Johnathan Shoniwa Reflections

ADDRESS BY MR JOHNATHAN SHONIWA, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF LAFARGE CEMENT ZIMBABWE LTD & CHAIRMAN, BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ZIMBABWE (BCSDZ) AT THE GREEN INDUSTRY CONFERENCE, GUANGZHOU, CHINA  OCTOBER 2013 Introduction The Programme Director, Your Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen It is indeed a great privilege for me and the delegation from Zimbabwe to have the opportunity to participate in this important Green Industry Conference, thank you. Our delegation comprises private business people, government officials and non-governmental organisations , including UNIDO in Zimbabwe. All of us are keen to formally launch a Green Industry Initiative in Zimbabwe, and we have just come from South Korea where we were grateful to have had the opportunity of visiting and meeting with various organisations on the progress they have made in greening their industry. Zimbabwe operating environment Ladies and Gentlemen, every country obviously has its own ...

We all have our own perceptions of what “effective” leadership looks like, so trying to define what is right to hundreds or thousands of people would be an effort in futility -- like asking your boss for a raise after making fun of his new haircut. A Google search of leadership yields 159,000,000 results. Try boiling that down into a shared definition of what leadership means and your life, as you know it, will be over. But if we flip this construct on its head, I am willing to bet that there are non-desirable leadership behaviors we could all agree on; behaviors that simply do not create value for people. Try this exercise. Make a list of eight leadership behaviors that you would not want to see, and then compare your top four to mine below: 1. Complaining . Not cool. I remember something one of my SEAL team leaders said that was so simple and impactful it has stuck with me to this day: “Complaints go up, not down.” Criticizing another leader in the company of followers does...