The Paradox Of Leadership: Ntombizone Feni’s First Year As Ceo

The paradox of leadership in a growth chapter –

Insights by CEO, Ntombizone Feni

I did not expect “cognitive dissonance” to become one of the most accurate leadership terms in my vocabulary, but here we are.

On the one hand, I carry deep pride in how far 21st Century has come. On the other, I feel the weight of what it takes to operationalise a new growth chapter while you are still protecting delivery, tightening systems, managing risk, and holding steady through the everyday experience that comes with real accountability. It is a strange tension, celebrating progress while simultaneously living in the discomfort of becoming.

The cognitive dissonance is clarity arriving in two voices at once.

One voice says, be proud. We have made bold decisions, we have grown, and we are stepping into a new era with sharper intent.

The other voice says, be sober. Scaling exposes every weakness you could previously hide behind hard work. Data. Systems. Accountability. Quality control. Decision rights. The lag between structure and change on paper and behaviour in practice.

Here’s a lived truth: The long game competes daily with the craving for instant wins.

There were moments, especially early on, where the CEO reality hit me in the most ordinary ways. I would wake up on a Saturday morning and think, shoot, I am the CEO. What do CEOs do on weekends? What should I worry about? Should I still be listening to this much hip hop? Surely I cannot just bum around all day. The humour of it was not lost on me, but underneath the laugh was a real question, how do you carry the responsibility without letting it colonise your whole life.

Then, there’s the moment you realise the work is the work. Almost a year in, I have learned that leadership is less about the speech, and more about the season. The season where the bold decision is no longer theoretical, it is lived. Where strategy is no longer a slide deck, it becomes the weekly test of whether your operating model can carry your ambition through the work you deliver for clients and how you keep your people engaged.

For 21st Century, the past seven years have been a period of transition and expansion for us. We have evolved how we serve, strengthened capability, and sharpened what we stand for in the market. We serve people leading different sized organisations and in a variety of industries, who expect credible thinking, clean execution, and outcomes that hold up under governance and scrutiny. That standard shapes how we build, how we measure ourselves, and how we show up.

The plot twists when your own clients mirror your own reality. One of the most grounding parts of leading a management consultancy is that our clientele are often living what we are living.

They are navigating change while keeping delivery strong. They are rethinking structures while still meeting deadlines. They are building culture while dealing with operational pressure. They are trying to future proof while managing immediate risk.

As leaders, we sometimes forget that the work we advise on or espouse externally also needs to be applied internally with equal seriousness. Not in a performative way, but in an honest way. We have to be willing to be our own case study. You need to fix what is core, even when nobody will clap for it.

My mindset currently is staying accountable in public, while doing the hard work in private. That is the leadership standard I want to be known for. Not perfection, but accountability. Not hype, but discipline. Not a shiny story, but a true one that still leaves the reader standing.

Here’s a positive take: Many people have been asking me “So…how lonely is it at the top”? It can be, but my experience has been shaped by something I will never take for granted, a rock-solid spousal and family base, and a circle of seasoned counsel from people with deep career and life journeys. It’s not always structured or planned. Often it happens at post-Exco drinks, braais, or a sweet WhatsApp vote of confidence from people you least expect are watching, in a moment you need to hear it most.

That support does not remove the weight of leadership, but it brings perspective, honest conversations, humour, and the kind of grounding that reminds you that you are a human being before you are a title.

One of the quieter lessons in this season is admitting you cannot lead with a God complex. Between the varied and different hats, I wear personally and professionally, I have had to accept that not everything can be done at once, even when all of it matters. The discipline is choosing what gets my full attention now and trusting the rest to its right time.

My commitment, personally and professionally, is to do the work properly. To keep building a proudly South African business that can compete on credibility and delivery, and to stay faithful to what we exist to do: elevating employee engagement, driving organisational excellence, and designing reward, people and job architecture solutions curated to our clients’ needs.

And on the weekends, yes, I still listen to hip hop. I have just learnt to do it with my phone notes app open, because ideas don’t wait for planned moments.

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