SA business leaders rate humour as a less important trait than global peers

South African executives remain a pretty gloomy bunch‚ with Grant Thornton's latest report on business leadership trends showing that general humour and modesty are considered by senior management to be the least important to good leadership.

By Evan Pickworth

10 Apr 2014

Andrew Hannington of Grant Thornton

In contrast‚ 59% of German executives rate humour important‚ and log leader India is at 84%.

Spanish executives‚ though‚ prove to be the most humourless in the survey of 3‚300 chief executives released on Tuesday (8 April)‚ at a mere 26%‚ followed by Taiwan (30%) and The Netherlands (38%).

Globally‚ integrity‚ a positive attitude and communication were seen as key attributes setting business leaders apart.

In South Africa 100% of executives consider integrity as important in a leader‚ followed by communication (99%)‚ a positive attitude (98%) and confidence (96%).

Nearly half of South African respondents believed their successor would come from within the business (49%)‚ while a quarter said they had not yet considered this. Fifteen percent said this future appointment may come from outside the business from a different sector‚ while 9% expect this may come from a competitor.

"While there is no hard data to support this‚ we would like to think that the fairly high expectancy of a promotion from within points to internal talent development programmes‚ particularly in line with the country's empowerment objectives‚" said Grant Thornton's chief executive Andrew Hannington.

Source: I-Net Bridge

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