FACULTY Q&A // Meet Senior Lecturer Babar Dharani
Dr Dharani chats to us about all things Leadership in the Global South, and his recent experience writing a teaching case
Dr Babar Dharani is a Senior Lecturer at the UCT GSB's Allan Gray Centre for Values-Based Leadership. Babar is also a Business Finance Professional (BFP) and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ACA). His career started at Deloitte in mergers and acquisitions in London, which he followed with audit and assurance with KPMG in Port Louis, and entrepreneurship in Nairobi.
His career largely excelled in the diamond industry, where he worked in Dubai in the capacity of CFO for a multinational group. He managed the diamond sector for the group from Utrecht and subsequently all sectors for the group from Luxembourg. He was in charge of the sponsor’s family office in Singapore before transitioning to academics.
He completed his PhD, which focussed on happiness at work, at the University of Cape Town. Babar’s interest in finance and employee well-being is seen as a dichotomy; however, it is founded on the belief that managing finance departments requires technical financial knowledge but also insights into people management. Not only did this complementary interest support his career, but it also laid foundations for his novel approach to research, which often uses a quantitative approach for subjective phenomena, and vice versa, and draws on his diverse experiences around the world.
CWC: Tell us more about your field of research – what drew you to leadership?
My research examines the interplay between identity and leadership development in the Global South context, using the lived experiences of my research participants, typically “atypical leaders” whose backgrounds diverge from traditional Western ideals of leadership (cisgender male, white, middle-aged, tall, heterosexual, etc). I was drawn to this field because while the leadership literature is vast and developed over a very long timeframe, it has long been narrow, researching leaders who belong to dominant, privileged identity groups and operate in individualistic, Western contexts. Hence, the learnings from such literature have leaned towards typically expected Westernized values, such as being extroverted, stoic, and decisive figures with a strong internal locus of control. Early in my work (building on a 2012 co-authored paper from my Master’s dissertation), I argued for a more balanced locus of control that recognises both internal and external factors as optimally suitable in non-individualistic, Global South contexts. This felt especially relevant in the Global South, where identity, structural barriers, and context shape leadership journeys in ways that pure “work harder and close the gaps” advice overlooks. I wanted to help atypical leaders navigate complexity without the perfectionism and burnout that an overly internal focus can produce, while highlighting the unique strengths they bring as leaders, such as multilingualism, collectivism, and relational perspectives, to name a few.
CWC: What current trends, specific to Africa, in terms of leadership have you noticed? Are there any additional global trends you would like to highlight?
In Africa, I see a growing recognition that leadership cannot be transplanted wholesale from Global North models. Rising leaders are increasingly grappling with questions of identity, authenticity, and context—how their own backgrounds shape (and are shaped by) the organisations and societies they lead. There is also heightened attention to transformation, succession, and navigating institutional and societal change under conditions of uncertainty and historical legacies. Globally, I notice persistent, and sadly, rising pressure from social and other media that bombards people with narrow images of “what a leader looks like,” often reinforcing biases. At the same time, there is a countertrend toward more inclusive, context-sensitive approaches and greater willingness to question the rigour of popular leadership narratives. The challenge—and opportunity—is to help leaders develop the capacity to discern, adapt, and lead with both self-awareness and structural awareness.
CWC: What key traits do leaders of our time need to have?
Atypical leaders, in particular, today need a more values-driven, collectivist, and relational approach. Traits such as a balanced locus of control become one foundational stone to achieve it—the ability to take responsibility for what they can influence while recognising external realities and structural constraints. They need self-awareness about how their identities shape their leadership journeys and, crucially, the empathy to understand how others’ identities and contexts differ from their own. Communication skills, the capacity to question their own biases, and the confidence to step into leadership roles without trying to conform to a single ideal are essential. In an African and broader Global South context, the ability to navigate complexity, ambiguity, and change while remaining grounded in purpose stands out as particularly important.
CWC: Why are cases important in business education for students?
Cases bridge theory and practice. Typically, theories are dense, and when applied in practice, lead to an explosion of options available to the candidate. This can be overwhelming! Cases place students inside realistic decision situations where they must analyse incomplete information (which is filled using their experiences of different spaces they have occupied), weigh trade-offs, and justify choices—mirroring the actual work of managers and leaders. It is also hoped that the discussion makes them aware of the diversity of approaches based on individual differences and contextual variances. For leadership education specifically, cases allow students to examine how identity, context, and lived experience influence decisions, rather than treating leadership as a set of abstract psychological traits. Well-chosen cases also surface Global North biases and open space for discussion of local (or more proximal to local) realities, helping students develop both analytical rigour and the practical judgement they will need.
CWC: Having recently completed your first business teaching case, can you share your experience about the process that might help others? Things you loved, things you would do differently?
What I enjoyed most was also what was the most challenging aspect of case writing—the process of translating incredible levels of lived organisational complexity into a narrative that students can inhabit and debate. Capturing the interplay of identity, context, and decision-making felt closely aligned with my research. The iterative dialogue with the centre ensured the discipline of writing for classroom discussion. What I would do differently is sharpen the precise teaching objectives early on and the decision point I wanted students to wrestle with; that focus makes the subsequent drafting and classroom testing more efficient.
CWC: What’s your approach to teaching with cases in the classroom?
While cases are living vehicles for classroom engagement, I particularly enjoy and take the approach of leveraging them for personal insight. Not only the teaching cases, but the entire leadership course is focused on ensuring students have a solid grounding in the relevant literature, then use the case to surface tensions between theory and practice. I deliberately incorporate experiential elements—sometimes drawing on tools from music or theatre, reflective exercises such as writing one’s own eulogy, or simulations of real leadership tasks such as succession speeches—so that students do not remain at a purely analytical distance. I also bring in contemporary media and social-media narratives so students can interrogate the leadership messages they encounter daily. Additionally, for the cases, insights into their emerging identities as leaders are supported by placing them in the position of existing leaders and navigating varied ways in which the problem/s in the case can be addressed, where each option bears unintended consequences that emerge and require feedback loops for correcting and re-addressing. Hence, the cases support an experiential and learning-based approach to leadership.
CWC: Which case had the biggest impact on you as a business student?
The cases that stayed with me longest were those that refused simple heroic narratives and instead forced engagement with identity, power, and context complexities. Cases that revealed how leaders’ backgrounds and the structural environments they operated in shaped both opportunities and constraints left the deepest mark; they ensure leadership (the course and the practice) hardly has dull moments that static individual traits have long suggested.
CWC: Any favourite cases that stand out for you in terms of leadership?
BD: In addition to formal cases, the leadership course draws on lived-experience cases of the candidates in the classroom. They best highlight the ‘truer’ complexity of leading in the Global South—exploring identity, succession, organisational change, and the tension between internal agency and external realities- and are delivered from the horse’s mouth, which has much greater impact. Cases that invite students to examine their own leadership styles, leadership roles, and their individualistic assumptions about what “effective leadership” looks like, rather than simply celebrating a single successful leader, tend to generate the richest classroom conversations and the most lasting personal insight.
Read the case
“Dimexon: Entrepreneurial success and inclusive leadership for female empowerment” Babar Dharani, Shivani Ghai
