Leading Edge: The Rise of the activist leader

Great leaders are great engagers. Leaders have to become more politicised and engaged activists. We need to make work our real life – make it extend to our deeper values and what we want to see in society.

The Dean and Director of Henley Business School Africa, Jon Foster-Pedley, considers the true purpose of business, what motivates people, the broken old model of capitalism and why leaders need to take a stance.

Listen to Jon’s episode to hear him discuss these topics:

• Activist leaders – beyond the boundaries of your business
• Why we need to focus on prosperity, rather than just profit
• How current business practices are failing us

“I think all of us need a bigger target, which is to go beyond our businesses and understand that our activities affect the world. So why don’t we absorb that, understand it and make those effects more consciously beneficial to everybody”

What will Jon keep and stop doing in the ‘new normal’?

• Continue: just breathing and relaxing his mind. We are all so full of anxiety and need to let our thoughts run to see what comes up and to gain a bigger, richer perspective of the world.
• Stop: worrying! Just go out there and do it; have a go and really own that job.

Jon Foster-Pedley Jon is the Dean and Director of Henley Business School in Africa. He is the founder and chair of MBAid, which uses the energies of MBA and executive education in business schools to help SMEs and NGOs as well as founder of #CorporateActivism, a movement that highlights the disastrous effects of corruption and state capture on economic development, human rights and on individual careers, reputation, and credibility.