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12 March 2020 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Supplied
Student Governance dialogue session
The UFS Student Governance office aims to motivate engaged scholarship among students and academia, to act as a reservoir of excellence in governance, and shape an excellent landscape of leadership.
“I’m anticipating philosophical discussions that will unpack moral courage, ethics in leadership, and governance,” said UFS Manager for Student Governance, Buti Mnyakeni, in opening the Division of Student Affairs’ first annual Student Governance Leadership Series (SGL) at the University of the Free State (UFS). 

The Student Governance office intends to encourage engaged scholarship among students and academia to produce a broader landscape of equipped student leaders from the university. 

UFS Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement, Prof Puleng LenkaBula, joined by former SRC President, Phiwe Mathe, and student leaders Sam Masingi and Amanda Charles, provided rich and provoking contributions under the theme The concept of good governance. On the first day of the series, the discourse kicked off with problematising the concept, and further led to egocentrism, and Afrocentric modalities of governance. 

The panel also unpacked the exclusivity of governmental systems by discussing institutional and managerial culture, which according to them, results in detached knowledge and ways of thinking. 

Day two of the series focused on discussions around moral courage in the era of ethical decay. Attorney of the High Court and International Economic Law Lecturer at the UFS, Mmiselo Qumba; former Vice-President of the SRC, Bokang Fako; former president of the SRC, Richard Chemaly; and freelance writer, broadcaster, author, and communicator, Ace Moloi, engaged extensively on the influence of personal values on shared ethical standards as a vehicle that can lead to a socially just community and society.

The SGL series established a platform to encourage current and prospective student leaders to reflect, connect, and be innovative in their design thinking as leaders in their respective governance structures.

The Programme Director for the event, Adv Thanduxolo Nkala – an accredited mediator in commercial and court-annexed mediation – reflected on the dialogues as “rich and robust.”

News Archive

‘Leadership is formed through ethical behaviour’
2012-08-20

Mr Edward Kieswetter
20 August 2012

“Being ethical is not about what we can do, it is about what we ought to do.” This is according to Mr Edward Kieswetter, Group Executive of Alexander Forbes Limited. During his lecture to MBA students in the Business School, Mr Kieswetter allowed the audience to engage in a discussion about ethics and leadership in the business world. Mr Kieswetter is also Vice-Chairperson of the UFS Council.

Part of the lecture was discussing South Africa as a country that was not born in ethics. Mr Kieswetter commented that although context was is very important in making decisions, South African people tended to, for example, and “feed on corruption, instead of acting actively against it”. Questions about South Africa’s ethical foundation were raised. Mr Kieswetter explained that one of the greatest challenges with the South Africans was to help them understand that a person always had a choice. “If you have to compromise on your own values, you are not doing anybody justice.”

Ethics can promote common and social goals if they are not determined by what people feel and strive to reach beyond the barriers that religious beliefs put up. He shared of his life’s most valuable lessons learned about people in leadership positions. “A great leader has incredible self-awareness and displays a huge amount of humility.” He said that in life it was not about being perfect; it was rather about being authentic, even in challenging times where the outcome might affect the current situation negatively. “My greatest successes came from lessons I learned in making mistakes and growing from them.

“If you have nothing to die for, then what is there to live for?” Mr Kieswetter said when asked whether he would compromise his financial position if he did not agree with the ethics of the company he worked for. “By constantly complaining instead of progressing, we are giving up our power to change, and that is a scary thing for South Africa as a developing country.” 
 

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