is doomed to
failure.”
As can be seen from former President Mandela’s thinking,
putting women in position of power is about making full use
of all our society’s human resources and harnessing
diversity for common good. Currently, women comprise more
than 52% of the population. Shutting women out of
decision-making, means society has to limp without part of
the human input that it needs to move forward. More
importantly, women bring a different perspective, which in
many instances is influenced by their own underdog status in
society. In a sense women in leadership tend to act as
agents of change, usually in pursuit of social justice.
From the time of Charlotte Maxeke, women brought empathy to
their leadership. At the core of the demands of Charlotte
Maxeke’s movement at the turn of the 20th century, was
social justice for all of the marginalised in society,
mainly children, women and migrant workers. The same applied
to women activists in other parts of the world, among them
Sojourner Truth and Lucretia Mott. In the United Nations,
there is a movement currently the pursuing the
universalisation of access to education as a social leveller
in society. This movement, which believes that every child,
particularly the girl child, should be accorded equal access
to education, is driven by women. Among the women leaders
involved are Queen Noah of Jordan and Mrs Graca Machel.
I have also noticed that the Minister of Science and
Technology, Ms Naledi Pandor is also passionately driving
women’s access to and participation at all levels of
decision-making in science and technology. It also turns out
that Minister Pandor an alumni of HERS-SA. Her actions
suggest she has not forgotten where she comes from or her
mission as a woman in mainstream power.
Do women in leadership face different challenges to those
faced by men?
My answer to the question whether or not women face
different leadership challenges in comparison to men is yes
and no.
Many of the challenges women in leadership positions face
are gender based while others are the same as those faced by
men. It is also true that even in respect of those
challenges that men also face, women’s experiences are often
compounded by historical gender imbalances and biases. For
example new leaders will always be confronted with the
challenge of managing the transition from the comfort zones
that would have naturally set in under the preceding regime.
There may be a backlash to changes especially if they force
teams to stretch themselves further than before. However,
gendered expectations may compound the process of leading
change for women.
Women and men are both creatures of comfort zones. This
includes the tendency to gravitate towards the familiar. In
the case of leadership, having men in authority is familiar.
For some strange reason, for example, firmness is usually
not reconciled with the nurturing leadership style expected
from women. I refer to this as strange because nurturing is
associated with stereotyping women as mothers. But this does
not take into account that mothers nurture while exacting
discipline in families. Perhaps it is it question of what
kind of disciplinary measures are associated with mothers as
opposed to those associated with fathers.
Being a voice for gender equality is also a challenge. Women
in positions of power within the mainstream tend to fear
that if they speak out on gender equality and women’s
rights, they will be as women’s spokespersons and not the
focal points of their portfolio. Balancing the two is a
challenge. Some deal with the challenge better than others.
More importantly, though, you must agree with me that, as a
general rule, women assume positions of leadership with a
trust deficit. Each action they take or decision they make
thereafter can either exacerbate or diminish the trust
deficit. You must also agree with me that the default
position when people are asked to nominate persons into key
leadership positions is generally men. However, it is
different in the case of organisations that are dedicated to
the advancement of women or gender equality. Today I occupy
the position of Public Protector because a women’s
organisation with a similar mission to HERS-SA, the South
African Women in Dialogue (SAWID), nominated me. To prove
that it is a paradigms question rather than the paucity of
women leaders, organisations such as SAWID do not struggle
to generate a number of potential incumbents for key
decision-making positions in society. This was the case
during my nomination.
A friend who works for a key Non-Governmental Organisation
(NGO) recently informed me about a team asked to informally
suggest a leadership list for their next group of office
bearers. She was sad that the team unashamedly brought back
a list with men only. This also raises a question regarding
what do women do in such cases. Do they accept the myth that
there aren’t any women that are ready to lead at the highest
level of mainstream organisations? A related challenge
arises when the odd woman makes it into tightly contested
top positions in mainstream organisations. Does she accept
the title of honorary man and regular gossip about the rest
of women folk being not ready?
I have also noticed a worrying trend involving the
stigmatisation of women leaders as having gotten their
positions on account of sexual relations. I admit that where
such allegations are true, that would be a violation of the
Prevention and Combatting of Corrupt Activities Act. I get
the feeling though that the accusation comes from lingering
beliefs that women cannot make it on their own as they are
not ready to lead. However, it is encouraging to note that
such attitudes, although a source of worry, belong to a
societal minority. Society has gone a long way towards
judging each person on the basis of the content of his or
her character rather than his or her gender, race or any
other human quality. This was the vision of society espoused
by Africa’s first Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chief Albert
Luthuli as early as 1963 and later by Martin Luther King
Junior. This is a good place to proceed to the lessons I
have learned.
What leadership lessons have I learned from women
pioneers and my journey through life, particularly since
becoming Public Protector?
This event comes in the wake of Women’s Month, a month set
aside to affirm our commitment to the equality of women and
men. August is also a month when we review progress made in
redressing historical gender imbalances in all areas of
life, including the commitment to achieve equal
representation of women and men in all structures and at all
decision-making levels in society.
More importantly though, Women’s Month is a time when we
commemorate the unparalleled leadership act of the women who
led the iconic march of 1956 and the gallant act of all of
the women who participated in that march.
Although proudly declaring themselves the rock of society
that was ready to crush apartheid, the women of 1956 did not
confine their demands to women’s emancipation. They called
for a just and inclusive society, where the potential of
each person was freed and each person’s dignity respected.
This was in line with the Freedom Charter, which had been
adopted the previous year and today this resonates with the
preamble and spirit of our Constitution.
While delivering the 7th Helen Joseph Memorial Lecture at
the University of Johannesburg recently, I recalled my
encounter with one of the leaders of the iconic 1956 march,
Helen Joseph. I specifically shared some of the
unforgettable lessons I learned as a woman in
decision-making from that encounter 23 years ago.
The gist of my story was how women graduated from tea-makers
to decision-makers in the organisation that became Helen
Joseph’s political home for the rest of her life. Before
proceeding I must indicate that there is nothing wrong with
the physical act of tea-making by women, including those in
decision-making when they so wish. I regularly make tea for
my guests and I recently learnt that former US Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright did the same.
The fortunes of women changed, Helen Joseph said, the day
women rebelled against making tea, and demanded a role
reversal for the day. They asked the men to make tea while
they took charge of the meeting. From that day on women were
allowed to participate in the meetings. Though I never
really verified this story, it would appear that, this
historic moment is one of many that heralded women’s rise
from tea-makers to decision-makers. I must hasten to
indicate that the need for corroborating evidence has
nothing to do with my remarkable informant’s integrity but
owes to my weakness as a lawyer. As lawyers, we always
require corroboration. I suspect that as researchers and
scientists you too need some form of verification.
Today women enter and operate in leadership positions under
different circumstances. For example, today there is a
critical mass of women in HE leadership positions and other
scarce skills sectors. In the judiciary, we now have a woman
Judge President, a Deputy Judge President and many Regional
Court Presidents and Chief Magistrates. Two constitutional
institutions, the Public Protector and the Independent
Electoral Commission, are headed by women. There are 2 women
in the Constitutional Court. Representation in areas such as
Parliament, the Cabinet, provincial legislatures and
municipalities, is over 40% and approaching the 50% mark
required by the African Union and the 50-50 representation
of women and men expected in terms of the Southern African
Development Community(SADC) Protocol on Gender and
Development in respect of all structures and all levels in
society.
But there are lingering challenges. Some should be addressed
by society while others by women. Lessons learned from
pioneers such as Charlotte Maxeke, Helen Joseph, Lillian
Ngoyi and Albertina Sisulu, among others, may help women
improve their leadership fortunes today. Incidentally I’ve
been trying to capture these lessons in a book, initially
titled “No More Tea Makers”, for more than a
decade. Key among those lessons, are the following:
• Women must stand up for something.
If you stand for nothing you will fall for anything. If you
have a vision, such vision serves as your compass directing
your day to day decisions. It also enables you to act as a
voice of reason when your organisation goes astray. Women
leaders such as Charlotte Maxeke and Helen Joseph were
guided primarily by a quest for social justice.
• Women must act and lead with authenticity. For
women to add value in mainstream organisations as was the
case with Charlotte Maxeke, Helen Joseph, Lillian Ngoyi and
others, they must act authentically. Authentic action does
not always win you the popularity contest but it is the only
way you can make a difference. The alternative is to act as
a proxy. In that case nothing changes and your presence or
absence does not matter. I often advise young persons that
if you do not make a difference, you do not matter. This
makes you easy to replace.
• Women must act consistently. One of the keys to
making a difference lies in being dependable and acting with
integrity. If you agree with people to act wrongfully
against another, they get to know that your true character
is that you can be swayed and used. Remember that if you act
as a proxy, you are disposable as anyone can be a puppet. It
again boils down to standing for something. If you act as a
proxy people use you and abandon you. During my first
meeting with the President of South Africa, President Jacob
Zuma, he impressed on me how important it was to him and the
country that I remain impartial in all my actions and
decisions. He spoke about how his faith in our remarkable
democracy was restored the day the Public Protector had the
audacity to decide against the powers that be and uphold his
complaint when he was down and out of power.
• Women leaders must have integrity. When Ma
Albertina Sisulu passed on a while ago, “integrity” is one
word that was universally used in all discussions about her.
Integrity is one of the keys to consistency. It is also part
of taking a stand. But the key to integrity is ensuring that
you do what you say. It is difficult to follow a team leader
who says one thing but does the opposite. I’m not suggesting
a holier than thou attitude. At the level of governance in
your institution, it does not mean that no one should drop
the ball under your watch but it means that if you set rules
you must comply with them and enforce them consistently.
Honesty is an important part of integrity. If you have to
keep telling people you are a person of integrity, chances
are you are not. Also, if people always need a second person
at meetings with you to corroborate what was said or need to
record meetings to protect themselves from you, then you
need to take frank look at yourself. Nobody wishes to follow
someone who is unreliable. Again if you stand for something,
it is easy to be reliable.
• Women need to act courageously. To act
authentically and consistently, you need courage. A friend
once told me of a conversation he had with a great leader,
who is regarded as the Moses of South Africa. He said that
the great leader said it was important for young people to
have unquestionable loyalty to the organisation but that
“unquestionable loyalty” should not be confused with
“unquestioning loyalty”. Women leaders also need to have
unquestionable loyalty to their organisations but not
unquestioning loyalty. To be agents of change women often
need to push their organisations or institutions beyond what
is accepted as normal even though parochial and morally
reprehensible. They often have to speak truth to power. This
is exactly what women such as Charlotte Maxeke, Helen
Joseph, Helen Suzman, Albertina Sisulu and Winnie Mandela
among others, have done over the years.
• Women need value based decision-making. Courage is
not an issue when your decisions are value based or
principled. In my context as Public Protector, it is
important that not only is justice done but that it is seen
to be done. Consistency becomes absolutely important. In
this regard, we have a simple immutable narrative that
consists of four questions: What happened? What should have
happened? Is there a discrepancy between what happened and
what should have happened and if so, does such discrepancy
amount to maladministration? If yes, what would be an
appropriate remedy or corrective action?
It is also important to my team and I that we understand and
mediate the power imbalance between the state and ordinary
persons. We also unashamedly give priority to “bread and
butter” matters, thus staying true to the office’s role as a
buffer between the mighty state and the ordinary citizen.
But when we find no wrongdoing on the part of the state we
say so. These days not only do I issue elaborate reports
that seek to clarify the reasoning behind my decisions, I
also issue reports even when the complaint is not upheld.
This is important when a person’s character has been
impugned through media discussions on the allegations.
Complainants often run a media campaign on high profile
complaints, particularly those relating to ethical conduct
or integrity.
• Excellence is a must for women leaders. Earlier on
we touched on the reality that women tend to start with a
trust deficit. What we didn’t say is that persons from
historically marginalised groups in society tend to be
judged as representatives of the group their associated
with. If a woman proves incapable, it is often not said that
that specific person is incapable but that the entire sex is
incapable of performing. Although it is not fair to be made
to carry the sins of your whole group, complaining does not
help. Oprah Winfrey once said that excellence is the best
antidote to racism, sexism and other forms of prejudice.
Excellence does not mean not making mistakes. It means
giving everything you do your best shot.
• Women leaders need to lead from both the front and
behind. Leaders often say “I lead from the front by
showing my team how it is done”. Others would say that
“I lead from the back to allow my team the space to
flourish”. My own experience has taught me that I need to do
both. The strategic question is to determine when it is
appropriate to lead from either front or behind. I know for
a fact that when bullets are flying or likely to fly, the
team feels conformable if like Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph,
Sophie Williams De Bruyn and Rahima Moosa, you are there at
the front with them. That strategy served me well as the
full time Commissioner in the South African Law Reform
Commission and has proved successful in my current position.
• Women leaders need to maintain a learning and growth
attitude. It is said that the moment you stop growing
you are dying. You can never say you have reached a point
when you have all of life’s answers. Every member of your
team can teach you something and so can any person in
society. In fact even a child can provide a key to your next
phase with regard to growing as a person and as a
professional. The reports I issue are based on my decision
alone. However, the input comes from team research and
various discussions, including a session called a Think
Tank.
• Women leaders need to replicate themselves. Author of
Jesus CEO, Laurie Beth Jones, regards the ability to
replicate oneself as a leader as one of the keys to Jesus’
effectiveness and sustainability as a mortal leader. I have
found that teams listen better when one of their own
articulates institutional strategies, values and other
matters that need to be attended to by all. In any event, it
is important that when you leave an institution, it does not
revert to the comfort zone you found it in.
• Women leaders need to communicate effectively.
There’s an African proverb that says a person who cannot
communicate walks alone. Communication is an important tool
for replication. It is also important for stakeholder
management. Often it does not matter whether you are right
or wrong, it is the perceptions that count. My office uses
communication a lot. For this we thank the Constitution for
section 10 on freedom of expression, which includes freedom
of the media. We are also grateful to the media itself for
embracing my office’s work and facilitating dialogue on our
activities and decisions.
With a total institutional budget of R170million for 20
offices that serve the entire state of South Africa,
including local government, parastatals and persons
exercising public power, advertising is not a viable option.
Our communication efforts seek, in part, to comply with my
office’s responsibility to be accessible to all persons and
communities as envisaged in section 182(4) of the
Constitution. Effective communication is also important for
team building and entrenching shared organisational values.
In stakeholder communication, perceptions rule and managing
perceptions effectively is a non-negotiable. At a recent
meeting, a woman I’ve known and respected for a long time
had an unexplained go at me. Even when my briefing touched
on things you expected her side to embrace, which her
colleagues did embrace, she somehow ended up with a warped
view of what I had said. I patiently tried to explain myself
at great length despite her persistent hostile body
language. In the end it was clear to me that it was not
about the meeting and whatever I said there did not make any
difference. In cases like this I find opportunities to
engage without an audience as audiences tend to encourage
posturing. Managing perceptions though does not mean
departing from your core values and principles. In my case
those are immutable as they derive from the Constitution and
the law.
• Women Leaders need to inspire. Another key to
replication is inspiration and in fact, influence generally.
It is important that your words and deeds not only inspire
belief and action towards a shared vision but also that hope
for a better future is inspired. Now more than ever, we need
to inspire all, particularly young people that their actions
matter in creating the future and society they want. They
also need to have faith that a better future is not only
possible but that such future starts now with their own
action. This applies in regard to challenges such as
unemployment, disease and corruption. Difficult quests are
not possible without hope.
• Women leaders need persistence and resilience.
Despite all efforts, things do not always work out. It is
important to accept that life and people are not the way
they are supposed to be but the way they are. Your vision
and values will carry you through when life does not seem to
go the way you want or anticipated. Patience, persistence
and resilience are the key to success in life. It is also
important to understand that people have different purposes
in life and not to unfavourably compare yourself against
those that appear to have found the key to success faster.
Success is living up to your own full potential with the
cards you were dealt with and not living someone else’s
life. Women in leadership positions need to
step up now more than ever to play their part in supporting
and strengthening constitutional democracy. As they do so,
their own fortunes as leaders will be improved.
To all women in this room and elsewhere, I leave you with
the following quote from Marianne Williamson:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our
deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is
our light, not our darkness that most frighten us.”
Adv TN Madonsela
Public Protector of the Republic of South Africa
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