An Art Of Influence

As The Gorindemabwe Frontier, our definition of influence is defined using what we call ‘thought leadership’.

Globally, there are three types of definitions for the term that are generally accepted.
The first one is power based. It is used by what is called the foreign policy list. The second definition is used by Time Magazine which looks at who has got the financial muscle.

The third one as used by the Huffington Post looks at influence. This is the one we use. We look at the kind of ideas that the person is pushing and how it eventually affect people’s thinking in their society or beyond in the medium to long term.

So there are three dimensions to that. The first one is what they call prudent visionary leadership where essentially some ideas may go ahead of their time. So you are kind of ahead of your time in terms of what you are doing and people might understand it, disregard or criticise it. But from the medium to long term, they will slowly realise you were right after all.

An Art Of Influence

The second one is the entrepreneurship acumen where in some way you have managed to convert your talents, abilities, skills and potential into some kind of benefit, not only for yourself but for other people.
So it can be financial conversion or ecosystem conversion were you build an agenda that people in power and are in the circles begin to like you and want to be associated with you. But the bottom line is that you managed to convert whatever talent you have to benefit not just you but your agenda.
The third dimension is commitment to contribution where in one way or the other you begin to give back to people outside your circle. It maybe people that are vulnerable or in need. But you are using your time and financial resources to assist those who are in a fix.


Part of what then guides those dimensions is visibility so you find some people who are a bit more visible either in the media or certain social spaces tend to become more influential. Then those who are less loud or less visible will be less in how they are rated.

An Art Of Influence

We have developed an algorithm (rating system where people use different dimensions and there is a scoring), like what is done by the Huffington Post which then does the ranking because I think part of the debate in Zimbabwe is how we put people in different sectors on one platform.But this is how people in the world are beginning to redefine influence in the sense that there are in some countries where even athletes are more influential than politicians. So it’s part of what we want to begin to do in Zimbabwe. Our belief is that the transformational journey for this country will be done by that generation (under 40 years). And part of the reason why we put people of different spaces together is that we want people to rethink the issue of influence.

The same model is used in statistics but it’s an opinion poll, not an instruction.OUR working year begins in October when we release the list for that year and ends in October of the following year.

Walter Chimene is a coordinator with The Gorindemabwe Frontier, an organisation that has been releasing a list of Zimbabwe’s top 100 influential individuals under the age of 40. Over the four years, their list has been dominated by church leaders. The ratings consider personalities from religion, media, arts, entertainment, sport and business.