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Programme Director;
Chief Executive Officer of Quality Life Company, Debby Edelstein and the rest of the Management of Quality Life;
Distinguished guests who are women leaders from corporate South Africa and NGOs and professionals;
Members of the media;
Ladies and gentlemen

Happy Women’s Month and warm greetings from the Public Protector SA Team!
What a privilege it is to addressing this gathering of important women leaders, who are searching for better ways to lead effectively.

Thank you Debbie Edelstein and the Quality Life Team for the invitation! I honoured the invitation to address this leadership conference not only because women’s leadership is close to my heart and what better time to discuss it than Women’s Month; I’m also here because of the Public Protector SA’s commitment to an annual stakeholder dialogue to keep the public abreast of our work while gaining valuable feedback on the people’s needs and views regarding my office’s mandate and role in our democracy.

As women leaders you form an important part of the Public Protector South Africa stakeholder network. This makes today’s engagement another vital platform for my office to comply with the constitutional injunction, in section 182(4) requiring the Public Protector to be accessible to all persons and communities. We interpret this constitutional injunction as giving you the right to know about and to access my office’s services with ease.

The organisers have asked me to engage you on the theme “The courageous leader- leading with courage and integrity.”

It is my considered view that all of you in this room are already leading with enormous courage and integrity. If it were not so you would not be in the positions you are in as women are generally appointed on the basis of track record rather than potential. Your very act of attending this conference tells me that you are on a journey to lead with difference in pursuit of a better country, a better continent and a better world.

Today’s dialogue is part of a broader annual national conversation that takes place on women’s month.

This year, Government has exhorted us all to use Women’s Day (August 9) and Women’s Month to reflect on progress achieved in overcoming gender inequality and advancing women and women’s rights in the first 20 years of constitutional democracy. We have also been asked to look back at progress made since the iconic 1956 march on the Union Buildings by 20, 000 women.

I’m convinced that underlying the call to reflect is the intention to map the way forward with a view to accelerating progress towards the non-racial and non-sexist South Africa that inspired the brave historic march by women from diverse social economic and racial backgrounds on the Union Buildings 68 years ago.

As we gather today to dialogue on women taking their rightful place to lead with courage and integrity, perhaps we could even extend our reflection to the date when one of our country’s literary icons and social justice activist, Olive Schreiner made the following remark:
“I object to anything that divides the sexes. My point is this: Human development has now reached a point at which sexual difference has become a thing of altogether minor importance. We make too much of it; we are men and women in the second place; human beings in the first.”

We could also extend our reflections to Charlotte Maxeke’s visionary pronouncement, when she said:

“If you definitely and earnestly set out to lift women and children up in the social life…. you will find that the men will benefit, and thus the whole community…”
On the subject of courage, very few acts of courage can rival the courageous leadership that made the 1956 march possible or even conceivable. Not only were women regarded as the inferior sex then, it was a time when even the most progressive organisations relegated them to the positions of tea makers.

Yet those women defied the labels and shackles of the time. It’s still mind boggling what convinced them it was possible. What is even more fascinating is their slogan:
“You have touched women, you have struck a rock, you have dislodged a boulder. You will be crushed.”

Have you ever wondered where that courage and enormous self-belief came from?  I will be revealing what I was told by Hellen Joseph and Albertin Sisulu about what powered them then in a book my daughter is helping me to finish having started the unfinished project in 1989. I also intend to interview Sophie de Bruyn, the surviving member of the four leaders of the march, shortly.

In fact, in my view, Mam' Sophie and her contemporaries should be the ones standing before us on days like today, sharing lessons on how to lead with courage and integrity. I have met her on several occasions. She continues to lead with courage and integrity.

That takes me to what is leadership? Do we only lead when we occupy high profile positions? If so, does it mean the message on leading with courage and integrity only applies if you have a title, or a high profile one for that matter?

With a few exceptions, it is generally accepted that leadership principally involves influencing others to successfully exert themselves in pursuit of a shared vision.

One exception to the notion of leadership as essentially about influence is captured in a fascinating book I was recently given by the Methodist Church, which distinguishes between “leadership” and “misleadership”. The book, titled “10 Virtues of Outstanding Leaders”, advances the view that true leadership should generate positive change and that leaders such as Adolf Hitler were not leaders but “mis-leaders. (Gini and Green 2013)

On the definition of leadership as influence, which I subscribe to, you do not need a title to lead. Everyone is called upon to lead everywhere they are. The first person we must lead is ourselves. I must also add that leading ourselves is the most difficult leadership challenge each one of us is confronted with everyday of your life. Do you agree?

The call to lead with courage and integrity accordingly applies to all, including small children. Of course if you are a grown up, say a parent or someone at the helm of an organisation, the need to heed the call is more critical as the consequences of failed leadership affect many and in many instances transcend your organisation.

What are the keys to leading with courage and integrity?

I suspect many of you expect me to draw from my own journey. I thought however, I would rather share with you from the women who have travelled the road less travelled and whose lives have inspired me. This comes from a Zulu proverb, which says “indlela ibuzwa kwabaphambili”. Loosely translated, it means we need to draw from the experiences of our forerunners.

In the project I spoke about earlier we draw lessons on effective and sustainable leadership from 21 of the women who paved the way.

Courage and integrity feature among those lessons. Regarding what enables courage and integrity, I have factors such as a strong sense of purpose anchored in authenticity and self definition to be central to leading with courage and integrity.

In the project I referred to earlier, I talk about Victoria Mxenge as epitomising courageous leadership. Victoria Mxenge, whose funeral I attended, was courageous beyond measure. When her husband was murdered for defending political activists during apartheid, she stepped in and took control of the legal practice and the defense of political activists. Often intervening to shield young people ill-treated by the government of the day during detention, she formed part of the defense team in the 1984 treason trial that involved leaders of the United Democratic Front and the Natal Indian Congress.

A few days after speaking at the funeral service of the so-called “Craddock Four”, where she addressed an estimated 50 000 mourners who had come to pay tribute to the four activists that had died at the hands of the security police, she died in a hail of bullets in the driveway of her home in Umlazi, Durban.

She knew when she undertook the work she did that there were risks. Her own husband had just been killed. In her we see not only physical courage but moral courage and the courage to overcome the fear of failure.

Of course Mxenge is but one of those that have led with courage. Charlotte Maxeke’s dare to lead was an act of courage. She required even more courage to approach the President of the day to advocate for the rights of women and children, including a call for reforms in the justice system. Courage made it possible for her to lead the first woman’s march at the turn of the century.

Starting a women’s magazine in a male dominated industry required courage for Jane Raphaelly. The same applies to Cissie Gool who became the first black woman advocate and Pam Golding who trail-blazed into the estate agency and property industries. We’ve already learnt that it took courage, among other things for Lilian Ngoyi, Hellen Joseph, Sophie de Bruyn, Rahima Moosa and others to conceive and execute the historic women’s march of 1956. From them we learn that courage indeed is not the absence of fear but the conviction to act despite fear in pursuit of greater good.

On the question of leading with integrity, I could not find anyone to rival Mama Albertina Sisulu. From the moment I met her in the early 80s, she exuded integrity in every way. You could rely on her, you could depend on her, her word was gold. Integrity was among other qualities that kept Hellen Suzman going as a lone voice for a just and inclusive South Africa in Parliament for many years.

It is essential that we learn from the these leaders of stature, who, at the height of institutionalised oppression of women in particular, stood head and shoulders alongside their male counterparts, sticking their necks out even when danger was imminent. They courageously played a significant leadership role in the emancipation of not only fellow women but the rest of the oppressed people of South Africa.

Today as women we stand on the shoulders of these giants and can therefore see clearer and further.  Although our country still has many deficiencies, it is a better country.

The world too is better than the one in which women such as the Queen of Sheba, Queen Nzinga of Angola, Queen Gwamile of Swaziland, Princess Mkabayi of Zululand, Olive Schreiner of South Africa and Rosa Parks of the United State, among others, led in.

Today we have international conventions that advance women’s rights. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 1948, the same year apartheid was born in South Africa, protects the equality of rights between men and women. In 1979, the UNGA adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which is also known as the International Bill of Rights for Women.

Then came the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 1 325, adopted unanimously in 2 000, as the first formal and legal document from the UNSC that required all states to fully respect the international human rights law applicable to the rights and protection of women and girls during and after armed conflicts.

In Africa, we have what is called the Maputo Protocol or the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, which was adopted by the African Union (AU) in 2003 in Mozambique. It came into force two years later after being ratified by at least 15 AU member states. Among other things, the protocol guarantees comprehensive rights of women, including the rights to take part in political processes and to social and political equality with men.

Domestically, we have one of the most progressive Constitutions in the world, which not only prohibits gender discrimination but specifically adopts a substantive notion of equality, which includes active promotion of gender and other forms of equality.

Firstly, the preamble promises an improved quality of life with every person’s potential freed.

The founding provisions in Chapter 1, go on to declare that the Republic of South Africa is a sovereign and democratic state founded on, among others, the values of “human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms”, “non-racialism and non-sexism” and “universal adult suffrage …”

The Bill of Rights under Section 9, proceeds to enshrine a right to substantive and not just formal equality and states that:

    “Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law.
    Equality includes the full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms. To promote the achievement of equality, legislative and other measures designed to protect or advance persons, or categories of persons, disadvantaged by unfair discrimination may be taken.
    The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.
    No person may unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds in terms of subsection (3). National legislation must be enacted to prevent or prohibit unfair discrimination.
    Discrimination on one or more of the grounds listed in subsection (3) is unfair unless it is established that the discrimination is fair.”

Beyond the Constitution, we have laws that seek to eliminate gender discrimination while advancing women and women’s rights. These include:

    Gender Equality and Women Empowerment Act
    Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000
    Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998
    Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998
    Sexual Offences Act 3 of 2006
    Maintenance Act 99 of 1998
    Prevention of Family violence Act 132 of 1993
    Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 120 of 1998

There are also numerous policies, programmes and institutions that support the advancement of women and gender equality. Among the institutions are the Commission for Gender Equality and a Women’s Ministry. As a country we have committed ourselves to mainstreaming gender in every policy, decision and action.

Although the challenges we face today are nothing compared to what the Mxenges, Josephs and Suzmans of this world had to deal with, we can definitely use their experiences to navigate our way around them. I have picked up a few important lessons we can learn from them.

1. Walking the road less travelled

The trail-blazers have shown that they were never afraid to go into areas widely thought to be a “man’s world.” They knew very well that theirs and the fate of the equally oppressed men were interconnected. With this in mind, they boldly assumed those leadership roles to their full potential.

Some of us today stop when we see doors closed and assume they are locked. Many are not locked and even the locked ones, we often don’t realise we have the keys to open them.

2. Sacrificing our comfort for the greater good

Many of them disagreed with the government of the day when it was perilous to do so. They made tough decisions often breaking ranks with their own in pursuit of what was right.

3. Bravery amid danger

In the midst of life-threatening intimidations, leaders like Victoria Mxenge stuck with what was right. They ignored the risks involved. In other words, they put their own interests and those of their families aside for the oppressed. They could not see their own freedom as separate from that of the oppressed.

4. Speaking truth to power

These leaders were not afraid to put their heads above the parapet. They would not shy away from making unpopular views and decisions. All that mattered to them was for what they said and did to be the right thing.

5. Paying the price

They were prepared to pay the ultimate price. Mxenge, for one, did that and Joseph miraculously survived several attempts on her life. All they cared about was the freedom we all enjoy today.

Today we don’t have to pay such high prices. Leading with integrity and courage often simply means leading our companies or organisations ethically, ensuring there is no maladministration, corruption or malfeasance. Many women, including those in this room are doing just that. Some that I have met are also the whistleblowers who help us identify and root out wrong doing.

For others courageous acts mean accepting responsibility for poor service by our institutions and righting the wrongs when customers, including the downtrodden Gogo Dlamini’s complaint, without the involvement of lawyers.

Indeed, we stand tall today on the shoulders giants and are accordingly able to do more. As we continue to march towards the South Africa promised by our Constitution, let us double our efforts in leading with courage and integrity as that will ensure that the country imagined by Olive Schereiner, Charlotte Maxeke and the women of 1956 materialises expeditiously.

This will happen if we also play our part in ensuring that government operates with accountability, integrity and responsiveness at all times.

Thank you.