Leadership Styles

Discussions on Leadership with the former Vice President Joseph Boakai

Leadership in the African Context

The concept of leadership is both a science and an art. Leadership is an art because it encompasses much creativity and varies depending on the leader, the follower, and the context. The science of leadership is focused on theories that are continually evolving but have the same goal. Effective leadership styles aim at ensuring the improving performance of organizations or nations.

The discourse on the challenges of leadership in Africa has been widely publicized. Some blame Africa’s under-development on colonialism, climate, and the unequal global economic integration; however the debate is shifting more to examining Africa’s poor leadership for its political, economic and social problems (Poncian, Japhace; Mgaya, 2015). Historical assessment of leadership in the African context is dissected into two time periods, the pre and postcolonial era (Jallow, 2014). In the precolonial era, African leadership was characterized by chiefs who had much autocratic power; however, the community was also powerful enough to provide checks and balances to ensure the leaders don’t abuse their power (Amah, 2019). In the postcolonial era, many African leaders became driven by self-interest — the adopted colonial master’s forms of ruling that were autocratic and transactional.

A significant share of Africa’s under-development can be attributed to this dark-side of Africa’s leadership. There are pockets of strong leadership in Africa. However, these have become the exception rather than the rule. There is a cry for African leaders to adopt new leadership styles now. I want to look at the forms or styles of leadership that have been used to describe African leaders as a framework to guide my own understanding and analysis of leadership in this work.

Leadership Styles

There are many brands of leadership, adopted from the West, that have been used to study African leaders. However, because of the nascent scholarship of African leadership, most of the studies in this field have not been grounded in the leadership studies theory (Jallow, 2014). Methods of the transformational, transaction and servant leadership have been used to categorize African leaders.

1.Value-Based Leadership

This form of leadership is cemented in knowing who you are and what matters most to you. It is inward facing, emphasizing elements of self-awareness and self-reflection rather than looking at a role model or a historical figure to emulate. VBL emerged because of the big corporate scandals that clouted the twenty-first century. VBL believes that when one truly knows themselves, then it is easier to understand what to do any situation and what it comes down to is doing the right thing and doing the best one can. This type of leadership places emphasis on values and relationship building get the best out of followers or people in the team rather than hierarchy. A value-based leader also works to encourage the team to figure out what is important to them and what they cannot achieve on their own. This form of leadership celebrates personality differences in the group but manages diversity with the creation of a shared value system. The relationship between the VBL leader and the followers is centered around shared values.

There are two forms of value-based leadership styles, which are authentic and transformative leadership.

• Authentic Leadership:The central premise of authentic leadership is internally driven- leading in a way that honors one’s core values, beliefs, strengths, and weaknesses (Gardner et al., 2011). This leadership accommodates the leader’s identity and style, that is developed from their life’s story (HBR et al, 2011). Authentic leaders are defined as “those individuals who know who they are, what they think and behave and are perceived by others as being aware of their own and others' values/moral perspective, knowledge, and strengths; aware of the context in which they operate; and who are confident, hopeful, resilient, and of high moral character (Avolio, Luthans, & Walumbwa, 2004)”. This leadership attracts followers to build an honest relationship with them and garnering trust.

• Transformational Leadership Style:The goal of a transformational leader is to enable change in people and organizations. In this style of leadership, the leader and the follower are in congruence by their high-level shared goals. A transformational leader can lead individuals to achieve their goals by appealing to their deep-rooted values. These leaders often have high emotional intelligence, a relentless pursuit of, and a curiosity to learn. One’s life experiences play an essential role in building the capabilities for transformational leadership in leading and inspiring others. These life experience can come from formative years of growing up, core attributes and values, and life experiences. Transformational leadership emphasizes the leader’s skills, organizational vision, and relationship with followers.

• Servant leadership:This form of value- leadership has been established as the ideal kind of leadership that should be adopted by African leaders (Amah, 2019). The justification for this is that traditional governance structure, of command and control that has been widespread in Africa, has not led to its development. The servant leadership adopts the inverted pyramid in management where the leader is at the base of the inverted pyramid with the motive to serve his followers and work towards their common goal. A servant leader is committed to service and authority, and influence is only earned through acts of service. Some of the characteristics of servant leadership include listening, empathy, healing, stewardship, commitment to people, and awareness. Empirical studies have shown that from these the main behaviors exhibited by servant leaders include empowerment, accountability, being all right with not being in the limelight, taking risks, and standing by action. Others have argued that this form of leadership is imaginary and utopic. However, two former African presidents such as Nelson Mandela and Joaquim Chissano typified this form of leadership.

Autocratic Leadership:

This form of leadership is characterized by individual control for all decisions and actions taken, with little input from followers (Cherry, 2019). Many times, autocratic leaders base their decisions on personal judgment and ideas and are very resistant to getting feedback from others. This form of rule has some advantages and disadvantages, mostly depending on the situation, the type of task at hand, and characteristics of the team members. In cases where something needs to be accomplished quickly, autocratic leadership can be more effective in delivering results faster, but in many instances, this form of leadership can also demoralize team members

Other forms of leadership: There are many different forms of leadership that have not yet been used in the African context including adaptive leadership, and charismatic leadership.

Leadership in Health System

Solving health systems challenges of now and the future involves working in partnerships with stakeholders within and outside the system. WHO has called for a leadership that can combine leadership at multiple levels and locales that is inclusive, collaborative, open-minded, adaptive persuasive, and receptive (WHO, 2016). This is the essence of participatory leadership, where diverse actors’ groups are empowered to contribute to the effective buildup of the health system. Within this framework, leadership is not defined in terms of official roles and responsibility of individuals or groups of actors, but rather by the opportunities available for each group to contribute and to share duty for actions and decision making. Within each of these groups of actors, personal leadership does matter and can be of high value.