The billion-shilling cost of promoting the wrong leaders

In August 2026, African leaders gathered in Nairobi at the Resilience in Leadership Africa Conference, emphasizing that poor leadership erodes institutions and increases costs. The article highlights that promoting leaders solely based on tenure or performance leads to high turnover and low morale, as shown by a Federation of Kenya Employers survey. Workplace harassment and poor management cost Kenya’s private sector 95.5 billion shillings annually. Conversely, companies like Safaricom invest in holistic leadership development focused on emotional intelligence, boosting organizational performance and employee satisfaction.