Tsotsi in the boardroom: Lulu Letlape

Written by Phillippa Yaa De Villiers
Monday, 19 December 2011 12:07

No stranger to the boardroom, Lulu has an impressive list of accolades on her CV having most recently held the position of executive director of corporate affairs at Mercedes-Benz SA, where she provided strategic functional leadership at executive committee and board level and managed stakeholder relationships in addition to serving as the chair of the transformation forum. Prior to this, she was group executive of corporate communications at Telkom, director of Celebrity Services Africa, chief executive officer of World Vision South Africa, senior manager at the Telkom Foundation and public relations manager at the Ntsika Enterprise Promotion Agency. Lulu holds a bachelor in education from the University of Natal, a master’s degree in public and development management from The University of the Witwatersrand as well as global executive leadership certificates from the Aspen Institute in Colorado and IMD business school in Switzerland.

Lulu brings the weight of her experience to how she tackles her work every day at Sanlam, where she is responsible for sustainability reporting, establishing frameworks and compliance with regard to the JSE index, communications and public affairs. She also represents Sanlam in various committees and forums. She took time to share with us some of the lessons she has learnt in her life’s journey up to now.

WOMEN AND THEIR RIGHTS

As a woman, she has had to overcome many obstacles to get to where she is today. She voiced her views on women’s rights in a 2011 Business Day article. Her fundamentally feminine pragmatism is grounded in the belief that women are different to men. Although she calls for women’s contributions to be celebrated and valued, she controversially opposes a quota system to redress inequality in the workplace and finds the legislation somewhat ‘clumsy’ and short-sighted.

“Instead of expecting legislation to tell us what positions we can hold in government and business, we should be proving that we are the ideal candidates for such positions, not because we can do the same job as men, but because we can do a better job, as women,” she told Business Day. “While millions of women remain disadvantaged, creating legislation that forces the appointment of women at decision- making level is not going to change their disempowered status.”

She quietly reminds leaders that the pomp and ceremony of Women’s Month might be over and done with, but there is still a need to discuss equality. Furthermore, the fight that we should be fighting should not only be about the number of zeroes in a woman’s salary package, and how many bras are around the boardroom table. The article concludes with the sobering comment: “while so many [women] are unemployed, uneducated, suffering illness and victims of violence, it is these rights that need the urgent attention of every institution.”

RELATIONSHIPS

Citing Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf – the president of Liberia, first woman president on the African continent and Nobel Peace Prize winner – as her inspiration, Lulu states that in any formal environment prioritising people and relationships could be seen as sentimental, but for many African leaders in government and the corporate world, it’s the key to sustainability. This is the basis for a solid and well-considered policy of engagement and why her career is littered with accolades marking how she works with others.

Lulu herself believes she can only grow if she interacts with more and more people.

“I give more by giving than by getting,” she says. “My work is with people. I give energy to people and draw it from them too – I’m an energy junkie. If I’m not energising people, then I am a liability. I’m always asking myself: ‘Are we both benefiting from this exchange? Is it positive for both of us?’”

This reciprocity is key to self-empowerment and leads to professionalism and a positive group dynamic, which is why she is where she is today.

People and their relationships make the business world work, so instead of seeing ‘the human factor’ as the weak, unpredictable link, Lulu celebrates what people bring to work.

AGE-OLD VALUES

“A human being is part of a social system, belonging in a community, before they come to work,” she says. “Sometimes we think we have to lose our family values to enter our careers, but the corporate family is bound by the same values.”

She explains further: “Take respect, for example. In a family, children respect their parents, and that is a mirror for the relationship to authority that people need to take on in a working relationship. This is something that we all share, no matter our culture or upbringing.”

Respect for authority is half of the dynamic of leadership. The other half is responsible and responsive leadership. She uses a story about her daughter to illustrate the point.

“I cut my hair, and my daughter said to me, ‘You look ugly, Mama.’” She laughs. “It taught me that I cannot change what you think about me. It’s your right to have your own opinion. Hard as it might be, I can’t change your reality.”

This fearless honesty makes a person more capable to deliver, as less energy is spent on hype and defensiveness.

Another value she believes in is the universal ethic of reciprocity, known as the golden rule –  “Do unto others as you would be done by”, interpreted in Africa as ubuntu. Does ubuntu belong in the corporate world, where everyone is competing?

“Definitely. Even siblings squabble,” she smiles. “We all want to be considered equal, but we are not equal – we are not the same. Let’s be honest about our capabilities. If I am confident of the value I add to the group, project of discourse, I can see the value that others add to the work that we are all doing.”

LESSONS LEARNT

Lulu’s daughter is one of her most important teachers, she says, as one of the many lessons she has learnt from parenthood is to pick your battles.

“You’re sitting with this person who knows what she wants, and she doesn’t want the peas. You could carry on having a loud fight, and have some unhappiness, or you can be flexible,” says the indulgent Lulu, who is not shy to draw the line when a colleague is not delivering. Like her daughter, she’s brutally frank. “It’s okay to be wrong,” she says. “It’s okay to be defeated. I can ignore some things, but when it clashes with my value system, I can’t keep quiet.”

Another important lesson she cites as crucial to her development was that of balance.

“There’s more to life than work,” she explains, “and I was very surprised to hear those words from the mouth of a former mentor, who said that I was too focussed on my job. Although I didn’t see it at the time, he was giving me the gift of wisdom that would go much further than a career choice – it was something that resonated profoundly with my life and spoke to my core values.”

For her, accountability is the most crucial issue currently facing the workplace, from government to corporate governance. The stakes are high enough – the natural and human resources of culture and indigenous ethics systems are eroded by consumerism, war and disease on a daily basis. To engage all aspects of society, she says, people need to know that their needs are being considered by those in power.

OPERATION HOPE

Lulu’s passion for people and principles for giving led to the birth of Operation Hope, in September this year. A project initiated and driven by herself and colleague Adele Latchman, Operation Hope is the flagship project of the Sanlam Foundation. It serves communities’ educational needs primarily through supporting programmes that put children from disadvantaged communities into an environment where they can build their skills and achievements to make a positive contribution to society and realise their career goals, “especially in the financial sector and in human resources departments”, says Lulu.

In an understated way Lulu is invoking ubuntu again – making us aware that the idea that what we do as individuals has an impact on the collective. And a central but often understated tenet of the African ethic is the value of the child, which is a metaphor for the future. In a country where many families have broken down, with parents absent due to various circumstances, children are left with the responsibility of internalising the vital skill of growing up independently as a socialised and productive adult.

“At Sanlam, the child is the centre of the universe, and the Foundation sees the needs of children – primarily education – as a priority,” she says.

The Operation Hope community programme aims to re-teach family values including respect, compassion, justice, perseverance and tolerance, among others.

Quiet and self-assured, Lulu has years of service to her dream of equality and social justice, in whatever capacity she chooses to work, leaving the tangible legacy of changed lives and resilient and reachable hopes.