19/05/2026
WEEKLY LEADERSHIP SERIES RECAP
Theme: Becoming a Competent and Effective Leader: What It Takes
Speaker: Professor Pikay Richardson: Founding Member – David Douglas Leadership Forum (DDLF), Senior Fellow, Manchester Business School - UK
Host: David Douglas Leadership Forum (DDLF)
The David Douglas Leadership Forum was honored to host Professor Pikay Richardson, Senior Fellow at Manchester Business School, for our Weekly Leadership Series
Professor Pikay Richardson delivered an open lecture on “Becoming a Competent and Effective Leader: What It Takes.”
The session focused on leadership development. In his presentation, he outlined nine key ways to develop leadership skills:
• Seek mentorship: – Learn from those who have walked the path before you. People who have been through the challenges you’re facing already know the traps, shortcuts, and what actually matters. Learning from them saves time, reduces costly mistakes, and gives you a clearer picture of what leadership looks like in practice, not just theory.
• Embrace continuous learning: – Stay curious and adaptable. Curiosity keeps you asking better questions and noticing what’s changing around you. Adaptability lets you act on those answers without getting stuck in “how we have always done it.” Leaders who stay curious avoid blind spots, and leaders who stay adaptable don’t get left behind when the context shifts.
• Step outside your comfort zone: – Growth happens at the edge. Real development doesn’t happen when you’re comfortable and doing what you already know. It happens when you’re stretched — taking on unfamiliar problems, having difficult conversations, making decisions with incomplete info. That’s the “edge” of your current capability. Stay there long enough, and the edge becomes your new normal.
• Cultivate effective communication: – Clarity and listening build trust. Clarity removes confusion and shows respect for people’s time. People trust that you’ll be direct with them and actually hear them in return.
• Build emotional intelligence: – Understand yourself and others. You can’t lead others well if you don’t know what drives you—your triggers, blind spots, and limits. And you can’t build trust with a team if you misread what’s driving them. Self-awareness keeps you grounded, and awareness of others helps you adapt your approach so people actually follow.
• Create collaborative environments: – Teams outperform individuals. Individuals bring skill, but teams bring range—different perspectives, faster problem-solving, and shared ownership that makes ideas stick. When people collaborate well, the output isn’t just bigger, it’s better than what anyone could produce alone.
• Think strategically: – Connect daily actions to the bigger picture. Without the bigger picture, daily work feels like busywork and people lose motivation. When you connect tasks to the “why” and the long-term goal, decisions get faster, priorities get clearer, and the team stays aligned even when details change
• Lead by example: – Your behavior sets the standard. People watch what you do far more than what you say. If you want accountability, punctuality, or openness, you have to model it first. Your behavior becomes the unofficial rulebook for the team—lower the standard once, and it’s hard to raise it back up
• Welcome feedback: – Use it as fuel for improvement. Feedback stings when you treat it as judgment. It accelerates growth when you treat it as data. Leaders who use it as fuel spot blind spots faster, adjust quicker, and create a culture where others feel safe to speak up too.
The session included extensive Q&A where participants discussed the differences between leadership and management, corruption in African politics, and practical applications of leadership principles in various contexts including corporate settings and government.
MAKE TIME TO JOIN US NEXT WEEK FOR ANOTHER TERRIFIC SESSION.
SPEAKER: MR. GEORGE WAYLEE - USA
TOPIC: TEN LESSONS ON HOW TO PERSUE YOUR DREAM – PART 2
DATE: 24TH MAY 2026
