In conversation with Dumi Magadlela

Dumi Magadlela is an accredited international executive coach, team coach, coach trainer, leadership development facilitator, organisational ‘people whisperer’, and African skills development practitioner. Dumi co‑founded the Ubuntu Coaching Foundation (UCF) at The Coaching Centre (TCC) in South Africa where he has been part of senior faculty for over twelve years. He is currently part of the faculty on the AoEC’s Professional Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching and serves as a trustee on the Board of the International Coaching Federation Foundation (ICF‑F). 

Can you please tell us more about your professional background and who or what introduced you to the wonderful world of coaching?

As the first-born in a large family, I learned early on how to lead and find my way in a melee of people of different ages. From a young age, I had to be responsible for myself and others, especially in a rural setting where we lived off the land and learned to make the most of our environment.

This shaped my worldview around coaching and helped me appreciate the challenges people face. I grew up knowing the smell and taste of poverty, but I also understood what it gave me and how it prepared me for opportunities later in life. I learned the value of building strong human relationships, collaboration, compassion, empathy, and working together to build something together or to make something of ourselves.

My father worked in construction and travelled, so my mother was always the one around guiding and raising us. She was my greatest teacher on the values of human relationships and especially on my favourite subject of Ubuntu, the idea that we are all inextricably connected. That childhood was my early introduction to coaching and mentoring, especially in leadership. My mother, raising a large family, demonstrated this every day. She was my mentor and coach, always expecting more from me and my brothers, sisters and cousins.

Later, I was in an executive development programme with the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. One of the trainers, Edwin Nevis, a pioneer in using Gestalt in organisational psychology, told me I had a coaching approach in how I engaged with others and asked questions. At the time, I thought of coaching as something for sports, so this made me curious. I did some research and realised it was something I was naturally inclined towards.

What was your own personal coach training journey?

When I went through formal training in coaching certification programmes, that’s when my heart and mind truly opened up to what coaching is and what it can achieve, and I fell in love with it.

My journey began with an integral coaching certification at The Coaching Centre in Cape Town, which I now consider my coaching home. I completed the Diploma in Integral Practitioner Coaching there, and I’ve stayed on as part of the faculty, eventually becoming senior faculty. Now, as vice principal, I help train about 15 to 20 executive coaches every year with one of the leading integral minds in the world, Dr Paddy Pampallis (Founder and CEO of TCC). It’s one of the most rigorous coach training programmes, I’d say, in the world.

How has Ubuntu played a role in your professional and personal life and how has it shaped you as a coach and your coaching model?

Ubuntu for me is the essence of being human. We all have it, and we all have access to it. We all are it. It's a value system, a way of being. It's not a cognitive, intellectual, or logical thing where if I understand it this way, therefore I get it.

Ubuntu is best understood experientially. You have to immerse yourself in it, be in it, to feel it, know it, and really experience it. It's one of those ways of being that, when you see it, experience it, feel it, or are in it, you simply know it.

It is a value system to start with, but it’s multi-faceted, multi-layered, and nuanced. We all have access to it; we all can tap into it, but we're often programmed and conditioned through socialisation and culture either to refrain from it or to embrace it fully. This is why we see conflict, violence, and wars around the world.

Ubuntu is the recognition that we are one, that we are living extensions of each other, and that we are all interconnected. Ubuntu intelligence is living with the understanding that we are one humanity. So, for me, it is a no-brainer to live with Ubuntu and to be a human being influenced by and informed through Ubuntu values because it makes life more meaningful. Life becomes more meaningful when I serve the greater good, not when I serve myself. Life is meaningless if it's not a life of service.

You have gone on to be credentialed with the ICF at PCC level and EMCC Global at Senior Practitioner level. Why was becoming credentialled important to you and what value has it brought your practice?

I resisted it a little bit early on. My clients were the ones telling me that the work I was doing with them was worthwhile. But more and more, organisations are looking for credentialled coaches, and joining the leadership of organisations and serving on boards of coaching bodies made me decide to get credentialled.

It’s about ensuring that, as a senior practitioner in one-on-one coaching, as well as team coaching, my work is recognised as credible among my peers. Credibility is essential in this industry as we grow and refine it, and we need to focus on this more and more. Every coach must be certified in an accredited programme, and ideally become credentialled with a recognised coaching body.

You lead a module on Ubuntu Coaching in the new Professional Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching. Why do you believe it’s important for executive coaches to learn about Ubuntu as part of their development?

Every executive and team coach, or anyone who works with another human being, needs some kind of grounding in a value system or way of being that can help them support others to unlock, unleash, and express the genius and beauty in those they interact with.

I truly believe that Ubuntu coaching (and especially what I call Ubuntu Intelligence – UbuQ) is one of the most powerful stances to adopt when working with others, as it encourages, urges, helps, prepares, and inspires them to become the best version of themselves. When you position yourself as an Ubuntu coach or are trained in Ubuntu coaching, you better equip yourself to support anyone’s journey to becoming a better version of themselves. It opens up and anchors you in the understanding that everyone has greatness and brilliance within them. Ubuntu coaching recognises that brilliance before it even shows, and that’s its beauty.

This is why I do this work. In the module, we offer a practitioner-focused, immersive, and experiential experience. As we learn more about Ubuntu, Ubuntu Intelligence, and Ubuntu Coaching, we become better coaches who can co-create spaces for others to shine and show up more authentically.

In your own coaching work, who are you working with and what type of coaching services are you offering?

I work with clients seeking transformation at the individual, leadership, and systemic levels. I work with executive teams and boards, as well as individuals in transition. I also work with young leaders who want to make a difference early on.

One of the coaching services I offer, which is a niche for me, is dyadic coaching using Ubuntu Intelligence (ubuQ). This involves two-person system coaching, like with a CEO and CFO who are clashing on an issue, and this part of my work is growing. I also offer one-on-one coaching, team coaching and transitional coaching, which plays a big part in my work, supporting clients with things like onboarding or retirement, or career changes.

How do you think the role of coaching will develop in response to the future of work?

The world of coaching needs to wake up to the technology that’s eating our lunch as professional coaches.

We know that machines are now coaching young people, and some prefer being coached by a machine or a bot because they say they feel less judged by a machine than a human. So, some of us seasoned coaches, who have been around for a while, need to quickly learn how to stay relevant.

We need to partner smartly with technology so that we offer something more. Coaches will have to be more human than they are now, so we need to be more humane. We need to be more ourselves and let machines be machines. And that’s why, for me, I do this work on Ubuntu and Ubuntu Intelligence. If you’re not learning to partner with technology right now, you’re already playing catch-up, and you don’t even know it.

In your book, Ubuntu Coaching and Connection Practices for Leader-Manager, you explore the concept of Ubuntu. How do you believe embracing Ubuntu as a leadership philosophy enhances a leader's ability to connect with their teams and lead more effectively?

The one thing it helps you to see is others with humane eyes, or to see others with your heart, because your heart sees too — your whole body is a sensory organ.

You can be next to someone and feel their energy, but we go through the motions with what I call a plastic greeting, rather than greeting others consciously, intentionally, and mindfully. What’s my intent with greeting you? I intend to see you and check in on how you are. I’m tuning into you because this relationship matters to me. This is what Ubuntu leaders need, and for me, embracing Ubuntu as a leadership philosophy enhances and strengthens human relationships.

In the book, I write about something called "intempathy” - intense empathy. This is being empathetic with someone in such a way that you are beyond just walking in their shoes; you are walking in their feelings in the moment about how they are doing at that time.

When team members and team leaders do this, they become incredibly powerful and unlimited. That’s when you become greater than the sum of your parts. As individual leaders, you become a magnet for excellence. This is why we need this for leadership to be more effective - we need leaders who have Ubuntu, who are infused with Ubuntu, and who lead with Ubuntu Intelligence (UbuQ), which is the natural affinity to seek out connections and interconnections in and through everything we do as interconnected beings. Connection becomes our first and second nature, and guides everything we do daily.

Looking back, what advice would you give yourself when you were starting out?

Learn about everything that's out there. Read, learn, practise, practise. Do it, and don’t be afraid to be more you, because the world needs what's within you.

More than what? The magic is already within. Let it out and don’t stand in your own way with fear, anxiety, or judgement. Each one of us is a gift, and we need to express that gift in the short life we have on this Earth.

What would you like your professional legacy to be?

He helped connect the dots and also helped connect people to their authentic selves.

Dumi helped rehumanise shared spaces with Ubuntu Intelligence.

A massive thank you to Dumi for sharing his expertise and insights into coach training and his inspirational work.