Education lies at the heart of ethical leadership

South Africa does not lack for clever plans or eloquent speeches. What we lack, in far too many institutions, is a reproducible way of growing leaders who are ethical, accountable, self-aware and capable of widening the circle of belonging.

- Dr Sibongiseni Kumalo

That is the promise of conscious leadership, and the place to manufacture it at scale is in our education system, broadly defined to include schools, colleges, universities, after-school programmes, tutoring networks and practice-based learning in the workplace.

One's framework is a practical starting point. It insists that ethics, assertive empathy and self-awareness are not soft add-ons, but first principles.

In our context, those principles translate into three disciplined habits: cultivating inclusive mindsets that name and manage bias; building authentic connections that reward relational integrity over hierarchy; and creating environments where contribution and accountability go together.

I believe this approach is now mission critical in SA. From the traffic stop to the tender room and the board meeting, "just this once" has become a habit, and this habit has bred a trust recession that taxes every transaction, pushes up the cost of capital, scares off investment and hardens public cynicism. State Capture not only looted the fiscus, but also left a muscle memory of impunity that still twitches in institutions large and small.

So why put education at the heart of this? Because education is where leadership behaviours are rehearsed daily.