Mawdo Baba, nice read and great substance. I like the conclusion. I read few books on leadership and the subject matter of its theory is far from what we see daily. Leadership is for those to be served. It shouldn't be about more colorful feathers, etc..warm regards, Yero

Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2014 09:46:41 -0600
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: African Leadership Studies: Beyond Theoretical Exceptionalism
To: [log in to unmask]

Thank you Boss Karim. I continue to salute my boss! Baba
On Thu, Nov 6, 2014 at 2:40 AM, abdoukarim sanneh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:



My Boss
Thanks for sharing this body of knowledge. I continue to salute you amd regards to the family

Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2014 18:00:05 -0800
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: African Leadership Studies: Beyond Theoretical Exceptionalism
To: [log in to unmask]




 

African
Leadership Studies: Beyond Theoretical Exceptionalism

Paper presented at the 16th
Annual International Leadership Association Conference

October 30 – November 2, 2014 /
San Diego California[1]

 

Baba
G. Jallow, Creighton University, [log in to unmask] 

Some scholars de-contextualize
Africa’s leadership and developmental crises by attributing them to the
mistaken and untested assumption that Western theories and styles of leadership
are not appropriate for African and other non-Western cultures. Geert Hofstede
(1993) has argued that Western theories and styles of leadership are not
appropriate for non-Western cultures. Hofstede claims that this is so because
leadership studies theorists grew up in particular environments that inevitably
limit the applicability and utility of their concepts of leadership to other
environments. This proposition represents a form of theoretical exceptionalism
and diminishes the globalizing potential of leadership studies scholarship. In
this paper, I propose to demonstrate that situational, transformational,
transactional, servant and other theories of leadership may usefully be applied
to the study of African leaders. Using Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, the former
Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela as case studies, I
argue that leadership studies theory is applicable to the study of leadership
regardless of cultural idiosyncrasies. It is my contention that the problem
lies not with the Western theories or styles of leadership per se, but with the
nature of African leadership and the cultural context from which it emerges,
within which it is embedded and within which it is exercised. Africa’s
developmental failures reflect first and foremost a failure of leadership. And
the theoretical exceptionalism that theories of leadership studies are not
suitable tools of analysis for African leadership should be rejected in favor
of experimentation.

One may be forgiven for observing that
the vast amount of leadership studies literature reads as if leadership exists
only in the west. Leadership studies scholars’ preoccupation with their
immediate environments and audiences obscures the presence of other
environments and audiences equally invested in solving leadership problems in
their communities. Organizations and managers are studied as if they only exist
in western societies and remedies are suggested that are specifically designed
to solve problems in western leadership and organizational cultures. The “we”
we encounter in so many works on leadership studies often refers to “we”
westerners, not we human beings. The University of San Diego’s Professor Bob
Donmoyer speaks of a certain culture of “regionalism” in leadership studies
that urgently needs to be addressed.[2] Not
only is there a need for African leadership studies, Asian leadership studies,
Latin American leadership studies and Middle Eastern leadership studies;
western leadership studies scholars may find much that is useful in looking at
other leadership and organizational cultures beyond their immediate spatial and
academic environments. 

Leadership is a universal human
process. It is found in all human societies. Since human beings are essentially
similar in all the ways that really matter, it follows that theories used to
understand and explain human motivation and behavior in one part of the world
may be used to explain human motivation and behavior in other parts of the
world. Of course, no theory of leadership may be applied wholesale in any part
of the world without taking into due account human differences and cultural
idiosyncrasies. But overall, we can safely argue that as valid generalizations
on human nature, theories of leadership apply to their subjects regardless of
spatial or temporal differences. Once created, knowledge becomes a universal
artifact that recognizes no boundaries.

Organizational culture and leadership
theory lends itself particularly well to the study of leadership in Africa.
Edgar Schein’s (2010) insights help us visualize the African nation-state as an
organizational “macro culture” within which exist levels of organizational
“micro cultures”. Schein suggests that understanding the “shared assumptions”
of group members is key to resolving intra-organizational conflict and
maintains that “leadership and culture are two sides of the same coin” (2010:
3). Both insights are useful to an understanding of African leadership cultures.
Culture, Schein writes, “is ultimately created . . . by leaders” (2010: 3). The
cultures of material poverty and political intolerance in contemporary Africa
are no mere accidents of history; neither are they manifestations of inherent
African backwardness; or lasting immutable effects of the colonial encounter.
They are in fact created and nurtured by African leaders. The saying that a people
gets the leadership it deserves may perhaps more usefully be rendered a
people’s leadership determines the nature of the culture they get. Leadership cannot
be divorced from its cultural context, just as culture cannot help but be
shaped by leadership. 

Bolman and Deal speak of leaders as
often incarcerated in a “psychic prison” that prevents them “from seeing old
problems in a new light or finding more promising ways to work on perennial
challenges” (2003: 7). This is a particularly useful insight into understanding
the seemingly inscrutable antics of many post-colonial African leaders.
Determined to hang on to power at all cost, many independent African leaders are
perpetually in a state of denial; they claim progress and prosperity when their
nations and people lack the barest necessities of life; they commit unspeakable
crimes against their fellow citizens in the name of a national security that
never was; they muzzle dissent and kill their opponents even while proclaiming
their impeccable record of human rights and the rule of law. Bolman and Deal’s
concept of the psychic prison might help us understand just why African leaders
commit these crimes and break all rules of ethical behavior, often in broad
daylight, before everyone’s eyes, and with a nonchalant attitude. African
leaders of the post-colonial era often wield a “vision” in one hand and a club
in the other. You either support them or shut up. 

Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first prime
minister and president was, on the one hand, a successful nationalist and
pan-African leader who led his country to independence, initiated a number of
important development projects, and contributed to the process of
decolonization across Africa. He did a lot to propagate the idea of a united
Africa and was instrumental in the formation of the Organization of African Unity,
now African Union in 1963. He initiated a lot of important domestic development
projects that continue to benefit the people of Ghana to this day. On the other
hand, however, he was a power wielder who systematically monopolized the
Ghanaian political space, criminalized his political opponents, muzzled
freedoms of expression, association and of the press, had himself declared
president for life, and turned his newly independent country into a single-party
dictatorship, thus stifling his people’s creative and developmental potentials.
His immediate political legacy was a quarter century of political turmoil that
saw a series of failed experiments in civilian and military leadership in
Ghana.

Nkrumah’s domestic policy actions
suggest that Machiavellian leadership theory is a useful lens through which to
understand his transition from a freedom-loving nationalist leader to the dictator
of a single party state.  Between 1947 when
he returned to Ghana (then called the Gold Coast) and 1966 when he was overthrown
in a police-military coup, Nkrumah initiated a series of policy-action transformations
that suggest the adoption of the twin Machiavellian personas of the lion and
the fox. Let us illustrate:

In 1947, Nkrumah accepted an
invitation from the United Gold Coast Convention to return to Ghana knowing, as
he admits in his autobiography, that he could not possibly work with what he
called the convention’s “reactionary leadership.” He admits that he knew “it was
quite useless to associate myself with a movement backed almost entirely by
reactionaries, middle class lawyers, and merchants, for my revolutionary
background and ideas would make it impossible for me to work with them”
(Nkrumah 1957: 62). It could therefore be argued that he accepted the U.G.C.C’s
invitation for Machiavellian reasons: to use the U.G.C.C. as a means of
furthering his own political ambitions. He admits that he had his own plans and
would not hesitate to pursue them whether the U.G.C.C. leadership liked it or
not (Nkrumah 1957; Nugent 2009 - 2010). And that is exactly what he did.

Europe’s subjugation of African
territories during the periods of the scramble and pacification was often
effected by a combination of force and cunning, of military might and
fraudulent treaties of friendship and protection, of Machiavellian lion and fox
tactics. African states that resisted colonial encroachment were forcefully
subjugated and pacified, while occasionally, African leaders unwittingly signed
away their sovereignty to European powers. In order to satisfy the requirements
of the Berlin Act that came out of the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, European
powers had to demonstrate effective claim to and occupation of African
territories. This they did either by force or by producing written evidence of
African sovereigns’ consent to submit to their protection or rule. Nkrumah
translated these imperial strategies of force and fraud into his policies of
Positive Action and Tactical Action, the former a show of nationalist muscle
modeled on the Quit India campaign (Nugent 2009-2010), the latter a show of
nationalist cunning to effect the final push against colonial domination. In
deploying these two approaches, Nkrumah used the same Machiavellian Lion-Fox strategies
to fight British imperialism that Britain used to subjugate Africans.

Nkrumah’s twin policies of Positive
Action and Tactical Action were in line with Machiavelli’s exhortation that the
prince must be able to be both a lion and a fox. The prince, Machiavelli
teaches, “must know that there are two kinds of combat; one with laws, the
other with force. The first is proper to man, the second to beasts; but because
the first is not often enough, one must have recourse to the second. Therefore
it is necessary for a prince to know well how to use the beast and the man”
(Prince Ch. 18). And “since a prince is compelled by necessity to know well how
to use the beast, he should pick the fox and the lion . . . one needs to be a
fox to recognize snares and a lion to frighten the wolves” (Prince Ch. 18). 

From 1947 to 1949, Nkrumah played the
fox to outsmart the U.G.C.C. leadership. From 1949 when he founded the C.P.P.
to 1951 when he became Leader of Government Business, he played the lion
through Positive Action. From 1951 to independence in 1957 he reverted to
playing the fox through Tactical Action. Positive Action required him to seem
tough and fearless as a lion in order to force the British government to grant
internal self-government to the Gold Coast. Once internal self-government was
achieved, he turned to Tactical Action, which he described as “a contest of
wits” (Nkrumah 1957) in order to convince the British government that his party
was capable of ruling the country. In typical Machiavellian fashion, Nkrumah
tricked London into believing that he had abandoned his hostility toward
imperialism, even though that was furthest from his mind. After independence in
1957, Nkrumah eased back into the lion persona and renewed his relentless
onslaught against imperialism, neocolonialism, and those he considered their
local agents and stooges in Ghana. His hostile anti-capitalist rhetoric did not
deter Nkrumah from seeking financial assistance from the capitalist West in
order to implement his most important development projects. Nkrumah was, in
effect, a consummate Machiavellian.

The Congolese scholar Jean-Claude
Willame (1998) has identified Machiavellian tendencies in the politics of
former Zaire (DRC) dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Willame argues that Mobutu
managed to remain in power for so long because he deployed the Machiavellian
strategies of “ruling men” and “how to keep power” (1998: 38). Mobutu saw the
chance to grab power in 1965 when the newly independent Belgian Congo was
bedeviled by internal political factionalism and mired in cold war intrigues.
Having captured power, Mobutu kept it by deploying a pattern of Machiavellian
politics: “a sometimes unpredictable mix of threats . . . magnanimity,
seduction, cunning, ‘make believe’, ‘double talk’ and ‘the frequent rotation
and removal of bureaucrats, army officers, and ministers’” which created much
uncertainty and insecurity in Zairian society and effectively precluded any
organized threat to Mobutu’s power (Willame 1998: 39-40).

But if Mobutu was a Machiavellian leader,
he was also a transactional leader. As a way of maintaining his grip on power,
Mobutu rewarded his supporters with financial and other incentives that
eventually bankrupted his country. Unlike Nkrumah however, Mobutu had no vision
for his country or for Africa. His primary concern was amassing wealth and
keeping power. Those who supported him were amply rewarded; those who opposed
him were effectively neutralized either through force or lucrative persuasion.

Of our three case studies, South
Africa’s Nelson Mandela lends himself more readily to contemporary leadership
studies theory. As demonstrated by Robert Rotberg (1991), Chis Saunders (2014)
and Daniel Lieberfeld (2014) Mandela was clearly a transformational leader, or
perhaps more accurately, a transformational servant leader. Rotberg and
Saunders have used transformational leadership theory to show how Mandela was
able to transform his country from a violently divided society into a rainbow
nation between 1990 when he was released from prison to 1999 when he stepped
down as South Africa’s first Black president. Lieberfeld uses trait theory to
highlight Mandela’s success as a transformational leader. According to
Lieberfeld, Mandela possessed emotional self-control, empathy, a sense of
self-efficacy, conceptual complexity and pragmatism that enabled him to perform
the reconciliation-oriented leadership that transformed enemies into friends
and made South Africa’s transition from Apartheid to democratic majority rule
possible.

Ironically, Mandela has also been
characterized as a Machiavellian leader. In a newspaper review of British
journalist Anthony Sampson’s biography of Nelson Mandela, James Gump (1999)
writes that the Mandela that emerges from Sampson’s book “is part Gandhi and
part Machiavelli, moral statesman and consummate politician.” In response to an
email request from me to elaborate, Gump wrote that his reference to Mandela’s
Machiavellianism derived from Mandela’s pragmatism: While “Mandela turned to
violence in the early 1960s as a tactical position . . . he was also prepared
to negotiate with his enemies at any time” (Gump February 6, 2013). Gump also
cites Mandela’s “posturing with guards” on Robben Island “to gain prisoner
rights” and “to make the best of a bad situation” as a Machiavellian survival
strategy (2013). But if Mandela was a Machiavellian leader, he put his
Machiavellian skills to good use, to beat the Apartheid system at its own game.

In short, Hofstede’s claim that
leadership studies theory is not applicable to studies of non-western
leadership is flawed. As demonstrated in this paper and more comprehensively
elsewhere (Jallow 2014a; Jallow 2014b), leadership studies theory may usefully
be deployed in the study of African leadership. Organizational leadership
theory as proposed by Edgar Schein, Bolman and Deal and many other scholars is
a useful tool for the study of dysfunctional organizations in Africa.
Information processing theory helps us understand the mentality of African
leaders. Theories of transformational, transactional, servant leadership, among
others are as suitable for the study of African leadership as they are for the
study of Chinese, Japanese or American leadership. Machiavelli’s Lion and the
Fox is a useful framework for the analysis of the leadership style of Ghana’s
Kwame Nkrumah and other African leaders. Situational and contingency theories
are applicable to the study of any leadership context. It is high time that
leadership studies scholarship moves beyond theoretical exceptionalism and
academic regionalism to embrace the wealth of leadership potential around the
world.









[1]
Due to the limited time available for presentations at the ILA Conference, this
paper is an abridged version of a longer study.






[2]
Personal communication.






                                           

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