Results that matter
The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) is a top provider of executive education, leadership development and innovation and annually serves over 3,000 client organisations and over 30,000 leaders around the globe.
CCL draws from a world of experience across cultures, industries and disciplines to help its clients with their real world challenges, and measure the impact of its work.
CCL has had a presence in Africa for 10 years, with offices in Johannesburg, SA and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It ranks among the top global rankings in the education sector and is passionate about shaping the leadership landscape in Africa
For the third year, CCL ranks among the Top 5 providers worldwide in the annual Financial Times survey of executive education. CCL’s ranking, based on direct client feedback, confirms our ability to deliver results that matter for clients at individual, team, organisational and societal levels.
CCL is the only institution, among more than 85 globally, which focuses exclusively on leadership development.
CCL’s ranking continues a consistent trend of excellence. It has earned a Top 10 ranking for 15 consecutive years in the Financial Times survey
These exceptional achievements are a reflection of the company’s vision, which is to create new knowledge that advances its field and transforms positively the way leaders, their organisations and their societies confront the most difficult challenges of the 21st century. CCL’s leadership work in SA and across Africa is to focus on leadership development for results that matter.
It looks at how to make leadership relevant from a contextual perspective, how to make leadership happen — from an outcomes perspective and how to make leadership cultural — from an individual and collective belief and practice perspective.
To further its commitment to confronting these challenges, CCL engages leaders in regular “Hackathons” based on a Silicon Valley concept, which creates the opportunity for senior leaders to apply collective wisdom to solve problems that affect the economy.
CCL has created the space for leaders across sectors, often competitors, to have conversations and brainstorm ideas that are not common practice, but generate diverse thinking and insights.
These engagements are fastpaced, moving quickly from current challenges to future possibilities and actionable steps, acknowledging the rapid speed of change and volatility that the current market faces.
At a recent Hackathon for the financial services sector, a CEO and industry leader said about the process: “With limited time, we shifted our attention … to focus on the 1 or 2 great ideas that make a disproportionate amount of difference. This shift allowed the collective group to come up with some seemingly counterintuitive insights.”
Leaders require different skill sets today, yet many of the methods that are being used to develop them remain the same.
CCL works with leadership teams to identify the most impactful ideas and then leverage the best global and local practices to ensure these ideas are actioned, prioritised and implemented to create sustainable change.
Recently, CCL trained 120 CEOs and directors of state-owned agencies in Angola, in partnership with the Angolan Institute for Public Sector Enterprises, which represents various state-owned agencies.
CCL focused on exposing the public sector to global practices in the field of leadership development. This is part of an effort to ensure that Angola is one of the leading economies in Africa.
Angola Public Sector Institute CEO Henda Ingles says: “CCL has partnered with us, giving our leaders a global perspective, with practical tools to drive and sustain economic growth within Angola.”
CCL believes that leadership development is not a programme but a process. As such, interventions for clients are highly customised. CCL is able to immerse in the context relevant to their clients and therefore do not follow typical approaches — which enables them to quickly respond to client needs. CCL leadership solutions range from focusing on current leadership challenges to preparing leaders for the future.
CCL sub-Saharan Africa MD Renita September says: “We tap into what real leadership looks like, in real time, on real issues for Africa. So many attempts have been made to define what makes African leadership unique — we prefer to understand leadership in response to its context, based on where leaders are and where they need to be.
“It ’s about being the best leader — not about being different. Our African leadership icons do not try to differentiate themselves. They are driven by a sense of collective vision and purpose and being part of something bigger than themselves, where we can prosper and thrive through focusing on humanity.”