Indigenous African Leadership: Key differences from Anglo-centric thinking and writings

Abstract

This article draws on historical explorers' accounts, ethnography and organisational approaches to examine practices, discourses and perceptions of leadership in 12 prototypical indigenous communities in West and Central Africa. By so doing, it highlights how leadership meanings from this context differ from Anglo-centric thinking and writings. Key to this contribution is an unravelling of ways in which historical cultural hegemonies impose particular discursive formations, constructed practices and mind-programming in a non-Anglo-Saxon socio-cultural context. Dramaturgical power arrangement, lucid role substitution and the notion of leadership as nonhuman emerge as dominant themes in the analysis. Also, featuring significantly are representations of leadership in symbols, mythology and as transcendental and metaphysical. These conceptualisations are different from predominant Anglo-Saxon writings that frequently present leadership as linear hierarchies, dyadic (leader-follower) relationship, acts and behaviours of heroic figures and as an essentially human action. An Afro-centric indigenous concept of leadership reflecting the context is proposed which challenges heroism, linearity, individualism and objectivism.

Will we know what counts as good leadership if Things Fall Apart? Questions prompted by Chinua Achebe’s novel

“…Old ways of 'aiming at a good life lived with and for others in just institutions' (Ricoeur, 1992: 172) have been replaced by post-modern subjectivities shot through with traces of these traditional intuitions of what counts as greatness. Eyong (2016), for example, has traced the expression of such intuitions of leadership in contemporary villages in Nigeria and Cameroon.…”

African Indigenous Leadership Philosophy and Democratic Governance System: Gada’s Intersectionality with Ubuntu

“…The authentic leadership theory was proposed to emphasis the need for altruism and principle based leadership (Yukl, 2010). These Anglo-Saxon centric theories are based on individualistic, masculine, hierarchical, and heroic leader-centric perspective of leadership (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012; Eyong, 2017; Schedlitzki et al, 2017) which did not fit African/Indigenous cultural context. Alvesson and Spicer (2012) problematized the universality of heroic leader-centric conception of leadership, their underlying functionalist and interpretivist paradigms, and suggested critical and deliberative study of leadership.…”

“…African culture is communal, collectivist, value based, participative and humanist (Basheka, 2015; Edwards, 2015; Eyong, 2017). There are significant social, contextual, and philosophical differences between Anglo-Saxon and Indigenous African context (Eyong, 2017; Jackson, 2004). Eyong (2017) noted the existence of marked difference in conception, power and roles arrangements and relationships, and practices of Afrocentric and Anglo-Saxon perspectives.…”

“…There are significant social, contextual, and philosophical differences between Anglo-Saxon and Indigenous African context (Eyong, 2017; Jackson, 2004). Eyong (2017) noted the existence of marked difference in conception, power and roles arrangements and relationships, and practices of Afrocentric and Anglo-Saxon perspectives. Vilas-Boas et al (2018) indicated that leadership is culture based, collective and social phenomena.…”

“….). Afrocentric Indigenous leadership is a value based, participative, and collaborative process of influence whereby the formal leader engages the followers in a mutual influence for the collective good (Eyong, 2017).…”