Leaning into bravery, leadership, and curiosity

Thabang Molapo MC/MPA Mason 2025 spent the past year at Harvard Kennedy School honing his soft skills so he can tackle deeply rooted inequities in his home country of South Africa through more accountable governance.

It’s a journey he began many years ago after realizing that, to make a difference in South Africa’s education system, he needed good grounding in how government works.

“Education is at the core of what I care about,” he says. “But I realized if we don’t have the right people managing the ‘public purse,’ then we won’t see a change in the education sector—or any sector.”

He began his career as a government auditor and dedicated himself to building a foundation for the kind of education system he hopes to see in South Africa.

Molapo—who grew up an informal settlement on the outskirts of Pretoria, South Africa, with no access to running water or proper sanitation—considers himself fortunate to have received an education.

“There were many social ills that inhibited how far students could get,” he reflects on his upbringing. Most of his classmates did not get past the ninth grade, but Molapo won favor with his teachers after they recognized how much he enjoyed reading and his ability to articulate his ideas. They invested their time in his education, opening doors for him to go to college. 

At the University of Cape Town, Molapo immersed himself in urban life but lost his sense of where he was from—until several years ago when, in 2022, he felt a palpable shift in South Africa’s political landscape. A growing number of violent protests erupted in communities like the one where he grew up.

“It was a wakeup call for me,” he reflects. “I saw the gap between democracy as enshrined in our constitution and the lived realities of citizens, especially those in these communities.”

Molapo began to wonder if there was something more he could do in his role as a government auditor. He saw a growing need for civic education, for equipping elected officials with the capacity to do their work effectively, and for professionalizing public finance. 

He learned about the Harvard South African Fellowship, which funds up to one year of study at select Harvard schools. After applying for and receiving his scholarship, he submitted his application to the Mid-Career Master in Public Administration (MC/MPA) Program.

“I was so grateful for the opportunity to come to Harvard. It’s a dream that many don’t get to realize,” he says. “To have someone say, ‘we’re confident in you’ was significant assurance that I had potential—that I could make a meaningful impact.”

During his year at HKS, Molapo leaned into expanding his leadership capacity.   

“There’s been an internal change in the way I think about leadership,” he reflects. In MLD-102: Getting Things Done with Professor Matthew Andrews, Molapo learned to focus on the problem before proposing solutions.

“I came in thinking I had the solution to fix things. But Professor Andrews told me to put my solution away and spend more time understanding the problem,” he says. “The more I spent time on the problem, the more I appreciated how little I knew. I recognized our arrogance when we impose solutions on people, and why we need to collaborate with communities to get their buy-in.”

Other notable courses include MLD-215: Negotiation and Leadership with Professor Robert Wilkinson and MLD-340M: Power and Influence for Positive Impact with Professor Julie Battilana.

“As an extrovert, people assume I have power,” he says. “But I’ve learned about silent and informal power. I’ve learned when you’re trying to make systematic change, you need to think about yourself as an agitator, an innovator, and an orchestrator.”

His HKS experience also opened his eyes to new interests in artificial intelligence and sustainability.

“HKS cultivates a curiosity,” he says. “The environment, the people, and the professors open your world. It feels like my aperture has widened in ways I didn’t know were possible.”

Beyond the classroom, he was involved in the Black Student Union, participated in the Women and Public Policy Program’s From Harvard Square to the Oval Office program, and attended the Africa Business Conference and Africa Development Conference. Molapo also moderated a timely discussion, “Can South Africa’s Government of National Unity Deliver?,” with Ann Bernstein, executive director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise, shortly after the country’s elections.

“It was a nice way to hear what people were saying, at a policy level, about what South Africa should prioritize,” he says.

But most of all, Molapo has enjoyed the camaraderie of his Mason Fellow cohort within the MC/MPA Program. The Edward S. Mason Program brings together students from transitional, developing, or newly industrialized countries for specialized curricular activities throughout the academic year.

“The Mason Program sets in your heart your commitment to your country and allows you to see why there’s a need to go back,” he says. “You meet alumni who have gone on to become presidents and leaders of their countries. It makes you see what is possible.”

Molapo will return to South Africa after Commencement to resume his role as a government auditor. But he will return equipped with new skills, new frameworks for problem solving, and a fresh outlook on leadership and curiosity.

“My focus is on impact,” he says. “I want that to be the thread of my work.”

Portraits by Natalie Montaner; inline images courtesy of Thabang Molapo