Reviews of
Sounding the Depths of Leadership
Seven character development voyages to foster authentic leadership in the ongoing present
In Kosheek Sewchurran’s refreshing book, Sounding the Depths of Leadership, he seeks to remake leadership as a means to rediscover what it means to be human, and thus not detached from experience but as part of the flow of everyday life. His lessons, carved as Navigation Charts to help us steer a purposeful path, will help any manager in any sector learn how to manifest resilience in the face of our ever-present volatile environments. Sewchurran, using expressions that sing with his special brand of poetic tranquility, offers some guiding practices to help us learn to live with more openness, resilience, zest, and with purpose. In the end, we readers can learn to build a “philosophical core,” as he calls it, to enable the practice of artistry within our everydayness.
Professor Joseph Raelin, Donald Gordon Visiting Professor in Leadership, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town and Northeastern University, Boston
Review by Janine Ahlers
Through his own lived experience, Kosheek shares not only his own journey of growth and connection to his lived experience, but the journeys of numerous leaders that he has worked with to find meaning, purpose, and direction in life. I particularly enjoy how he highlights the challenges the world faces at this moment in history, and yet instead of leaving the reader feeling stuck and hopeless, he offers powerful practices to support a meaningful change in any person’s life, their capacity to lead and contribute.
The form and structure of this book makes for compelling reading. The theoretical elements lay the foundation for each element of the navigation charts – practical and implementable steps any person can take to move deeper into the experience of life and their contribution into the world. I have personally witnessed over and over again, how Kosheek’s approach to teaching, developing and coaching leaders, in particular with the application of practical, lived-experience wisdom, has resulted in life-changing insights and growth for each.
Sounding the Depths of Leadership is a unique book. It has no competitors. If there were no Kosheek Sewchurran, there would be nobody to replace him, nobody making the contributions to learning and to practice he is making.
His contributions are essential. They arrive in the endless conversation that constitutes humanity at a moment in history when humanity is in peril. Kosheek spends no time dwelling on how bad things are, or on the likelihood that they will get worse. His unremitting focus is on an indispensable dimension of any solution to humanity´s existential crisis: the human quality of leadership.
Professor Howard Richards, Research Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College
From humble beginnings, cloaked in "invisibility" during the height of apartheid to Director of the prestigious Executive MBA program at University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, Kosheek Sewchurran shares, in this book, his remarkable journey of determination, resilience, learning and re-learning with poignant authenticity, making this one of the most compelling books written on leadership development in recent times.
As we endeavour to emerge from the devastation of a global health emergency and concurrently deal with the catastrophic human suffering imposed by Russia on Ukraine, we are all teetering on the edge of chaos.
This book provides hope and optimism for our collective instability in an unpredictable world - hope and optimism that creativity and more learning will emerge in an iterative manner as we pick up the post-pandemic pieces of our executive roles and functions
Review by Professor Walter Baets
Kosheek develops his ideas based on those of, amongst others, Aristotle, Heidegger, and John Dewey. The search that this book illustrates is one of sustaining a skillful performance at the edge of chaos. It is about a way of Being that remakes leadership. While incorrect assumptions are the biggest obstacle to flourishing leadership, understanding Being at the fullest is needed to enlighten that experience of being itself. We urgently need this type of leadership in the reality of humanity’s challenges.
Professor Walter Baets, Professor Complexity Management and Business Model Innovation. Former Dean of the Graduate School of Business of the University of Cape Town. ​Chief Learning Officer, Eindhoven Engine. The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands
Who is this book written for?
This book is written for those with a yearning to grow leadership excellence for the joint pursuit of purpose, goodness, impact and joyful living. Potential readers are people with this yearning, in leadership role responsibility, or coaches working with leadership development who want to know how to organise and cohere such journeys and aims.
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