LEADERSHIP STYLES IN AFRICA - James Mworia CEO, Centum Investments.
Leadership is the ability to motivate, inspire and influence people towards achieving the desired goal. In the African business context, successful and effective leaders are viewed as individuals with the ability to communicate the vision, and in return thrust people not just to achieve the set milestones, but also to efficiently embrace the organizational culture.

James Mworia is the Chief Executive Officer of Centum Investments. At only 29, he was heading one of East Africa’s largest Private Equity and investment firms. The company has a cross-listing on both the Nairobi and Ugandan Stock Exchanges and has substantial regional equity with other expansions territories like Mauritius and Nigeria. He has been listed as top a ten youngest powerful young men and highly paid CEOs in Africa pocketing over $2M USD annually. However, his story is inspiring and unique. In only seven years, he rose from just an intern to being the youngest CEO of a multinational investment company. As a business leader, his consistency and attainment can be attributed to his effective styles of leadership.
As a visionary and strategic leader, he has been characterized by the ability to communicate the vision of the company effectively and strategically by laying down plans and an executable proposition to achieve the goals through smart teams with the organization. Through these leadership skills, he has been able to transform the company vision into a reality, which has seen centum expand its sector-focus, geographical reach, and financial value.

As the front-runner of the company, he attributes his success to team leadership. He understands that the role a leader is carrying along people and ensure a well effective organizational culture that inspires and provides a strong sense of purpose and direction. The organization structure system is set into skilled teams with clearly defined functions. This type of leadership has enabled the organization to excel in customer service experience with effective feedback that has enabled the organization to continuously improve on its products and services to clearly fit the customer’s needs. This has created employee satisfaction which has not only affected employee commitment and employee loyalty but it also a direct and indirect impact on customer satisfaction. Also, with the consistent feedback, the company has been able to get the customer on a trust journey which has resulted in customer loyalty and rapid significant growth
In conclusion, leadership, is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence and inspiration. Impact leadership involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire team-mates and customers.
