Book Review – Attuned Leadership

by Reuel J Khosa (Penguin) ISBN 9780143528197

This book is supposed to be about incorporating Ubuntu into Capitalism.

I think the intent is to emulate Malcolm Gladwell and create the success and hype of an African Outliers. However, it is written in such a highbrow style that anyone who could benefit from reading this book will be bored to tears after the introduction. This book is aimed at young black, and white, professionals but will only be read by balding white professors.

It is badly written with dense pages of facts, endless philosophising, and never-ending sentences.  It should be inspirational non-fiction but it comes off as purely factual with no analysis or insight. This is a good idea, badly executed.

It is clear that a lot of time, effort, and research has been put into this book, but none in putting it together. It’s a self-indulgent work, perhaps interesting to a handful of people. If it sells at all it will sell to an ever-diminishing group of historians and academics. Khosa has not reached the people he wants to reach.

Anything that has a glossary and several appendices of over 100 pages should be sold in an academic bookshop and not inflicted on the general public. If you’re looking for a unique perspective of irrelevant and boring events described in painful detail this is a great read for you.

Christopher Dean
1/5