Casely Ato Coleman, Senior Fellow at the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Co-Lead of the Black Alumni Network at the London School of Economics and a global human resources expert, has argued that effective public policy priorities must focus on values driven leadership and knowledge management.

Speaking at SYPALA 2026 on the topic “What are the leadership, skills and policy priorities needed to position Africa for inclusive and resilient growth,” Mr Coleman told participants that diagnosing, designing, executing and evaluating public policy requires a foundational mindset that most leadership training overlooks, one built on personal values rather than technical competence alone.

He defined a leader as someone who lives their deepest personal values without compromise and uses those values to create a compelling case for others to follow. He pressed participants to examine their own values directly, warning that many people who hold leadership positions operate without any clearly held values at all.

He cited a large-scale study involving 10,000 employees across multiple countries, levels and industries, which he said identified family and integrity as the two values that consistently surfaced above all others.

Mr Ato Coleman said whiles successive governments in Africa have focused on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), which constitute a high level intent to reinforce investment in critical human resources development, this must be underpinned by strengthening values driven leadership skills. 

He said a focus on knowledge management and culture must shape the role of leadership decision choices. He called on African leaders to prioritize  building human capabilities by connecting academia to industry to strengthen communities, institutions and governance.

Mr. Coleman advocated for the inclusion of values driving Leadership in the STEM; thus STEML, since many of the nation's woes since independence had been caused by poor values driven leadership across all sectors of the economy. 

Values based leadership with a focus on “family” and “integrity” must be taught right from primary, secondary up to the tertiary levels in our education systems.  Leaders who are selected for public positions must be screened rigorously. This will enable leadership choices to be based on the common good that create solutions around ethically driven social and public policy compact that enables citizens to realize their full potential.