Understanding affirmative action leadership in the South African financial context

South Africa's (SA) history of apartheid produced racial inequality that was entrenched for centuries. After 1994, the goal of the new government was to transform the workplace. Numerous affirmative action (AA), legislation, policies, and procedures enforced organisational transformational obligation and compliance. Studies in SA indicate a slow pace of transformation. The financial sector may be paying lip service to affirmative action legislation; setting racially balancing targets for management structures yet not achieving them. The purpose of this paper is to explore existing literature on transformational leadership and AA progress in the SA financial sector to propose an AA Transformational Model. The research method employed was abstract qualitative content analysis method. Selected accredited journal articles were analysed as per the paper keywords for emerging trends on the topic. Findings indicate lack of leadership in transformational implementation, leadership commitment, and management motivation for accelerated transformational targets and strategies. The paper theoretically adds to the body of knowledge on workforce transformational leadership. The practical contribution of this paper is the proposed AA Transformational Model for the SA Financial sector to be proactive in their AA transformation.