On its 10 year anniversary, the Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership at the University of Pretoria has been renamed and repositioned. This centre was situated in the Department of Business Management a part of the EMS faculty. It’s main mandate was to develop future leaders through research and academic citizenship.
As of 2021, the centre’s new name is the Albert Luthuli Leadership Institute (ALLI). This change allows the institute to partake in all activities linked to development of leadership and teaching at UP. Professor Derick de Jongh, director of the institute, indicated that “the renaming and repositioning from a centre to an institute will assist us in unlocking value that would imply a more dedicated inter- and trans-disciplinary approach that spans faculty borders and academic disciplines”. ALLI’s objective is to create a new wave of leaders who are responsible for fashioning local and international business conduct and policies, as to simultaneously uphold social and environmental justice.
The institute’s strength is in its ability to tackle the academic integrity of a variety of academic disciplines in various faculties. The core focus of the institute lies in the following strategies: leadership in context, which focuses on growing theory on responsible leadership and leadership collaboration; leadership in development, which navigates the institute’s current projects on leadership and sustainable development and; leadership in shaping alternative accountability, which looks into the role that leadership plays in shaping alternative accountability principles.
The repositioning of the centre to an institute was realised through the need for closer cooperation and collaboration with the university. “A leadership CoLab hosted by ALLI could ensure that UP maximises its impact on leadership research and teaching” said Prof. De Jongh. In the ten years of its existence, ALLI has demonstrated itself to be a primary leadership research and teaching centre in Africa. The research projects by scholars of the institute have been published in leading international journals. The institute also has PhD alumnae, and the staff members are currently supervising 14 PhD students. The Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership has for over a decade positioned itself at the forefront of leadership development initiatives at UP. The transition from a centre to institute is not just a name change or an organisational shift, but an enhancement of the work that the institute is already doing.
History, Archaeology and Setswana student at the University of Pretoria. An avid reader and lover of news writing and broadcasting. I have a passion for African indigenous languages and history. A prospective world-class journalist and scholar