Found on your desk—a letter from the MD who oversaw this company’s collapse. Would you trust it?
“Dear Successor,
Welcome to the ruins. Prioritize customer confidence restoration and team rebuilding simultaneously impossible, I know. West African markets forgive slowly.
Two camps await you: loyalists who’ll defend my decisions and reformers eager for your failure to validate their critiques. Trust neither completely.
The board seems supportive but remembers—they appointed me too.
Your Southern African playbook needs adaptation here. Our relationship-based business culture will test your process-driven approach.
Your greatest pitfall? The temptation to diagnose before understanding. Listen before you label.
Change yourself before changing us. Your impressive turnaround reputation makes you dangerous—to yourself.
Good luck. You’ll need it.
Your predecessor”
At Nova Business School Africa, we study leadership transitions where inherited crises demand both external transformation and internal adaptation. The greatest leaders recognize when to trust history’s lessons—and when to burn the letter.
