There is an African proverb most of us have heard countless times: it takes a village to raise a child. Perhaps the same is true of our ambitions. We tell stories about success as though they belong entirely to the person whose name appears on the business, qualification or award. We celebrate the entrepreneur who took the risk and the leader who persevered. These stories matter, but they are rarely complete. Behind almost every person pursuing something difficult is a small village helping to carry the dream. Their contributions may never appear on a balance sheet or curriculum vitae. They come in the form of time, patience, encouragement, introductions, advice and sometimes accepting that someone they love will be less available. I learnt this while pursuing an MBA. For almost two years, a significant portion of my income went towards my studies. I thought of it as a bet on myself. But I had a wife, children and household responsibilities. Money invested in my education was unavailable for something else. The qualification carried my name, but the sacrifice did not belong to me alone. This is true in entrepreneurship and leadership too. The entrepreneur working late may have a family reorganising itself around those hours. The executive travelling for work may have children waiting for a parent to return. The founder celebrated for taking an early risk may have had someone who believed before there was evidence it would work. Recognising this does not diminish individual effort. There are examinations nobody can write for us and difficult decisions nobody can make on our behalf. Discipline, courage and personal responsibility remain essential. But acknowledging the village does not make the individual smaller. It makes the story more truthful. We can be proud of what we built while remembering who helped carry the bricks. This feels particularly relevant in Africa, where the idea of the completely self-made person sits awkwardly beside traditions of communal progress. Long before networking became a business strategy, somebody knew somebody who could help. Someone looked after children while another person worked. Someone paid school fees, provided somewhere to stay or recommended someone for a job. Individual progress often rested on an invisible network of contribution. Success, however, has terrible editing skills. Once the business succeeds, the difficult years become a paragraph in a biography. The qualification appears after someone’s name. The assignments become impressive lines on a profile. We see the person at the centre of the achievement and gradually edit out those who made standing there possible. There is a leadership lesson in this. Gratitude and ambition are not opposites. Mature success may be the ability to say, “I worked incredibly hard for this,” while also acknowledging, “I did not do it entirely alone.” Leaders who understand the invisible contributions behind their own progress may become better at recognising contributions their organisations overlook. There is also a responsibility attached to recognising our village. If people helped carry our dreams, eventually we should help carry somebody else’s. Make the introduction. Share what you know. Mentor someone. Create an opportunity. A contribution that seems insignificant to us may become part of another person’s success. We spend considerable time asking who believes in our dreams. Perhaps as we grow, we should also ask whose dreams we are helping to build. Self-belief matters, but it should never become self-importance. Very few dreams are built by one pair of hands. Somebody carried a brick, held the ladder, opened a door or kept things going while we were away. It takes a village to raise a child. Perhaps it takes a village to build a dream too. The writer is a brand strategist working at the intersection of business, communication, and growth.
