Ubuntu: The Synergy of Followership and Leadership in Industry 4.0

• In Event: Diverse Meanings of Followership and Following: Recognizing Uniqueness in Multicultural Contexts

Short Description

The presentation contends Descartian's “cogito ergo sum” and promotes the notion of Ubuntu as an integrative framework for collaborative thinking where the follower of today is the possible leader of tomorrow. The African notion of Ubuntu states: “I am a person by virtue of other persons.” This is the essence of the most powerful followership.

Detailed Abstract

The African notion of Ubuntu states: “I am a person by virtue of other persons,” and this is the essence of powerful followership. With Ubuntu, right actions are defined by living harmoniously with others, and in the notion of organizations as Complex Adaptive Systems Ubuntu suggests that “when you win, I win, and when you hurt, I hurt.” This is systems thinking at its simplest and yet most complex because followership shapes leadership both by its intent and its actions for the whole and reciprocally for the individual. The power of Ubuntu as a worldview is that the leader is a leader for the good of the whole, and the follower is a follower for the same good of the whole. This means that leadership and followership become dynamically interchangeable constructs dependent on what is most needed by the community at the moment. In this Symposium we contend that the Descartian notion of “cogito ergo sum” within the new context of the 4th Industrial Revolution creates an individualistic win/lose scenario that diminishes the value and power of followership whereas the notion of Ubuntu provides an integrative framework for collaborative thinking and win/win in which the follower is today the possible leader of tomorrow since as a follower she/he acts for the good of the whole, as does the leader, since both are energized and connected through Ubuntu

Participant

• Robert Elkington, Global Leadership Initiatives, Inc.
  Presenter