essence festival durban

Day two of the conference started with the same vigour as day one and although the entire program was captivating, the highlight for me was the talk by Dr Brand Pretorius who is the former CEO of Toyota SA Marketing and McCarthy Limited and currently the Director of many listed companies. He spoke about the Guidelines  for business success in a rapidly changing South Africa.

He said that to be able to be successful in business, one needs to take cognisance of the following.

• embrace change
• Be socially responsible
• Be the best in leadership
• Embrace empowerment
• Keep in lines of principles
• behave with integrity within our businesses
• be the best in innovation
•  be the best in marketing and sales
• be the best in customer satisfaction and retention

He shared his key lessons he learnt through his journey and said that

• if you want to lead others you must have the ability to lead yourself.
• Leadership is about influence, the ability to influence is one that needs to be earned. He went on to say that it is important to set the right example and deliver the results.
• You need to understand management, therefore learning how to execute effectively is important.
•  One needs to develop their your own authentic leadership
• Only ethical leadership can translate to effective integrity
• Learn to translate vision into reality

Dr Pretorius made an interesting quote by Mandela, “I am not here to lead, I am here to serve. This quote rings so true. In the business and work environment so many managers fail in their role, instead of seeing their role as an opportunity to lead by example which brings  trust and respect, they opt for a more dictatorial approach.

After all that has been said and done, the day brought about topics that will assist not only for moving forward in an economy that is rapidly changing.

PHOTO  AND VIDEO CREDIT : DIGIN PHOTOGRAPHER