Our ancestors defined leadership 8 centuries ago; their definition has not aged a bit.
Positive Minds | Positive Quotes | Edition 019
Did you know that the Mali Empire (1235-1670) was one of the largest and most famous empires in African history? Founded by Sundiata Keita, the “Lion King”, it was renowned for its gold and copper mines and large-scale trans-Saharan trade. Its constitution, the Manden Charter, proclaimed at Kurukan Fuga in 1236, is one of the oldest constitutions in the world. Rooted in human rights, it contains seven chapters advocating social peace in diversity, the inviolability of the human being, education, the integrity of the homeland, food security, the abolition of slavery and freedom of expression. It was inscribed in 2009 by UNESCO on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
With an estimated fortune of $400bn at his death; Mansa Musa (1280 - 1337), the tenth emperor, was described by Forbes magazine as the richest individual in human history and named, in retrospect, "Person of the Year for 1324”. Nicknamed the “Gold King”; under his ruling, the empire stretched for about 2,000 miles, from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to modern-day Niger, taking in parts of what are now Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Ivory Coast.
The Emperor and the Assembly of Elders were the guardians of the Manden Charter and ensured its strict observance. They set themselves a code of conduct based on leadership standards that have survived the test of time. These standards can be summarised as follows:
“As a leader ─from your family to the top of the state─ always keep in mind that:
- knowledge comes from experience,
- words come from knowledge,
- actions come from words,
- good comes from actions.
And if your actions do not do good, they must be reconsidered.
”
Do you have a definition of leadership inherited from your ancestors? If so, we would like to know them to feed and enrich the reflection on contemporary leadership.
