This Praxis Note describes aspects of leadership and leadership development in pre-colonial Africa and draws lessons for leadership development in civil society organisations. The author's experience is that the plethora of initiatives in the field of leadership development are largely imported from the West and tend to have only limited application to the specific African contexts and cultures in which they operate. As a consequence, they achieve only limited success in developing leaders.
any chance of being effective, leadership
development in Africa must be rooted in
the influential cultural heritage. To
promote ongoing behaviour change in
leaders, it is essential to tap into the
energy, commitment and authenticity
that reside within the culture concerned.
The author argues that leadership development in Africa, if it wants to have a chance of being effective, must be rooted in the continent's influential cultural heritage. New ideas should be grafted onto existing indigenous cultures, rather than simply uprooting them and transplanting foreign models.
The note is written from an Eastern, Central & Southern African Bantu perspective that can be summed up by the concept of Ubuntu. Throughout the text, the author explores the positive aspects of Ubuntu's five leading principles:
- sharing & collective ownership of opportunities, responsibilities and challenges
- the importance of people and relationships over things
- participatory decision-making and leadership
- patriotism
- reconciliation as a goal of conflict management and resolution.