My Short Story

My Short Story

Adriaan Groenewald

Some may wonder how I moved from being a strong leadership activist to having so much to do with AI. I am a stronger leadership activist than ever before. Here is my short story.

I have spent more than two decades doing one thing with unusual depth: studying how human beings become leaders — and why some rise while others fail. That long inquiry has now converged with the defining challenge of our time and placed my team and I among the first to build a practical answer to it.

Over twenty-five years, I have authored and co-authored three books on leadership and personally interviewed hundreds of leaders — across politics, business, sport, education and beyond — to understand the models behind their success, and sometimes the reasons for their failure. Leaders I have sat with include political leaders and presidents like Jacob Zuma, Kgalema Motlanthe, CEOs like Adrian Gore, public servants and social activists like Adv. Thuli Madonsela, global bestselling authors like the late Dr Stephen R. Covey, sports icons like Gary Player, and many more (sample of leaders).

My first book, the CEO Leadership Handbook, was written with my father, Louis Groenewald. What a blessing. How many people can say that. In 2008 I released Moving Towards Your Leadership Destiny, followed by Seamless Leadership: Universal Lessons from South Africa, which distilled the essence of more than fifteen years of leadership interviews into a coherent body of insight. I also contributed to several other books.

I have been a consistent public voice on leadership. I produced and hosted several radio shows — the last a weekly programme on internet radio sensation CliffCentral.com that ran for over five years — and my company published more than 300 articles in South Africa's major publications, including CEO and Leadership magazines, The Star, The Argus, Business Day and the Sunday Times.

My formal grounding does not match the depth of my practice, but here it is: a bachelor's degree in psychology and criminology from the University of Pretoria and a postgraduate business qualification at master's level from the University of Hull. My career moved from a management role in large corporate, to being headhunted by an international consulting and training firm, to co-founding my own leadership company, Leadership Platform, in 2000 — through which I have advised and developed leaders for the past quarter century.

The turning point

Through all those years of interviewing and working directly with leaders, I reached a conviction that now drives everything: the way we develop leaders is too slow, too occasional, and too ineffective for the world that is arriving. Real maturity, judgement, wisdom and character — the true substance of leadership — were being left largely to chance, developed in workshops attended once and forgotten, sometimes in monthly coaching sessions.

I became certain that leadership and leadership development itself had to be transformed. This was before the arrival of AI. We shared universal principles leaders use naturally like the Law of Movement, Destiny Chain, Edo-Factor and many more. The purpose of weekly radio shows, podcasts and newspaper columns was to make leadership development more consistent and impactful — to extend the reach and scale. We built a digital platform to try and bring leadership to leaders daily, not ad hoc.

The arrival of artificial intelligence turned my conviction into a stronger mission. We recognised, earlier than most, AI was about to magnify the leadership and leadership development deficits but could also be used not to replace human capability, but to develop it — to scale human and leadership maturity, wisdom and character faster and more personally than has ever been possible in human history.

My team and I call this Human Advancement/Development Infrastructure: personal AI development partners, or agents, that stand beside the human being to develop rather than replace them, each one grounded in a framework of eight core human powers that AI cannot truly replicate — agency, accountability, moral judgement, commitment, relationship, faith, hope and heart — purpose, love and passion.

Our agents are intelligent, never tire, perfectly patient, have no ego, excellent memory, develop your thinking, have amazing pattern recognition that helps notice improvement, are perfectly focused on the task of development, available 24/7, proactively suggest development areas, soon certify participants, and much more. All this can be done one person at a time, all at once, to millions, every day, in every domain. An ideal development partner, not for human replacement.

The deeper realisation

As the work developed, my team and I at Me-Vision Academy saw that transforming existing leaders alone was an uphill battle and not enough. If society is to be ready for the age of superintelligence — a world in which machines may surpass human capability within current young people's school years — then maturity and wisdom must be developed far earlier, from the school bench itself.

A child in Grade 8 today may encounter superintelligence before they finish matric. That child does not only need to pass mathematics and science; they need to become a mature, grounded, discerning human being able to lead artificial superintelligence rather than be replaced by it.

This led us to building development partners that reach learners from Grades 8 and 9 upward — using mathematics, science and languages as the medium through which both academic mastery and the deeper human powers are developed. The mission became clear and urgent: to prepare a generation, one young person at a time and at scale, for a future few can imagine. Read our vision for the future of education..

Today Me-Vision Academy is building this human development infrastructure in preparation for the age of superintelligence — engaging school principals across the country, creating development partners for learners, teachers, school and organisational leaders, public servants and entrepreneurs, and partnering with leaders across government, business and academia, including the Dr Mathews Phosa Chair at Nelson Mandela University.

Now I am raising my voice on how South Africa — the heart of Ubuntu — and Africa must prepare its people to lead the AI age rather than be swept aside by it. I remain an activist for improved leadership at a scale never before possible. Please join me; join us. Together let's transform leadership maturity and wisdom from the ground up, at a speed superintelligence will soon require of us. I and my team cannot do this alone. We need every principal, corporate leader, political leader and concerned citizen to join us now.

Help us drive a mission that is practical and profound, rooted in the power of Ubuntu: to use the most powerful technology ever created to develop, not diminish or replace, the human being and their communities — beginning with the young, and reaching, in time, an entire society readying itself for what is coming.

Sample of leaders interviewed or spent much time with

• Adrian Gore (Group CEO Discovery Holdings)
• Advocate Dali Mpofu
• Advocate Thuli Madonsela — Former Public Protector
• Alan Knott-Craig — Founder of the largest mobile company in South Africa
• Athol Williams — University of Oxford Professor
• Beyers Nel — Group CEO, Harmony Gold
• Bonang Mohale — Former Executive, BUSA CEO and businessman
• Brian Dames — Former CEO, Eskom
• Brian Habana — Legendary former Springbok wing
• Brian Molefe — Former CEO, Transnet
• Bridgette Hartley — Olympic kayaker
• Carlos Alberto Parreira — Bafana Bafana soccer coach
• Catherine Constantinides — Social Justice Activist
• Chad le Clos — Olympic gold medallist swimmer
• Dawie de Villiers — Alexforbes CEO
• Deepak Chopra — American physician and writer
• Dr John De Martini — Author, leader and performance specialist
• Dr Louise Van Rhyn — CEO and Founder, Symphonia and Partners For Possibility
• Dr Mamphela Ramphele — Academic
• Dr Mathews Phosa (Former Premier Mpumalanga, Businessman, Chair Nelson Mandela University)
• Dr Shirley Zinn — Former HR Executive, Nedbank and Standard Bank
• Dr Stephen R. Covey — 7 Habits author
• Edward de Bono — Author, inventor and consultant
• Edward Kieswetter — Former CEO, Alexander Forbes and SARS Commissioner
• Gareth Cliff — Radio and TV presenter
• Gary Crittendon — Former Global CFO, Citibank
• Gary Player — South African-born international golfing legend
• Gill Marcus — Former Governor, Reserve Bank
• Gordana Biernat — Author, speaker and Oprah's SuperSoul 100 teacher
• Graham Briggs — Former Harmony Gold CEO
• Grant Pattison — Former CEO, Massmart and Walmart Africa
• Greg Solomon — Former MD, McDonald's South Africa
• Helen Zille — Former Leader of the DA
• Herman Mashaba — Founder of Black Like Me
• Heyneke Meyer — Former Springbok Coach
• Ian Donald — Former CEO, Nestlé East Africa and South Africa
• Jacob Zuma — Former President of South Africa
• John Steenhuisen — Former DA Leader
• Julius Malema — Leader, EFF
• Kgalema Motlanthe — Former President of South Africa
• Lulama Mokhobo — Former SABC CEO
• Malik Melamu — Telecoms CEO
• Mark Cutifani — Former CEO, AngloGold Ashanti
• Mark Lamberti — Former CEO, Massmart
• Michael Jordaan — Former CEO, FNB
• Mike Brown — Former CEO, Nedbank
• Mmusi Maimane — Former Leader of the DA
• Mteto Nyati — Chairman, Eskom and businessman
• Natalie Du Toit — Paralympic gold medallist
• Neal Froneman — Former CEO, Sibanye Stillwater
• Nomaxabiso Majokweni — Former BUSA CEO
• Paul Harris — Co-Founder, FirstRand Bank
• Peter Steenkamp — Former Group CEO, Harmony Gold
• Prof. Robert Kaplan — World-renowned author from Harvard
• Raymond Ackerman — Founder of Pick n Pay
• Roelf Meyer — Chief Negotiator during the political transition; former Ambassador in the US
• Shameel Joosub — Vodacom Group CEO
• Sipho Nkosi — Former CEO, Exxaro
• Terry Volkwyn — Former CEO, Primedia Broadcasting
• Thoko Mokgosi — Former CEO, Hewlett-Packard South Africa
• Victor Matfield — Former Springbok captain
• Wendy Luhabe — Social entrepreneur

Adriaan Groenewald