QUESTION 1

Based on your identified leader and using the key characteristic associated with
good strategic leaders, outline how this leader has assisted the success of the brand
they work for.

There are many characteristics associated with good strategic leadership which
include being visionary, committed, well-informed, articulation of the business model,
and willing to delegate responsibilities. As a result, these characteristics could lead
to the outperforming of the brand for the corporation. In the case of Patrice Motsepe,
the founder of Rain ball African Mineral company in South Africa possessed many
characteristics of good strategic leadership as his brand successively grow well in
the African continent. Motsepe is the founder and executive chairman of African
Rainbow Minerals, who has a vision in gold, ferrous metals, base metals, and
platinum. The outgrowing of the brand African Rainbow Minerals was driven by the
good characteristics of the strategic leadership of Patrice Motsepe.

To start explaining the importance of being able to delegate tasks as a leader.

Delegation is the empowerment of responsibilities to the lower-level management to
perform on behalf of their senior manager. This process is usually important when
the organisation expands with many duties to be performed by a single senior
manager. In the case of Motsepe in his early stage before the expansion of his
company, he believed that the delegation process is unnecessary as it can cause
some wastage of resources if the task is given to unskilled employees. Therefore, as
his company expanded national wide in South Africa, he began to realise that to be a
successful leader some of the sensitive responsibilities should be delegated to the
lower level of management. Patrice Motsepe delegated some of the tasks to his
employees. Hence, this led to the fast expansion of the African Rainbow Minerals,
brand in many countries.

Motsepe’s delegation of tasks improved the overall strategic goal of the brand in
many countries, as sometimes he could not even travel to all countries to supervise
the goals of the African Rainbow Minerals. In this case, Motsepe apportioned the
supervision task to his lower managers to oversee the daily operations of the
progress in other countries. As a result, empowering his lower-level managers allows
the African Rainbow Minerals brand to successively achieve sustainable advantages
over competitors. Thus, Motsepe revealed his good strategic leadership
characteristic as he was willing to assign responsibilities to his lower-level managers
which led to the outgrowing of the brand national wide. Hence, the ability to delegate
tasks could be a characteristic associated with good strategic leadership which can
lead to organisational performance successively.

The visionary trait is one of the characteristics associated with good strategic
leadership. The case of Patrice Motsepe, the visionary leader in African Rainbow
Minerals aims to strike the balance in economic, social, and environmental aspects.
As a result, these visions successively positioned the brand for African Rainbow
Minerals to sustain for the long term. Patrice Motsepe’s vision in society and
environment led to the success of the African Rainbow Minerals as Motsepe initiated
the bursary programme project called Motsepe foundation with the vision to alleviate
poverty and sustainable improve the living condition of the poor, unemployed people,
and marginalised people of South Africa. This vision enables African Rainbow
Minerals to sustain itself for the long term as society was at the heart of Motsepe’s
vision.

Moreover, Motsepe is a leader with the vision to transform the youth through
education as his foundation believes that education is a vital element to ignite socio-
economic growth and boost human development capacity. The visionary aspect of
Motsepe believed that once the youth are educated, they can be able to create job
opportunities through learning entrepreneurial activities. Hence, this will unlock the
economic growth of South Africa. Therefore, this vision as the leader of African
Rainbow Minerals reveals that Patrice Motsepe has the characteristic of good
strategic leadership which leads to an increase in organisational performance.

Moreover, being committed is another characteristic that contributed to the success

of African Rainbow Minerals the company of Motsepe. Patrice Motsepe is a leader
who is dedicated to his commitment to achieving objectives. The Motsepe foundation
was dedicated to changing the lives of the marginalised people of South Africa. In his
effort to strike the balance on the social problem caused by apartheid racism,
Motsepe initiated the donation to support the poor people, and unemployed people
and support the charities organisation. Motsepe was a leader who heavily believed
in transforming the community in which he operated his business. Therefore, this is
the major reason that led to the expansion of African Rainbow Minerals as Patrice
Motsepe’s heart was the society and the community support the works of Motsepe’s
leadership. Motsepe is a leader who believed that the sky is the limit meaning that
there is nothing that is impossible to achieve, and he inspired his employees to
successive from a small mining business until his business become well established.
He believed that as a leader you must be optimistic or positive about the objectives
that you set in a business and your past failure does not determine your future
performance. Therefore, the characteristic of being consistent towards the goal no
matter how difficult the task is could be the reason for the success of African
Rainbow Minerals founded by Patrice Motsepe.

Furthermore, being eloquent in public speaking is a good characteristic for a leader

who can successively lead the organisational performance. In the case of Motsepe,
he was good at public speaking to his employees in terms of giving them direction on
what to do. Patrice Motsepe is a South African-born child who grew up in a poor
background family and he started his small business in mining. Throughout his
journey, since he started a business, Motsepe inspired his employees on the journey
he took up to where he is standing with the African Rainbow Minerals. In his
inspiration, he energises his workers to perform more than they expected and to be
more optimistic. Thus, Patrice Motsepe was a good leader as in his leadership there
are many characteristics associated with good strategic good leadership.

Conclusion

Based on the characteristics appears in Patrice Motsepe’s founder African Rainbow

Minerals revealed some of the characteristics associated with good strategic
leadership which has led to the success of the African Rainbow Mineral brand.
These characteristics include being eloquent in public speaking, consistent,
committed, willing to delegate tasks and being a visionary leader.

QUESTION 2

Using the elements of business sustainability, outline how the strategic leader you
have chosen, and their company are addressing issues relating to sustainability.