Leadership Beyond the Textbook with Lincoln Mali

Lincoln Mali, group CEO of Lesaka Technologies and author of Blazing a Trail, joined Colin Iles for this Henley Leadership Series conversation to argue that leadership is an influence felt, not a title held. The sharpest thread in the hour is how directly Mali ties his corporate record, turning around a troubled fintech and expanding financial inclusion to tens of thousands of previously unbanked customers, back to two people who shaped him before he ever entered a boardroom: his father and a school principal who took him in when no one else would.

Leaving Standard Bank for a company in trouble: why Mali joined Lesaka

Mali spent 20 years at Standard Bank, including access to the executive committee and leadership of product divisions and whole countries, before leaving to join what was then Net1, now rebranded Lesaka Technologies, nearly four years ago. The company was, in his words, in trouble financially and reputationally and involved in a lot of controversies. He and colleague Chris Meyer, formerly of Investec, were asked to rebuild it. The pitch came from a serial entrepreneur Mali describes as having built multi-billion dollar businesses in payments, who sold him a vision centred on financial inclusion and digital payments. A year after Meyer left, that same entrepreneur returned to Lesaka as executive chair. Four years on, Mali says Lesaka is now the largest fintech in Southern Africa.

The apartheid-era decision that redirected his path

Mali grew up in the townships in the late 1980s as an angry young activist: in and out of jail, expelled from school, part of school boycotts aimed at making the country ungovernable. His father found him hiding from police in a church and told him that going back to school mattered more than the size of the stone he could throw at the army, arguing that the quality of education, the values imbibed and the principles upheld would matter more than the fight in front of him. Mali returned to school at an institution run by a principal, Mrs Moya, who took him in when no other school would, and he credits both of them as the reason he was able to go on to university and, eventually, into senior corporate leadership.

Why the front line is the bottom line: Mali's model for devolved decision-making

Mali rejects what he calls the omnipresent, know-it-all CEO model, the idea of a single leader at the apex who makes every decision for the organisation. He argues Covid exposed that model as broken and that leadership now works through influence rather than hierarchy. Practically, this means devolving power and authority to the people who face the customer: he says he makes very few decisions himself, and if he is making a lot of decisions, something is wrong. He also points to radical transparency, sharing his own performance scorecard with staff and, at points in his career, disclosing his own salary, because he believes leaders should not hold information their teams cannot access.

Vulnerability as a leadership tool, not a weakness

Asked whether an authentic leader still has to hide fears and vulnerabilities to keep followers, Mali argues the opposite. He points to Eskom chairman Mteto Nyati, who publicly praised his team on LinkedIn during the depths of the load shedding crisis and was criticised for it. Mali reached out to back him, was later invited to address Nyati's team directly, and watched the same team subsequently deliver the turnaround that eased load shedding. His own practice mirrors this: he talks openly in his book about mistakes and blunders from his career rather than presenting a polished record, on the belief that a leader who only shows success loses credibility with people who know the full story.

Financial inclusion at Lesaka: banking the previously unbanked

Mali points to two concrete examples of inclusion work at Lesaka. The first is social grant beneficiaries who had never had access to broad financial services and can now access lending, insurance, transactional accounts and other value-added services, which he says Lesaka has shown can be done profitably, responsibly and sustainably. The second is spaza shop and tavern owners, a segment other providers had treated as too high-risk or unprofitable to serve. Lesaka now has roughly 90,000 of these micro-merchants as payments clients.

Why does Mali reject the idea that leaders need a personality change?

Mali argues leadership is not reserved for extroverted, front-facing personalities. He uses Springbok captain Siya Kolisi as an example: Rassie Erasmus backed Kolisi as captain despite early scepticism, but on the field other players lead in the moments where their strengths apply, and Kolisi steps forward specifically when the team needs someone to speak for the whole group. Mali's point is that introverts can lead too, provided they know the specific moments they are required to show up for their team, whether that is presenting to leadership or facing a customer directly.

What does Lincoln Mali say makes ethical leadership difficult?

Mali attributes ethical failure among leaders to the allure of power, status and the perks of incumbency, combined with surrounding themselves with people unwilling to hold them accountable. His own check is what he calls a council of advisors, led by his wife of 28 years, who gives him solicited and unsolicited feedback. Leaders need people willing to call them out, he says, even at the cost of being shunned or passed over for certain positions.

Is Lesaka profitable, and how big is it now?

The transcript does not give specific revenue or profit figures. Mali describes Lesaka as the largest fintech in Southern Africa following four years of rebranding and acquisitions under his and Chris Meyer's leadership, serving consumers, micro-merchants, larger merchants and enterprises through digital payments and systems-as-a-service.