Certain Uncertainty

19Servant Leadership, Cooperative Advantage, and Social Sustainability

Leon C. Prieto and Simone T.A. Phipps

Uncertain times require bold steps to face grand challenges. The list of challenges is long and seems to be growing longer every day: economic inequalities, climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and violations of human rights within global supply chains, to name but a few. The urgency of these issues is proof that things must change immediately because time is no longer a luxury we can afford. What is required now is a radically different philosophy of management; one that places cooperation at the center, and authentically values social sustainability.

This approach is not new. In fact, in Durham, North Carolina, during the Golden Age of Black Business, Charles Clinton Spaulding¹ led the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company in a way that engendered community well‐being from a systemic perspective. Through his enlightened leadership, Spaulding helped his company obtain a cooperative advantage; an approach rooted in African humanism.

Cooperative advantage refers to the benefits that an organization possesses and accrues due to its people‐centered approach to engendering a spirit of care and community, meaningful dialogue, and consensus building for the benefit of employees, customers, community, and the entire value chain.² This definition stems from Abdul Bangura's conceptualization of Ubuntu, a South African philosophy (specifically Nguni Bantu), meaning ...