Abstract
There is an increase in literature on leadership in Africa, and this growing body of work documents the need for a leadership transformation, as well as the need to contextualise leadership development to the African context. However, only very few studies have analysed leadership development in Africa.
This chapter analyses a contextualized leadership development programme in Kenya that set out to address young people’s leadership transformation ambitions. It aims to answer two questions:
-
How was the leadership training contextualised to the Kenyan context to support the desired leadership transformation?
-
To what extent did it succeed: was the impact of the training indeed a leadership transformation?
The training was successfully tailored to the Kenyan context, by adapting training material, by using case studies and visual materials from the Kenyan context, and by adopting an experiential learning approach. The documented impact shows that participants indeed succeeded in transforming their leadership as they desired. Impact was evident across three global categories of competencies, notably managing oneself, relationships and the community. Central for the successful transformation was the dynamic of starting with increasing individual agency, which then not only allowed for leadership roles to be taken up, but also enabled a focus on leading other people and the community.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Studentships were organized through the ‘science students development network in Africa—ssDNAfrica’ (http://ssdnafrica.acaciaafrica.org) and funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Research Council (BBSRC).
- 2.
The first seminar series was composed of six 3-hour face-to-face seminars and two clinics over a 4-week period. The second group attended two three-hour face-to-face seminars and then participated in four redesigned online self-study seminars as necessitated by COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
References
Achebe, Ch. (1983). The trouble with Nigeria. Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishing Company Ltd.
Amah, O. (2019). Globalisation and Leadership in Africa. Developments and Challenges for the Future. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan.
Balogun, F., Obamwonyi, H., & Falade, T. (2019). From Resilience to Transilience: Interrogating Ideas on Youth Agency and Social Innovation in Nigeria. A Literature Review Article. LEAP Africa, Lagos, Nigeria. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336618083_From_Resilience_to_Transilience_Interrogating_Ideas_on_Youth_Agency_and_Social_Innovation_in_Nigeria_A_Literature_Review
Banda, P. (2014). How the Cold War Sustained Bad Leadership in Malawi, 1964–1994. In B. G. Jallow (Ed.), Leadership in Post-Colonial Africa (pp. 27–44). London, England: Palgrave MacMillan.
Bird, A. (2013). Mapping the content domain of global leadership competencies. In M. E. Mendenhall, J. S. Osland, A. Bird, G. R. Oddou, M. J. Stevens, M. L. Maznevski, & G. K. Stahl (Eds.), Global leadership: Research, practice, and development (pp. 119–142). New York: Routledge.
Bird, A., & Osland, J. S. (2004). Global Competencies: An introduction. In H. W. Lane, M. L. Maznevski, M. E. Mendenhall, & J. McNett (Eds.), The Blackwell Handbook of Global Management. A Guide to Managing Complexity (pp. 57–80). Oxford, MA: Blackwell.
Bolden, R., & Kirk, P. (2005). Leadership in Africa: Meanings, Impacts and Identities. Conference paper from ‘Studying Leadership: Future Agendas’, the 4th International Conference on Leadership Research. Lancaster University Management School, 12–13 December 2005. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/29811042
Ciulla, J. (2013). Chapter 11: Essay: searching for Mandela: the saint as a sinner who keeps on trying. In D. Ladkin & C. Spill (Eds.), Authentic Leadership. Clashes, Convergences and Coalescences. New Horizons in Leadership Studies series (pp. 152–175). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781781006382
Clement, G. (1996). Care, Autonomy and Justice: Feminism and the Ethic of Care. Boulder, CO: Westview.
DeRue, D., & Ashford, S. (2010). Who will lead and who will follow: A social process of leadership identity construction in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 35(4), 627–647.
Gaylord, R. (2004). African humanism, ubuntu and black South African writing. Journal of Literary Studies, 20, 3–4.
Giacalone, R., & Thomson, K. (2006). Business ethics and social responsibility education, shifting the worldview. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 5(3), 266–277.
Greenleaf, R. (2010). Servant leadership. In G. R. Hickman (Ed.), Leading organizations (pp. 87–95). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Hailey, J. (2008). Ubuntu: A Literature Review. Paper Prepared for the Tutu Foundation, London. Retrieved from https://www.coursehero.com/file/37161128/UbuntuLiteratureReviewpdf/
Iwowo, V. A. (2019). Skype interview on 11 July 2019.
Iwowo, V. A. (2015). Leadership in Africa: rethinking development. Personnel Review, 44(3), 408–429. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-07-2013-0128
Jallow, B. (2014). Leadership in Colonial Africa: An Introduction. In B. Jallow (ed.), Leadership in Postcolonial Africa: Trends Transformed by Independence. London, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.
Jordans, E., Ng’weno, B., & Spencer-Oatey, H. (Eds.) (2020). Developing Global Leaders: Insights from African Case Studies. Palgrave Studies in African Leadership. London, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.
Kirkpatrick, D. (1996). Great ideas revisited. Training & Development, 50(1), 54–57.
Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Ltd.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Kumuyi, W. F. (2007). The case for servant leadership. New Africa, 467, 18–19.
Ladkin, D. (2017) A Practice-Based Approach to Developing Ethically Responsible Leaders. In S. Kempster, A. Turner, & G. Edwards (Eds.), Field Guide to Leadership Development (pp. 15–28). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Leary, T. (1957). Interpersonal diagnosis of personality: a functional theory and methodology for personality evaluation. New York, NY: Ronald Press.
Locke, K. D. (2019). Development and Validation of a Circumplex Measure of the Interpersonal Culture in Work Teams and Organizations. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00850
Locke, K. D. (2000). Circumplex scales of interpersonal values: Reliability, validity, and applicability to interpersonal problems and personality disorders. Journal of Personality Assessment, 75(2), 249–267. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327752JPA7502_6
Mabokela, R. (2003). “Donkeys of the University”: Organizational Culture and Its Impact on South African Women Administrators. Higher Education, 46(2), 129–145. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3447463
Mendenhall, M., & Osland, J. S. (2002). An overview of the extant global leadership research. Symposium presentation, Academy of International Business, Puerto Rico.
Metz, T. (2018). An African theory of good leadership. African Journal of Business Ethics, 12(2), 36–53.
Modisane, K. (2018). Finding the niche to reposition leadership in Africa’s developing economies for the global highway: review of literature on leadership development programmes—methods and techniques. Human Resource Development International, 21(1), 12–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/13678868.2017.1326220
Moorosi, P. (2020). Constructions of Leadership Identities via Narratives of African Women School Leaders. Frontiers in Education, 5(86). doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.00086
Moorosi, P. (2014). Constructing a leader’s identity development through a leadership development programme: an intersectional analysis. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 42(6), 792–807. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143213494888
Mouton, J., & Wildschut, L. (Eds.) (2015). Leadership and management: Case studies in training in higher education in Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: African Minds. Retrieved from http://www.africanminds.co.za/leadership-and-management-case-studies-in-training-in-higher-education-in-africa/
Mutooni, K., Ng’weno, B., & Jordans, E. (2020). Changing Leadership Perceptions: Leaders in the Private Sector in Kenya. In E. Jordans, B. Ng’weno, & H. Spencer-Oatey (Eds.), Developing Global Leaders: Insights from African Case Studies (pp. 211–257). Palgrave Studies in African Leadership. London, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.
Nkomo, S., & Ngambi, H. (2009). African Women in Leadership: Current Knowledge and a Framework for Future Studies. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies – Multi, Inter- and Transdisciplinary, 4(1), 49–68.
Pailey, R. N. (2014). Patriarchy, power distance, and female presidency in Liberia. In B. G. Jallow (Ed.), Leadership in post-colonial Africa (pp. 175–196). Palgrave MacMillan.
Pérezts, M., Russon, J., & Painter, M. (2020). This Time from Africa: Developing a Relational Approach to Values‐Driven Leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 161(4), 731–748. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04343-0
Redeker, M., de Fries, R. E., Rouckhout, D., Vermeren, P., & Filip, D. F. (2014). Integrating leadership: the leadership circumplex. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 23(3), 435–455. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2012.738671
Sendjaya, S., & Sarros, J. (2002). Servant leadership: Its origin, development, and application in organizations. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 9(2), 57–64.
Serpell, R. (2011). Social Responsibility as a Dimension of Intelligence, and as an Educational Goal: Insights from Programmatic Research in an African Society. Child Development Perspectives, 5(2), 126–133.
Steady, F. C. (2011). Conclusion: Mothering the Nation and Humanizing the State. In F. C. Steady (Ed.), Women and Leadership in West Africa (pp. 237–241). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. https://0-doi-org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.1057/9781137010391_9
Sullivan, H. S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. New York, NY: Norton.
Sullivan, H. S. (1940). Conceptions of modern psychiatry: The first William Alanson White Memorial Lectures. Psychiatry, 3(1), 3–17.
Wiggins, J. S. (1996). An informal history of the interpersonal circumplex tradition. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66(2), 217–233. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa6602_2
Zoogah, D., Peng, M., & Woldu, H. (2015). Institutions, Resources and Organizational Effectiveness in Africa. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 29(1), 7–31. doi: https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2012.0033
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jordans, E., Derakhshan, M., Rutter, Z., de Villiers, S., Ng’weno, B. (2022). Developing Global Leadership in Africa. In: Stolz, I., Oldenziel Scherrer, S. (eds) International Leadership. uniscope. Publikationen der SGO Stiftung. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37306-1_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37306-1_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden
Print ISBN: 978-3-658-37305-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-658-37306-1
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)