Part Two
Remember Thabo from our previous discussion on the Theory of Constraints? The talented young professional who found it difficult to speak up in meetings, not because he lacked confidence, but because he valued belonging more than being heard? That wasn’t just Thabo’s story. It’s the hidden constraint affecting thousands of talented Black South Africans, including Coloured professionals, in corporate offices, schools and on sports fields across the country every single day.
But here’s what we missed: the constraint isn’t in Thabo. It’s in how we’ve built our workplaces, schools and sporting systems. Our corporate and school cultures and coaching philosophies have a critical bottleneck; they only recognise and reward one type of excellence: the loud, assertive, self-promoting kind, much like a kinked hosepipe that restricts water flow. Meanwhile, Ubuntu-informed excellence, being thoughtful, collaborative, consensus-seeking, gets misdiagnosed as weakness.
This follow-up blog explores the phenomenon itself: what happens when “I am because we are” conflicts with “speak up or fall behind,” and what leaders need to do differently to unlock the potential they are currently neglecting. This phenomenon has increasingly transformed from an everyday occurrence into more of an exception in today’s society, particularly in the realm of sports. Nevertheless, it retains its relevance today and may warrant our continued focus and exploration.
The Collision: Two Value Systems on a Crash Course
Imagine two trains travelling at full speed on tracks that suddenly converge. One train carries Ubuntu philosophy, the belief that emphasises communal harmony, respect for collective wisdom, and the understanding that standing out above the group can be dangerous. The other carries Western corporate culture: individual achievement, assertive self-promotion, speaking up first and loudest.
That collision point? That’s every Monday morning meeting in corporate or a classroom in South Africa. Every performance review. Every team selection. Let’s record the specific conflicts:
| Ubuntu Value | Corporate/School Expectation | The Internal Conflict |
| Respect hierarchy and elders | Challenge authority to show critical thinking | Speaking up feels like disrespect |
| Humility about achievements | Self-promotion and personal branding | Talking about yourself feels like boasting |
| Collective success | Individual performance metrics | Taking credit feels like abandoning the team |
| Harmony and consensus | Healthy debate and conflict | Disagreeing feels like creating division |
| Patience and deference | Urgency and assertiveness | Waiting for your turn means never getting a turn |
| Community over self | Personal career advancement | Prioritising yourself feels selfish |
How the Constraint Shows Up:
In Sports: The Talented Athlete Who Never Self-Promotes
Picture Lunga, a young Black rugby player from the Eastern Cape. He’s quick, clever, and reads the game superbly. Yet he lets his performance do the talking, supports the team, and doesn’t boast. His white teammate, equally skilled, posts highlight reels on Instagram, tags scouts, and networks at every event. He’s been raised to treat his career as if it were a political campaign.
Who gets selected for the provincial squad? Not Lunga. Because talent without self-promotion is like having a shop in a township with no sign, people assume it’s closed even when it’s open. The coach’s assessment? “Lunga doesn’t show enough hunger. Doesn’t seem passionate about making it.” The misjudgement: Lunga has immense hunger. Unfortunately, he’s just been taught that real hunger is quiet, respectful, and team-focused, not loud and self-centred.
In the Workplace: The Brilliant Analyst Who Goes Unnoticed
Consider Nthabiseng, a data analyst at a corporate bank. She produces impeccable work: detailed reports, elegant solutions. She submits everything quietly, on time, assuming excellence will be recognised.
Her colleague Chad produces work that’s 70% as good but presents it as if he’s cured cancer. He speaks in every meeting (even when he has nothing substantial to say), sends “visibility emails” to senior leaders, and networks aggressively. Come promotion time, Chad secures the team lead role. The feedback on Nthabiseng? “We need to see more leadership presence. You need to make yourself known.”
The misdiagnosis: Nthabiseng has leadership presence; she leads through excellence, reliability, and uplifting others. Her organisation doesn’t recognise that as leadership.
In the Classroom: The Quiet Scholar Who Goes Unnoticed
Consider Mia, a student in a high school science class. She excels in her coursework, consistently producing thorough lab reports and insightful projects. Mia diligently submits her assignments on time, believing that her academic achievements will be acknowledged.
In contrast, her classmate Jake delivers work that is decent but far from exceptional. However, he is always eager to raise his hand in discussions, often embellishing his contributions with dramatic flair. Jake frequently seeks the attention of the teacher, sharing his ideas even when they lack depth, and he thrives on the praise he receives from classmates.
When it comes time for class awards, Jake is recognised as “Student of the Term” for his enthusiasm and presence. Meanwhile, the feedback on Mia is that she needs to participate more actively in class discussions and “show her personality.”
The misdiagnosis: Mia actually displays her commitment to excellence and collaboration with her peers. However, the school fails to recognise that consistent quality and teamwork can be forms of leadership and influence.
The Cost: What Companies, Schools and Teams Are Losing
This isn’t about individual career disappointment. This is about systemic loss:
- Companies/Schools lose innovation. The quietest person in the room often has the most transformative idea, but they won’t fight to be heard.
- Teams lose diverse leadership. When only one communication style gets promoted, you get homogenous leadership that thinks alike, blind to what they’re missing.
- Sports teams lose championships. Like the Springboks before Rassie Erasmus recognised that different players bring different strengths, teams that only value vocal, aggressive leadership miss the strategic, consensus-building leaders who hold teams together under pressure.
- South Africa loses transformation. We talk endlessly about workplace transformation while systematically filtering out people whose Ubuntu-informed values don’t fit Western-shaped holes.
It’s like having an orchestra but only listening to the trumpets. You miss the cellos, the violins, the percussion and wonder why the music sounds incomplete.
For Companies, Schools and Coaches: Embracing Diverse Leadership Styles and Talent Identification
To effectively harness and develop Black talent, both companies and coaches need to implement critical shifts that recognise and nurture diverse styles of leadership and excellence.
1. Redefine Leadership Presence
Leadership should not be equated solely with assertiveness or loudness. Effective leaders often exemplify qualities such as listening, consensus-building, and mentoring. Recognise contributions that may not be immediately visible:
- Evaluate leadership based on the ability to synthesise ideas, provide thorough analysis, mentor others, or build connections between team members.
- For coaches, recognise that commitment can manifest in quieter ways—some athletes show their dedication through teamwork, unyielding support, and strategic thinking rather than through vocal demonstrations.
2. Develop Pathways to Visibility
Not everyone is comfortable self-promoting; creating systems to highlight quiet excellence is vital:
- Implement processes like skip-level check-ins and peer recognition to uncover significant contributions from all team members, whether in corporate settings or athletic teams.
- Coaches should observe training sessions to identify players who elevate others’ performance, ensuring that those who perform consistently well are acknowledged.
3. Train on Value Systems Beyond Traditional Metrics
Training should go beyond just recognising diversity and include understanding different value systems:
- Help managers, teachers and team leaders appreciate that traits such as humility, deference, and shared credit can embody strong leadership and team spirit, rather than signalling weakness.
- For coaches, recognise that different leadership styles, from vocal motivators to those who lead by example, are all essential for a cohesive team.
By integrating these approaches, both companies and coaches can create environments that foster diverse talent and leadership styles, ensuring everyone has the opportunity to shine based on their unique strengths.
The Ubuntu Advantage: What You Gain by Adapting
Here’s the irony: the very qualities Ubuntu instils: humility, collective focus, consensus-building, respect for process, are precisely what high-performing teams need in complex environments.
Research consistently shows that the most effective teams:
- Value psychological safety over aggressive debate
- Build trust through reliability, not showmanship
- Make better decisions through diverse input, not dominant voices
- Sustain success through collective accountability, not individual heroics
Sound familiar? That’s Ubuntu applied to high performance. Companies, schools and teams that learn to recognise and develop Ubuntu-informed talent don’t just “do the right thing”, they gain a competitive advantage. The Springbok rugby team is an excellent example. It’s like discovering you’ve been walking past diamonds because you were only looking for gold.
The Challenge to Leaders
The obstacle isn’t with our Black employees and athletes. The obstacle lies within our systems. We’ve built organisations that only acknowledge a single form of excellence, a single communication style, and a single way of showing leadership. Then you wonder why your “diverse” hires reach a plateau, why transformation appears to be stagnant, and why your talent pipeline doesn’t reflect your hiring pipeline.
The question isn’t: “How do we get Black people to speak up more?”
The question is: “How do we build organisations where different forms of excellence are equally visible and valued?”
Conclusion: Clear the Real Bottleneck
In our previous blog, we explored how individuals can use the Theory of Constraints and the Rudder4Success Framework/Theory to identify and clear their personal bottlenecks. Thabo learned to navigate his value conflict and found his voice.
But the bigger bottleneck? It’s organisational. Companies, schools and sports teams that only reward Western-style assertiveness are like factories with hosepipes kinked in the same spot; they’ll never achieve full flow until they fix the infrastructure, not just coach individual water drops to push harder.
The call to action for leaders: Stop diagnosing Ubuntu-informed values as weaknesses. Start redesigning your systems to recognise that “I am because we are” produces excellence just as profound as “I speak, therefore I lead”, it just looks different. The diamonds are already in your organisation. You’ve just been looking for gold. Time to adjust your lens.
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