Interview with Dr. John Volmink, November 30, 2019

JV: Yeah, good. You know, you can see that when there's audio and video the reception, the connectivity is affected. Now know I exist, I'll put the video off and we can talk audio.

EO: Alright, sounds good to me. Well thank you so much for taking time to do this.

JV: No problem.

EO: I really appreciate it.

JV: My granddaughter-- hi? My granddaughter is by the door so she's trying to force her way in but she hasn't succeeded yet

EO: Alright well, I guess let's go ahead and dive right into it.

JV: Yeah, you are at which University again?

EO: I'm at Belmont University.

JV: Yes. And your major is Global Leadership?

EO: Yes, it is. I'm also studying international business, so I'm learning Mandarin and I hope to work abroad in China.

JV: Wow, well that's wonderful.

EO: Yeah! It's exciting stuff

JV: So also you know there is a group that I'm working- just, Elena. There's a buzz in the background is that because there are people working on your side?

EO: I don't know what that would be. It might just be background noise from the computer or static.

JV: Okay, well it doesn't bother me as long as you can hear me that's fine.

EO: I can hear you, as long as you can hear me okay.

JV: Yeah so there's a group that I work with in Canada and it's for the Global Leadership Institute. And the guy running that was a pastor of a church that I attended. He is now a University person, and he's very resourceful so it very well may be that you will find conversation with him helpful.

EO: Wow yeah, that sounds really interesting

JV: Yeah, I'll connect you by email.

EO: Yeah, that would be great.

JV: Yeah, his name is Rob Elkinton.

EO: Wow, thank you.

JV: Okay, let me just try to call from my side just to get rid of that buzz. If that doesn't work, we just carry on.

EO: Alright yeah, let's try that.

JV: Let me try and call you. I'll call you back.

JV: Hi?

EO: Hello? Is that any better?

JV: Hi. Yeah, that's much better. I can hear you much clearer now.

EO: Okay, good. Alright so we can go ahead and just start. I read that you worked for several years as a professor at several different universities, so how did you transition into working for the Umalusi Council? Am I saying that correctly?

JV: Yeah, so let me just explain what Umalusi is. Umalusi is a word in our language, in the languages of South Africa. In Zulu, it means "shepherd". So, in the African idiom, if you are the shepherd, then you look after the sheep, obviously. Or the goats, or even the cows. The point is that if you lose that- you are the custodian of the assets- and if you lose that, you lose everything. So, the Umalusi Counsil is something that I've been doing now for 10 years. So, it is an important body that looks after the quality of education. And I think that it's important also to know that in a country like this, education is seen as a very important tool to lead people out of poverty, to lead them out of ignorance, and to empower people- more than anything else. So, you cannot exchange-- Education allows you to build capital. Intellectual and cultural capital which you can then exchange in return for other things. So, in the sense, I am an education leader. Your question was 'how did you turn from a University person to Umalusi?' well, it turns out that since I've came back from the United States, I believe that in this country, you cannot have both feet at one place. So, in my view, I need one foot in the university and one foot outside of the university. So, until recently still being a Vice-Chancellor, although acting for two different universities- that means "President" in America. Vice-Chancellor is the President of a university. So, I've been president of two universities and one Christian university for five years. I've been the President of Cornerstone. I should send you my full CV so that you can see the sequence in which I did things.

EO: Oh yeah, please do.

JV: Yeah, I will do that. So yes, Elena, I believe- I actually am leaving for Johannesburg. I'm in Capetown- I live in Capetown- but I'm leaving for Johannesburg tomorrow. And then I go to give a talk to a group; it's a conference where all the universities are. And it's about community engagements at the university. So, my role- always my mission almost- has been to make university as a way in this country that you cannot define excellence in a narrow way just by producing publications. You have to have a commitment to the community as well. So, therefore, what I say: I work on the boundary where the university meets the community. And universities have a habit of drawing a solid line around them. A fence. And say, "everything inside this circle, that's a university, and everything outside is not." And I don't share that view. And therefore I work on the boundary with one foot inside the university and one- particularly in a context such as the African context, we cannot put an ivory tower on a hill and ignore the realities of poverty and joblessness and violence and all the other problems that is out there. We have to engage- engage intelligently and dynamically and openly with our context and our communities. It's a long answer to your question

EO: No, I really like that actually. Well so you were in America just while you were at Cornell?

JV: Yes, I was, at America I did my PhD there and then I was asked to join the faculty. So, I was an assistant professor in the department for mathematics education.

EO: So, what were some of the biggest differences you've seen between American education and South African education?

JV: Yeah, you know, that's a good question, Elena. So, I very much appreciated the openness of America. Certainly, during the time while I was there. That I got the impression while I was there that Americans are more interested in what is being said than who is saying it. So even if you're a little child, as some of my children were at the time, what they had to say was considered and taken as seriously as a grown up. So, and in the sense, a voice was dependent on not your age or your race or your gender but on the substance of what you had to offer. And I think that's how particularly my oldest boy who went to middle school in Ithaca came back very much aware of how you can be a self-managing person as well as a critical citizen. And I think America- American education prepares people very well to be a self-managing person and a critical citizen, but also a participant in the economy of the country. The history of education in South Africa is two-fold. Well, let me rather put it differently. The challenge we have in South Africa is a two-fold challenge. The one part is to the anti-apartheids. To work against the legacies of apartheid and justice that was the features of the South African apartheid ideology. And when I came back, Nelson Mandela had just been released from prison and we were beginning a new country. And so that was one of the challenges we were fighting, was the social justice, and then the other challenge is to help people participate in the global economy. So those are two different challenges. And America does it much more nationally- it doesn't have the other challenge as deeply as we have it and as immediate as we have it. And that is of our recent memory of education system that was destructive and not constructive.

EO: Okay, so we also talked in class about kind of cultural identities. So, I know that you were born in South Africa. Personally, I was born in China, as I'm sure you know probably know.

JV: No, I didn't know that!

EO: Well, that's why I'm kind of interested in doing business in China and kind of, like I've thought about maybe the education aspect of it as well but do you think that's like really important for people to work within their own heritage? Or how important do you think cultural identities like that are?

JV: Yes, that's a really interesting question, Elena. But I, you know, I guess what I'm saying is not necessarily something I expect you to accept. So, I'm going to give you three different parts as answer to your question

EO: Okay.

JV: The first one was when I came to America, one of the first people I met is Sam Overstreet. You may know him.

EO: I do a little bit.

JV: Well, he took me aside and said something, and I haven't mentioned this to him ever but you're free to mention it to him, but he said "I want you to know that while you are here in America, there will be people that will lift you up and put you on a pedestal and there are going to be people who will push you down and make you feel terrible." And we were speaking as Christians, as people who share a common faith. And he said, "I want you to promise me that you will never allow people to define who you are. Because if you allow that, then you will adopt a pseudo-identity. It won't be yourself and you will lack authenticity. And our identity as Christians are rooted in what God thinks of us, not what other people think of us. And God's view of us is pretty consistent and is not fickle. That's one part of my answer to you. I see myself firstly, my identity is one that derived from my relationship with God. Secondly, it is a concept that you may not know about and even Sam wouldn't know much about this, but you may, you may know it. It is something that is called "ubuntu." U-B-U-N-T-U, ubuntu. And if you put my name on google, you will see that this name comes up. It comes up against my name, this ubuntu. I go to Portugal two to three times a year and work with people, and they come here sometimes from Latin American countries. And we have what's called an Ubuntu Academy. And without going into the detail of that, Elena, all I want to say is understanding ubuntu gives me the other dimension of my identity. Ubuntu is about being human and what it really means to be human. And I'd like you to put that word on the google and look at what people say about it. You will also see the Ubuntu Global Network. The Ubuntu Global Network is something I'm associated with. And Archbishop Tutu, Nelson Mandala, had been the pioneers of this word. And it simply says, in their words, not in mine, in their words, "a person is a person by virtue of other persons." So I am, because we are. So, I cannot be a person all by myself. So, in terms of Descartes, you know, the Cartesian reality is you know the phrase, "I think, therefore I am." That is fine. I'm not saying it's wrong. All I'm saying is there's another word. "I am, because we are." So, the collective is very important. And I think in China, that's probably very powerfully illustrated by people using their sirnames first and then their real name. The collective is often more important than the individual. So again, my identity, Elena, is based in this concept. And I just want to say that the way I've explained this and the stuff I've written about this, the languages which are used here are called the Ngune languages, N-G-U-N-E. The Ngune languages. Now that's Zulu, and Corsa, and so on. Now, in those languages, the word for person is N-T-U, ntu. And if I say "bantu," it means people. Ntu, N-T-U, means person. So, ubuntu means- the word "ubu" tells you two things. One, you come into the world as ntu, you come into the world as a person but you're not complete. You're not complete because I complete you and you complete me. So it is that interconnectedness and interdependence that gives me a sense of my identity and my humanity. Yeah. So, I think that my identity therefore is both individual, I've got an individual identity. I came into the world as ntu, and ubuntu says I'm not complete. And I have to realize that and my interaction with others will make me more complete. In short, another way of getting to feel that is saying I cannot be happy alone. You can't be happy alone, you need others. So, the first concept had to do with my faith, the second concept is about my humanity. The third one, which derives from both of these other two, because half of my children were biological and the other half were not. But it doesn't matter to me, only when I talk to you then I have to explain- how come I have ten children? So, five were biological and five were not. But it doesn't really matter. But one of the things that always comes up, and I'm going tomorrow morning early I'm going to fetch my fifteen-year-old, he's my youngest child, and his name is Nkosinathi. "Nkosi" means God, and "nathi" means close by. And his name is "God is close by," or "Emmanuel," God is with us. And partly that name he was given at the hospital because he was abandoned at birth and he was found somewhere. His parents were Zulu, and so when you look at him you can see he is a Zulu boy. But he doesn't speak Zulu, so it sort of synchronizes what you said. When he's ready, like you are ready, when he's ready, and he's beginning to do that now, he's beginning to sing the Zulu songs, he's beginning to learn the Zulu history and it's very important for him to write his own story. And for me that's very important. I cannot tell him anything, he has to write his own- and he is busy. He came to me and said to me, "dad I'm writing my biography". I said, "that's fantastic. And when you've written what you want to write, then maybe I can add some aspects to it." But the reason for that long answer, Elena, is that I don't believe anybody's born with a language. Neither are you born with a culture. You are born as a human being and you become human as those around you and close to you are- that's your concept of humanity. And it's fine if Nkosinathi wants to get into his "Zuluness," then in fact, there will be many opportunities. Like your opportunity, which I applaud. As for me, I see myself as a person- oh I have to explain this to you. Well, you've seen my picture. For you, I am an African. I am a black African. But in the context where I live, there are different categories of "black." And there are four categories. In this country you have to have a racial classification and it's one of four. So, there's whites; it is Indian or Asian; and then African, which means black African; and then colored, which means there's a mixed ancestry. In my case, because I've mixed ancestry, which is not visible, but you can show it in my lineage, I am called colored. Now, I resent that. I resent that because I don't accept that label. But in this country, that's a label you have to wear. And it's affected all kinds of things, and it affects the way I live as well. But I consciously reject that. Because in my family, in this family, with my ten children, race doesn't make sense. And your origin doesn't make sense, so we are one family, and that's a human family. And I believe in one race, and it's the human race. And that's how I live my life, Elena. So, if someone sees me here in this context, you would see me as a black person but here, in this country, I would be seen as a special category of black person and I don't accept that. That is not my problem. I say look at my heart. My heart is a human heart and I hope that everybody can talk to each other heart to heart rather than face to face or culture to culture.

EO: Yeah, absolutely.

JV: That's a world I want to live in.

EO: Yeah, I actually really like that. I guess I never really thought about it that way but that's really cool. Kind of shifting gears into your professional career, what do you think most prepared you for working with the Umalusi Council?

JV: Yeah well, Umalusi Council is not the only leadership role I've had. I've had many leadership-- I'd rather have a more general way of describing, because I've had many leadership roles in education. So, I would broaden that question to say what shaped me as an educational leader?

EO: Okay sure.

JV: Okay and Umalusi is an important one, but I also head up many non-government organizations and also head up, yeah well I'll send you my CV. You'll see that I've got many different leadership roles in education. And some of those are funding, I'm the head of a trust that funds people in poverty and early childhood education and so on. So yeah, so I'm known in this country as an educational leader and what's helped me to get there was a realization that yeah, you know I think it is the heart to serve. And I think that my view is that, you know, living for others is not only a human virtue, its also a law of nature. Rivers do not drink their own water and trees do not eat their own fruit, you know, the sun does not shine to itself. So, we are all born to help each other, no matter how difficult it is. So, education, being a math professor sitting in an office, it doesn't matter what the subject is, but just sitting in an office and generating papers academic publications is not what I feel my calling is about. So my leadership had to do with a deep realization that I had to live a life of significance And it so happens that I'm not a political leader, I'm not a business leader, I'm not a health leader, I'm an education leader, so I have to accept that. A life of significant means that you must accept that it is not necessarily a life of power. Significance and power are two different things. It's not about power and it's not about glamour and its not about comfort. Significance has got to do with the feeling that you are called to change your world, not their world, but your world. So, I cannot just accept the world where I am as it stands. I am not called just to adapt to this world, I have to change that world. And that is what leaders do. You know, ten percent of people feel that way. Most people don't, they just go along. But if you have a leader, there's a deep feeling inside that you are not called just to adapt to the world as it stands but to understand your world, in other words, why the world is what it is like and how you can change it for the better. So that realization, Elena, brought me to the point where I said I will commit to work in the academy as it were, or in the community both- in both worlds I work as an education leader.

EO: What do you find most difficult about being an education leader?

JV: Yeah well, I think, you know, the realization that choices- choices are not always between right and wrong. Those are the easy choices. As a leader, you have to make ethical choices and you're dealing with dilemmas all the time. And the world is complex. And so, you ask me what I find most difficult? I find most difficult, not the choices between right and wrong, but between right and right.

EO: Between right and right, do you have an example of one of those ethical choices that you've made?

JV: Yeah let me give you an example. Justice and mercy. They are both right. But at times, you have to decide: are you going to apply justice or are you going to show mercy? You can't do both. There are times that you can't do both. Let me give you another example. Short-term and long-term. Both are right but you have to decide which way you're going to go. In my field, as Umalusi, that's in particular the challenge. I told you that at Umalusi, Umalusi is the quality council, but at the same time, Elena, yeah, that's my main job, is to preserve quality. However, given what I told you earlier, another imperative is what I call justice. In other words, making education accessible to the many. And quality education accessible to many- as many people. Now, the word that we use here, and that is "massification," the massification of education. So here you have two rabbits; one is called quality, the other one is called massification or scalability. Now, you know, and I'm sure you would agree, if you focus only on increasing the numbers, quality suffers. And if you only focus on quality, then you ignore the need to make-- the social justice need. Do you see what I'm saying? Do you see my dilemma? So I find that balance the most difficult. It's almost like choosing between justice and mercy. Between short-term and long-term. And I can give you many more examples of right versus right choices.

EO: Yeah, no I see that. That's interesting. So, we talk about leadership styles a lot in class and we were asked to kind of define our own styles of leadership. You said basically the heart to serve, but do you have any more characteristics for how you lead other people?

JV: Yes, that's a good question and I think I wasn't necessarily born with it. But I came to realize that there were certain qualities that you need as a leader. And if I should focus on some of them it is a concern for others, a deep concern for others. You know I know that there's a thing called servant leadership and so on, but I call it a concern for others. So, then there is humility. And for me, humility simply means a non-overestimation of yourself. A non-overestimation of yourself. Just seeing yourself no less or no more than what you should and how God sees you. And then thirdly, a passion for justice. A passion for justice. Those three things put together, again, leads you to a willingness to be different. A willingness to be different. And I think those four things, for me, drives me in my pursuit of being a successful leader. I don't always succeed. And by the way, there is a- I mean I don't know what your faith commitment is- but personally, I have almost a mantra. And it's found in the Old Testament which I say to myself every day. It's in Micah chapter six verse seven and eight. It says, "what does God expect of you?' Now, we're not talking about the Ten Commandments, we're talking about only three things that God expects of you. And I say that I repeat that to myself every day, and every evening when I think about my activities for the day, I realize how I've failed in at least one, sometimes in all three of these things. Micah chapter six verse seven and eight consistent with what I've just said to you, says, "what does God expect of you?", three things: to act justly, to love mercy, in other words not just to be merciful but see that as your preferred option, to be merciful. And therefore, you can't hate -- I can't hate, Elena, I can't hate this system that really oppressed me for many years and that killed my sister and bring a lot of bad things in my life, but I can't hate. And so thirdly, Micah chapter six says to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before your God. And I try that, I try that really hard every day. And I fail, I don't have a formula for that. But it is an aspiration. It is what drives me forward. And it is what gives me an inner shape and so if you don't have an inner shape, people can bend you. You become malleable, it's like an empty coke tin. You can press such a tin and shape it into any form. But if you have an inner shape, no matter how you are squeezed in life, you bounce back. Because you've got content. You've got content, yeah. So, there's always a battle against emptiness and for content. And I think along these lines, all I want to say, Elena, is that I realize that I have to be authentic. And, what you see must be what you get from me. And because I realize that I can only be a first-class version of myself. I'd be a second-class version of everybody else. I have to own my own story. I have to own my own story, I have to own my brokenness whatever brokenness there is in my life, I have to own it. As part of who I am, I have to own my own commitment. And so that's being authentic for me. Owning my story, owning whatever pain there is in my life, is not to blame others for that pain but to accept that and to embrace it but also to accept and embrace my commitments to make a difference in this world.

EO: I really like that way of thinking about it. I liked your "inner shape" analogy. Well so I guess, my next question is how would you measure success? Because you say every day you find you've failed in one way or another but how would you know that you're doing well, I guess?

JV: Yeah, I think that's a good question, but I think the analogy that I want to use is not a direct answer to your question there are things in my life that has happened. There have been painful incidences in my life -- many -- but in recent times my wife, who died unexpectedly, and my son who died tragically, he was thirty-two years old. First my wife, then my son. And it left me with a lot of pain, so I needed to move towards healing. So, I'm using that analogy to say, how do you move towards success? And because I've gone through this and sort through it, I say that I know I am healing. I realize, firstly, that the pain will always be there. The pain, as I'm speaking to you, I have pain. The pain never goes away. However, I know that I'm healing when the pain no longer controls my life. So, I'm not sitting here having a pity party, the pain doesn't control my life anymore. I'm always conscious of it, but I'm moving on. And so, in leadership, although what I've said is, "I have a vision of how I would like to live my life as a leader." And I do regular self-assessments. Just by myself. Personal, self-honest, to-the-mirror kind of stuff, where I say to myself, "have you really acted justly in that situation? Have you really shown mercy? And have you acted in humility?" It so happens, Elena, that next week, for the first time in my life, I will be called into court because of a leadership role that I played three years ago as President of a university. And somebody in that university after I left quit, and it's her view that I was part of her constructive dismissal. Now, it just so happens that I fundamentally disagree with her. But that is her impression of it; what her motive is, it could be that she is trying to make money. But it gave me a good opportunity to examine myself and say, "she's the only one, in all my years as a leader that has ever said that." I'm not the accused, simply one of the witnesses in the court -- she's actually blaming the whole university. And because I was the leader, she says I never protected her against all these things that were happening at the university. Well, it's a long case, but when you are confronted with something like that, you think very deeply on the question that you have just raised. And that is, "how do you count success?" And I always say that, you know, it is not whether I experience prosperity or adversity, but what have I learned? And I've learned a lot, Elena, since I was a young leader. I was too young when I first started as a leader. I was twenty-nine years old and was already the head of a mathematics department. I was too young, and I was arrogant, and I didn't have any of the qualities that I've just mentioned to you. I don't think there was a concern for others or humility or a willingness, really, to be different in a sense, I was just so full of myself. After so many years, I've become a different person, by going through the cycle of self-reflection and assessment and a willingness to correct what I believe should be corrected.

EO: Yeah, that's really cool.

JV: Yeah, I count the success-- you see, leaders-- You know, leadership is not without people. Leadership doesn't happen without people and leadership doesn't happen without a context. So, in this context, where I am, I see a context where we have moved away from what was a sable but cruel past into a very dynamic present and under these circumstances, I see my job as a lead to influence communities, to face each problems, and to live into their opportunities. And so, leaders must find, and I must help my communities, whoever I serve, as a leader I must find a way to make people more confident to face the future into which they are being hurdles. And because we are living in a volatile world -- and it's not only here -- an uncertain world, a complex world, and an ambiguous world. That is why I talk to you about right versus right: there is a lot of ambiguity in this world. There's a lot of volatility. You have to have a clear mind so that people who see you as a leader are more motivated and mobilized to tackle tough problems in the world. So, I see success, Elena, as those around me, those who influence me, taking charge of their own experience. That's how I see it. Yeah, and there is a view that bad leaders are feared, good leaders are admired, but the best leaders, when they are done, the people say, "we've done it ourselves." That to me is success.

EO: Yeah. I like that. So, this woman in one of your past universities in the court case obviously might not have the best impression of you. So, what would be your advice, kind of, for building relationships within an organization and building trust as a leader? Because, you know, obviously not everyone is going to fully support you all the time, so what advice do you have for that?

JV: Yeah, so, you know, I read yesterday what she had already said in court and one of the things she said was as a leader I cared more about the students than I cared about the people I console, that I had a closer relationship, they were always welcome to come and talk. But you see, it goes back to what your dad had told me. And I can't allow-- I have to know myself and I have to know myself in such a way that when somebody like that raises concerns that I have to have a way of determining whether I accept that or not. And you know, if you have a sample of n = 100, and n = 1, a subset of that sample as a particular view, it's not like the audience is divided 50/50. It's 99 against 1. So, as I said, in all my professional career, that has never happened. I find it very interesting that after I'm retired, that comes up. I left that university three years ago. Basically, I think she has an ulterior motive. She left the university and now wants to sue the university for constructive dismissal. So, she cooked up a whole bunch of stories. But it gave me a very interesting opportunity. Not only to defend, or to think deeply about my own leadership role, but now to go next week in the public forum and cross examine by her attorneys and by the judge to say, "do I live up to the standards that I think leadership is about?" It's a good opportunity. And I welcome that, you know. Oh, you know, this is another thing that is part of my philosophy and that is that the world is complex. Now that's obvious, I've said that already, but when you're dealing with complexity, you have to accept that there may not be a solution. And many people like myself who are faith based, I'm a faith person, many of the faith driven people have that view that there is ne solution. I'm not one of those. I don't believe that there is only one way, in terms of human interaction, I don't believe that. I believe that when you're dealing with a problem situation, like the one I'm facing, that you have to engage openly and honestly with that situation. And the questions that you've asked, identify what are the core issues. And say, "I've identifies eight issues." Or ten issues. Well of these ten issues, I had control over number two, and number five, and number seven. The others I didn't have control, or I messed up. I didn't handle those issues correctly. But it's all about self-reflection. And it's about dealing with complexity and realizing I'm not driven by solutions, I'm driven by choices. There may not be a solution, but there's always choices. And if I'm wrong, it means I've made the wrong choice, I've made bad choices. And I'm always open to hearing that. But not to fundamentally question who I am, because I know my heart and I know intention, but sometimes I make wrong choices.

EO: So, you probably have people working under you. So, we talked about delegation some, so how do you view delegation?

JV: Oh yes, I'm very generous in that area. I'm very generous when it comes to delegation. This is an interesting question. Octavia, that's the name of the lady. Octavia's argument in court is that the things she was responsible for, I did not respect enough. And that I did it myself. Now, again, it depends on the context. I was asked to come in there in that context when everybody had ran away. I'd never seen a university anywhere in the world, and I don't think you have, that had closed down and everybody fled. So, there were no professors, there were no students. I came to a closed, locked gate and cars were burning. That kind of chaos. So, under those circumstances, these are not normal circumstances, I have to decide, "this is the way we're going to go." Now when I said, "north," she said, "no, we're going to go west." Now, you know, when you are in a philosophy class, that works. But when you're heading up a battalion under those circumstances, in a war situation, you can't have debates like that. You're going to have to say, "we're going this way. We can have a discussion afterwards, meet me on the road." So, it's not that I ignored her, but she was a contrarian. She was the one person of my twelve member team of my executors hat insisted she wanted to go this way, and in fact it's my view, and I will say that in court, that the chaos that existed there, that confronted me when I arrived -- that chaos was generated by her and one other person. So, if she's already made that mess, how can I allow her to continue with that? If she had asked me -- which she's never done -- if she had asked me, "why do you insist?" I would have told her. But you know it was a crisis situation. So, delegation is important. I love delegation. I love not just to delegate to anybody. I love trusted people who are close to me and who have the level of competence to do what I'm doing. And I think that a good leader will say, "yeah I'm doing this job, but there are six other people who can do this job equally well." Because I have democratized ??. I'm not an autocrat, I am a democrat in the sense that I love to delegate but I can't just give the job to anybody that I know is not competent to do the job.

EO: Do you find it hard to delegate things when you know they might be new? Or, you know, give them a chance to try something for the first time?

JV: Yes, no I think that is a valid point, Elena. I think that you have to assess-- another part of leadership is wisdom. You know. So there are certain things that drive, for me, you must have courage to say, "even in the face of (), this is what we're going to do." And yes, I realize, but then I've also said, "it's not good enough to just have courage. You must also be authentic. And then you have to have empathy." You have to have empathy, and it's really hard to have empathy if you don't care about other people. But, the focus-- you see, your first job is: I'm here to serve the organization and its values and that's why I took this job, because I can identify with the values and the goals. But I think it's really hard to be empathetic if you don't care for people. And I think that one to hold myself accountable whenever I can to be empathetic, and in fact, in the Ubuntu Academy, I speak a lot -- there is a little video clip on google, on the Ubuntu website where I speak about five characteristics of being a Ubuntu person. And if you listen to that, you will see I speak about empathy there as I have just spoken about empathy now. Yeah, I think that, you know, I love this kind of challenge when you ask me questions like that because when you are challenged -- and I think it's really important to be open to that -- you think thoughts you otherwise would not think. And so, even when I argue with you or with anybody, even when you argue with, a good leader would keep that argument and reflect on that. And if it is the case that the beliefs that I hold about myself or about the situation -- there are so many anomalies. What I've described to you is an anomaly. But if I should allow my set of beliefs to be washed away in a sea of anomalies, if there are too many anomalies, I can't explain it. Then I have to change. And because I must feel this content with how I behave, but one incident can't do that. That's what your dad told me. "Today they will make you a hero," he said, "but tomorrow they will make you a zero." You have to know yourself, you have to know your heart, you have to know when the criticism is fair and when the criticism is unfair and not evidence based. But delegation, yeah, delegation. There are some contexts, Elena, that I work better with delegation than others because I have people immediately around me. And I feel as a leader, I'm that kind of leader that if I have people close to me that I can trust enough, and they are competent enough, to delegate, that would be my preferred mode. But the times that are my biggest problems are the times that I was alone and there was nobody around me I either could trust enough -- either because of their values, or shared values with me, or their levels of competence. Under those circumstances, I really struggled.

EO: Yeah that makes sense. You mentioned you felt like when you were the head of that department you were maybe too young, you were not ready for it. So, what advice would you have for your younger self, or do you wish you could change anything, or do you think you learned from it?

JV: Yes, you know, when I came back from America, I came back as a different person. What happened to me in America -- and I put your dad as one of those people- that took a needle, America took a needle and punched, and let out all the hot air in me and rebuilt me in a different way. I came there quite arrogantly, foolishly so, because I'd already had artifacts about to show, I was this and that and the other, I'd done this, and I believed I was prematurely promoted to leadership. It wasn't earned leadership, it was positional authority. There's a difference between natural leadership and so, when I came back, I immediately was much more open to learn. And one of the things I learned is the need to affirm other people. You know, if you ask me, "what is your greatest lesson that you've learned as a leader?" it's that one. To affirm people, not to flatter them, but to affirm them, to give them honest feedback. And they must know, your motive is not to be critical but to be constructive, to build up that person. And when you flatter somebody, they may feel nice the first time, but it you keep on giving them undeserved praise, they will feel insulted by that. Better to give honest opinion, and if you ask me, I will give you my honest opinion. And most people, most human ethics, have value. They may not have the same value, but you have to recognize ethics and then be able to say, "maybe that is good, but if you take into account this and this, you can do even better." So, you must've seen Jim Collins' book called "Good to Great". Yeah? I don't know whether you know about that book.

EO: I think I've heard of it. I definitely haven't read it.

JV: That's a great book, Elena. Jim Collins is a professor at Stanford. And he studied one thousand five hundred companies that were good companies and he wanted to know how many of them made the transition to become great companies. And so "good to great" means going from good -- and he says a very nice line. He says that the reason why there are so few great companies is because there are too many good companies. Everybody is happy being good. Good is the enemy of great, alright. So, I like that book and the reason why I mention that is that he mentions leadership -- the role of the CEO. He told his researchers, "please don't come back to me and say the CEO is the most important." And thirty-five researchers he had, and they all came back and said, "I'm sorry, Professor Collins, the CEO is really important in each of these cases." It was only eleven companies that made the transition from good to great. And Jack Welsh at general electric was one of them and so on. And he calls them level five leaders. It's worth reading that chapter on level five leaders, you know. Because it's all based in business, all of them are business leaders.

EO: Where did he draw the line between good and great?

JV: Well, in each chapter of the book he deals with a different dimension to the question you've just asked me.

EO: Okay.

JV: One of them is leadership. Another one is "facing the brutal facts." So just accepting the brutal facts. Thirdly, the willingness to put your shoulder to the wheel. To be the first person. Not to wait for the team. Don't ask anybody to do something that you're not prepared to do. So, you put your shoulder to the-- What I like about the chapter on leadership, Elena, it says that when things go well. Oh, it says that great leaders, he says they are a study in duality. They are almost contradictory. They are bold yet humble. They are self-effacing yet very willful. Yeah, those are the words he used. And so, they're almost awkward in a social situation but put them in a leadership role, they become different and strong and willful. And not narcissistic, I don't mean narcissist. I mean humble, so they keep their humility and being willful. So, and then lastly, with the level five leader, for there's five levels of leadership, and with a level five leader, Jim Collins says that when things go well, a great leader will not take credit, he will look out by the window. But when things go badly, he'll look in the mirror. In other words, you take responsibility if things don't go according to plan. But if things go well, then you affirm the team. So, I really like that book.

EO: Yeah, I should read it.

JV: Yeah, it's called "Good to Great."

EO: Good to Great. Got it. Let's see, I think the last question will be: what do you want your legacy to be in terms of leadership?

JV: Yeah. Ooh, that's a good question. You know, your legacy's almost like a paradigm. You have no power while you are living, you cannot say, "I've introduced a new paradigm." A paradigm is only something you can look back at. And say, "I can see where this thing has changed." And I think the legacy that I would like to leave is the learnings. So, I'm writing a book at the moment. And it's the learnings that I've taken on board that has changed me into who I am. And the book that I'm writing about my life, I would like to help people to learn from that as I've learned from it. I'm not leaving it as a prescript for others to live by but as an account as how and why I lived my life the way I did. And so, the book starts-- and that interaction with your dad is a part of that book. It's there. And although that happened maybe, nineteen-- a long time ago.

EO: A while ago.

JV: Yeah, so it was a long time ago. It's there in the book. And the book is called "One Act of Kindness" and so I see how acts of kindness, and one particular act of kindness that has changed my life, and has also changed the life of my siblings, and because it changed me, and now I play a national role, I play the role of a national education leader -- all because of one act of kindness that has changed me. And, if you ask me, "so John, where is your heart?" I will say, Elena, my heart is in development. So, I love to focus on personal and community development. So, both individual and collective development. And if you ask me another question, and that is, "so, what's your calling?" I would say my calling is consistent with where my heart is - but in particular, my calling is parenthood. Fatherhood. And I don't only mean that-- we only had one child. For eight years. I came to Ithaca, New York, with one child. And today, then I've drawn out after eight years the others were born and I extended that notion to also, it's not a biological concept for me, parenthood, it's got nothing to do with biology. I can love each of my children with the same love. But now, that has drawn my heart out so that I can truly say that my concern is not only for all my children but also for the community. So, where I live, I've come back, Elena, to the house where I was born, basically. After Ithaca, after I've come back from America, I lived in Durban fifteen years. And I lived in a very nice house. But I came back to this house, where I'm sitting now, where I grew up the first twenty odd years of my life. And I bought the house from my mother and I live here, and those children that live here with me can see the context in which I was born. And that's what the reality is. And I am committed to that, and I deeply believe that the reason why I was born here was to make a difference here. And I would like those that know me to be a part of that legacy.

EO: Yeah, that's really cool.

JV: Yes.

EO: Out of curiosity, what was that act of kindness that you were talking about?

JV: Oh, ok. So, that's going to take one minute. Basically, it is when I was at school. When I was a kid. We grew up under a partage. So, I was born the same year that le partage came into existence, well actually, a year later. So, we grew up in compartments. And I have to say this, and I say it for a reason, that white people, people that were white were not part of my world. So, I never saw white people. And you have to remember, that this was before television came. So, I didn't even have television, I knew about white people, I'd see them in books and when I'd go to the movies, but I never had interaction. The only white people that I knew and saw were the police that lived in this area. And they were big guys with huge hands and cruel faces. And so, for me, being white was like danger! Danger! White is like a symbol of danger. And then, a white man came to my school in my twelfth grade. And he'd come to ask my principle to choose a boy and a girl from the school to accompany him with other girls and boys from other schools in the area and he was going to take us for ten days during the spring break. Yes, there's September break. To go on what he called a community of service - adventure into service. So, we went to visit orphanages and we went to visit-- so I was chosen and another, a girl was chosen. And to cut the longs story short, I had already buried my dream of wanting to study mathematics. Because the Prime Minister here at the time was a man that, if you look it up, I can send you the quote and you can look it up because it's a part of the account in Parliament. He said, "there's no point in getting a black child to study mathematics. He must be the drawer of water and the hewers of wood. That's his station in life." So, as much as I like mathematics, I gave it up. And so, although I never saw white people, here comes this white man, he takes me on this ten-day journey, and at the end of the journey he says, "you know tomorrow, we have our last day." I said, "yes." He says, "we are going to have a lunch in the city hall with the mayor of Cape Town." I said, "okay." He says, "and we want you to do the speech at the end." I almost died, Elena, because I never gave a speech in my whole life. So, anyway, the short of it is I gave the talk, he came to me, he says, "I like what you said, so, I like your speech -- can I come to your house tomorrow? And I'd like to make a recording of this." And I said, "sure." And he says, "what're you doing next year?" This is my twelfth grade. I said, "no, my dad got me a job in the local municipality as a clerk." And he says, "oh, so why are you not going to university?" I said, "no, that thought never occurred to me." So, he came, he made the recording, at the end of the recording he said -- he was from the rotary, no not the rotary, either the line or the rotary club. There's a rotary club and there's a line club. They are organizations. So, he was from the line club, the international, but they've got local chapters. He says at the end of the talk, he says, "I want you to know that the line club last night had a meeting and we decided to give you a scholarship for three years to go to university." And, for him, it may have been a random act of charity. For me, it was a defining moment. It changed my entire life. It changed all my siblings, they all after that, also began to see university as part of their possible self. And it changed my community. And that one act helped me to become an education leader. And so, I write about that. That's the first chapter of my book.

EO: That's a really cool story, I like that.

JV: Yeah, and it also taught me at the same time that this concept that I had, that white is dangerous, that I must never say that they all are. There are always people that are different. Never generalize. And so, that's something else that I learned too.

EO: That's really coo. I also just wanted to say, you mentioned Durban. One of my good friends lives in Durban.

JV: Oh okay!

EO: Yeah, I was wondering how close you were to her.

JV: Yeah, so, but you've not been here yet?

EO: I have not. I really want to visit sometime though.

JV: Yeah, my son, my younger son, my son Steven, he's a tour guide. So, as we speak, there's a bus load of Americans that he's taking around at the moment. And they were all here and I had a cookout for them, I had a meal for them.

EO: Oh, very cool.

JV: Yeah, so, you should come anytime. I would absolutely love your mom and dad to join you, and any other siblings. It would will be my honor and my privilege to have you.

EO: Absolutely! I'll let you know if that ever works out.

JV: Yes, what I should mention to you is that my oldest daughter, who is thirty years old, and her daughter and her husband, last month -- two months ago, had immigrated to America. So, they're living in Ithaca, New York. And so, I think your dad and your mom saw them when she was little, like five years old, maybe, three years old. That's the last time they saw her. She's a grown person now, she's living in Ithaca, New York.

EO: Oh, very cool, I'll give them that update.

JV: Yes, yes, so, I don't know if you have any further questions, Elena, and if you want me to send you what I've sent is just a sketch -- I don't worry with a CV anymore, but it is something that, the last time I've updated it is maybe the beginning of this year or so. That's fine, because I don't use it. But I will send it so you can see the kind of things I'm involved in.

EO: Yeah, that would be really interesting. But I won't keep you any longer, I know you have--

JV: No, no, no, I don't have -- I'm just going to be picked up, yeah. I'm now going to meet somebody who lives in England but has a house here in Cape Town, and he was a big, big guy in the World Bank, but he wants to show me some software that he developed as a virtual lab to teach technical () which is something I have an interest in. So, I'm going to leave in half an hour. So, no immediate pressure on me, but if you have any further questions, you can email me now, call me, whatever the case.

EO: Absolutely. Thank you so much for participating in this and for your time.

JV: Yeah, so let me just get on the video one more time.

EO: Okay, oh, my video is off as well. Let's see.

JV: Yeah? So, are you coming back?

EO: Yeah, I'm trying to. Oh, there we go. Alright, it was very nice to put a face to the name, it was very good talking to you.

JV: Yes, good talking to you. Okay, bye!

EO: Alright, bye.