All big ideas are simple. Ubuntu is a simple, big idea. It asserts that the common ground of our humanity is greater and more enduring than the differences that divide us. It is so, and it must be so, because we share the same fateful human condition. We are creatures of blood and bone, idealism and suffering. Though we differ across cultures and faiths, and though history has divided rich from poor, free from unfree, powerful from powerless and race from race, we are still all branches on the same tree of humanity. (Nelson Mandela)

Ubuntu is about the art of being fully human, of walking a path of service which harnesses our collective potential. The call of ubuntu is about living more fully as a human being to serve our common humanity.

Ubuntu, according to Dr Mvume Dandala, cannot be captured in a single phrase or action or enshrined in 10 commandments. Ubuntu is in the soil, the bedrock of our lives, showing our individual and collective humanity in thousands of ways, large and small.

"It is through others that one attains selfhood." (Mkhize)

LEADERSHIP FOR A MORE HUMAN WORLD

Barbara Nussbaum, co-authored the Penguin book, PERSONAL GROWTH, AFRICAN STYLE (2010) with Sudhanshu Palsule and Velaphi Mkhize. Inspired by the desire to embolden all those who see the potential of Africa, the book offers a path for personal development. It deals with leadership as a journey to the core of oneself. The book inspires each reader to reclaim his/her wholeness as a human being, as an African, as a global citizen.

The book contains a variety of readings and tools as well as written exercises to help readers. The promise and hope of the book is to reclaim the possibility of a more human style of leadership. Not only for Africa,but for the world.

The book is the set text book for MBAs taking the leadership module at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of business. It is currently available in South African only. Ordering details on this link. http://penguinbooks.co.za/book/9780143026389/

Click HERE to order the book.

Books:

• "Sawubona Africa: Embracing four worlds in South African management", Ronnie Lessem & Barbara Nussbaum.
  
  Read Chapter 6 of Sawubona Africa
  
  Read Chapter 12 of Sawubona Africa
  
  
  

Articles:

• Dr. Taddy Blecher: A South African social entrepreneur turns a new economic vision into practice, Merchants of Vision, Volume 19, Issue 1
• UBUNTU, Resurgence Issue 221 (This article was originally written for and published in Dr Mark Albion's ML2 e-newsletter #100, December 19, 2002, "We All Dream of Noble Purposes." His monthly 10 year-old newsletter is available through paid subscriptions, serving people in 87 countries. Past newsletters, books, articles and subscription information can be found at http://www.makingalife.com)
• Ubuntu: Reflections of a South African on Our Common Humanity, Reflections, Volume 4, Number 4
• African Culture and Ubuntu: Reflections of a South African in America, Perspectives, 02/12/03
• Ubuntu and Business...Reflections and Questions, Perspectives, 05/07/03
• Obama's Ubuntu In World Business Academy, Connections