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Leadership
Sixty years of research on 2017, Vol. 13(2) 222–251
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leadership in Africa: A Reprints and permissions:

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DOI: 10.1177/1742715015580665
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Willem Fourie
Department of Dogmatics and Christian Ethics, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Suzanne C van der Merwe and Ben van der Merwe

Department of Business Management, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract
This paper reviews peer-reviewed research on leadership in Africa published from 1950 to 2009.
The review has a dual purpose. On the one hand, it provides scholars with an entry point to the
relatively large body of historical literature by means of a descriptive diachronic analysis of the
literature. On the other hand, it also applies a synchronic analysis, and concludes with four
interpretative statements on the scholarship on leadership in Africa. These statements are: (i)
Scholarship on leadership in Africa has changed, and the change is lopsided; (ii) Female scholars
are increasing, and they work on different themes from male scholars; (iii) Legitimacy remains a
key issue, and continues to evolve; (iv) Authenticity has become a key issue and is now closely
related to reclaiming African values.

Keywords
Africa, leadership in Africa, ethics, developing countries

Background
Leadership in Africa is one of the few topics that straddles academia and casual conversa-
tion. Some argue that lack of responsible leadership is the reason for the continued chal-
lenges on the continent; others regard leadership as the solution for developing Africa. In
theory, leadership in Africa provides one of the most exciting and perplexing topics currently
available to researchers interested in comparing and enriching research on leadership con-
ducted in or on regions other than Africa.

Corresponding author:
Willem Fourie, Department of Dogmatics and Christian Ethics, University of Pretoria, Lynnwood Road, Hatfield, Pretoria
0028, South Africa.
Email: [email protected]
Fourie et al. 223

In this paper, we map the existing peer-reviewed research articles on leadership in Africa.
‘‘Africa’’ is used as a category denoting societies that share a unique set of characteristics.
This set consists of four interrelated dimensions. In its most descriptive sense, ‘‘Africa’’
denotes a group of societies that share the same geography, which has gained a distinct
geopolitical meaning. Politically, these societies are postcolonial in the sense that they are
coming to terms with a period during which ‘‘many societies with different historical trad-
itions [were fused] into a [single] history’’, obliged to operate within an ‘‘economic system
primarily developed and controlled by the west’’ (Young, 2001: 5). Socio-culturally,
‘‘Africa’’ denotes a group of societies with a high level of plurality. According to some
estimates, for example, this region is home to over 2100 languages that can be classified
as ‘‘living languages’’ (Lewis et al., 2014). Economically, ‘‘Africa’’ denotes a group of socie-
ties all of which are faced with the need for substantial socio-economic development. In its
most recent Human Development Report, for example, the United Nations Development
Programme states that sub-Saharan Africa – which includes most of Africa – has the world’s
lowest levels of human development (UNDP, 2014: 33).
We expand on existing work, notably the important work done by Kuada (2010) and
Muchiri (2011), on a number of levels. Whereas Kuada’s research is aimed at developing a
‘‘goal-behaviour-performance model’’ (Kuada, 2010: 9) and Muchiri uses the concepts
‘‘context’’ (Muchiri, 2011: 442 ff) and Ubuntu (Muchiri, 2011: 445–447) to focus his
review, we collected articles based on the broadest possible descriptive parameters. Our
review is situated in the post-colonial era and thematically demarcated only by the keywords
‘‘leadership’’ and ‘‘Africa’’. This review is more comprehensive – one might even say eclectic
– and inductive than those of Kuada and Muchiri. Whereas their work is purposefully done
on research on leadership and management in Africa, our review includes articles from a
wide range of disciplines. Our inductive approach enabled a differentiated analysis of the
articles included in the review. We attempt to identify rather than harmonise differences in
approaches and themes in terms of regions of origin, gender of authors and the decade in
which articles were published.
This review and its findings therefore make a contribution to comparative leadership
theory by means of an inductive, critical and eclectic systematisation and integration of
research on leadership in Africa.

Methods
After considering the limitations of various search strategies, we decided on six steps to
identify and analyse the articles that were included in this review.
As a first step, we decided to limit the review to digitised peer-reviewed research that
had appeared in academic journals. We then conducted an online search for publications on
African leadership. Respected online academic databases were used for this research, namely
Thompson Reuters Web of Science, Google Scholar, EbscoHost, Proquest, Infotrac, JSTOR
and ScienceDirect. Only articles that covered post-colonial expressions of leadership and
were published between 1950 and 2010 were included. The search terms were ‘‘leadership’’,
‘‘leadership; Africa’’ and ‘‘leadership in Africa’’. These terms yielded 382 references. In a
second step, books, reports and non-peer-reviewed academic articles were removed from
these 382 references, which left a total of 277 articles. Thirdly, the remaining 277 articles
were subjected to a qualitative assessment performed independently by two of the authors of
the review. This entailed identifying those articles with substantive and self-identified
224 Leadership 13(2)

reflection on the concept of leadership or its application in Africa as part of its core
argument. We compared the separate assessments of the articles and reached consensus. It
was found that 163 of these articles did not reflect substantively on the notion of leadership
in Africa, leaving 114 articles as the final sample.
The fourth step comprised an analysis of the remaining articles. We used the following
questions to code the articles: (i) What is the core argument of the article? (ii) What does this
article say about leadership? and (iii) Which terms do the authors use to articulate their
contribution to the discourse on leadership in Africa? The first question provided back-
ground information and context to help us understand why the author discussed leadership
in a particular way. The second question captured the information on African leadership as
discussed by the respective authors, and the third question enabled us to express the authors’
contribution by making use of their own terminology. Up to three terms were identified per
article.
As a fifth step, and in accordance with the inductive approach we chose to follow, we
clustered together the key terms associated with articles. By means of a consensus-seeking
process, we decided on themes and associated working definitions that best described the
clusters of terms. Figure 1 provides an overview of the 14 most important themes, and
Table 1 provides the working definition, selected associated terms and sample articles asso-
ciated with each of these 14 themes.
The preceding steps allowed us to analyse the articles both diachronically and synchron-
ically, which we did in a sixth step. The diachronic analysis fed into the synchronic analysis,
and consisted of tracing the development of and key contributions to important themes. This
last step of integration was, unavoidably, the most subjective of the process, but we are

60
Articles published between 1950 and 2009

50

40

30

20

10

Figure 1. The 14 most important themes associated with articles on leadership in Africa.
Table 1. Working definitions, selected associated themes and sample articles of the 14 most important themes associated with articles on leadership
in Africa.

Theme Working definition Selected associated terms Sample articles

Fourie et al.

Political leadership Articles on leadership and political Authoritarianism; democracy; military rule; institu- Garigue (1954), Cartwright (1977),
institutions, organisations, prac- tions; political transitions; political organisation; Hayward (1984), Balogun (1997)
tices and roles elections; nationalism; colonialism; neocolonial-
ism; state-building; leadership legitimacy
Leadership and Articles on leadership and the Motivation; communication; commitment; job satis- Montgomery (1986), Fletcher
management management of organisations faction; strategic leadership; organisational (1999), Walumbwa et al. (2005),
leadership Naidoo (2009)
Leadership styles Articles on existing theory on lead- Intimidatory leadership; patriarchal leadership; lea- Mazrui (1969); Le Vine (1977);
ership styles and the develop- ders of mobilisation; leaders of reconciliation; Kofele-Kale (1978); Hale and
ment of new theory charismatic leadership; instrumental leadership; Fields (2007)
transformational leadership; transactional
leadership
Leadership and Articles on the relation between Empowerment of women leaders; creativity; values Gouws and Kotze (2007), Gouws
gender gender and leadership of women leaders; leader-member exchange; (2008), Nkomo and Ngambi
obstacles for women leaders; Western bias of (2009)
gender and gender relations; gender-based conflict
Leadership Articles on leadership development Leadership development programmes; leadership De la Rey, Jankelowitz and Suffla
development theory and practices development methodologies; education; social (2003), Bolden and Kirk (2009)
change
Leadership and Articles on the role of leadership in Socio-economic development; poverty Micaud (1969), Ayittey (1987), Gray
development socio-economic development and McPherson (2001)
Leadership and Articles on the implications of Traditional symbols; leadership legitimacy; Ubuntu; Hayward (1983), Mboup (2008),
African values African values and symbols for alternative leadership paradigms; traditional Udeani (2008), Bolden and Kirk
leadership theory and practices African spirituality; community; cultural con- (2009)
straints; non-essentialism
Traditional Articles on traditional leadership Ethnicity; syncretistic leadership; shared governance; Miller (1968), Skinner (1968),
leadership practices in postcolonial societies intermediary positions; autocracy Fokwang (2005), Lutabingwa,
Sabela and Mbatha (2006),
LiPuma and Koelble (2009)
(continued)
225
 226

Table 1. Continued.

Theme Working definition Selected associated terms Sample articles

Individual Articles on individual African Kwame Nkrumah; Julius Nyerere; Sékou Touré; Agyeman (1975), Frank (1981),
leadership leaders Gaafar Nimeiry; Idi Amin; Thabo Mbeki Olivier (2003)
Leadership and Articles on leadership and the Socialism; scientific socialism; capitalism McCain (1979), Sheik-Abid (1981),
ideology interpretation and implementa- Blommaert (1997)
tion of socio-political ideologies
Leadership and Articles from a religious perspective Christianity; Islam; theocracy; ethical leadership; Mazrui (1967), Tutu (2002), Tshaka
religion and on the implications of reli- leadership attributes; churches and leadership (2009)
gious values and convictions for development
leadership practices
Local leadership Articles on community-level Rural leadership; community leadership; populism; Lonsdale (1968), Saul (1974), Bingen
leadership grassroots organisation; political change (1996), Abbink (1997)
Leadership Articles on the regulation of change Elections; authoritarianism; ethnicity; political crisis; Bienen and Van de Walle (1989),
succession in political leadership institutions; regulated succession; non-regulated Londregan, Bienen and Van de
succession Walle (1995), Govea and Holm
(1998)
Leadership in Articles on leadership in the educa- School principals; improvement of education; com- Botha (2006), Grant (2006),
education tion sector munity involvement; local contexts Hoadley, Christie and Ward
(2009)
Leadership 13(2)
Fourie et al. 227

confident that the first five steps kept us as close as possible to the articles included in
our sample.
As with all research methods, there were certain limitations to our research methodology.
We acknowledge the following three limitations. Firstly, the review includes only English
publications. We also realise the limitation of the availability of digitised articles in this par-
ticular field of study. Lastly, this study acknowledges that not all the relevant knowledge on
leadership in Africa has been documented or interpreted. We view this limitation as an
expression of the state of research in Africa, as well as the institutions that determine
(and often limit) the type of research produced and disseminated.

Analysis
In order to understand the structure, development, complexities and particularities of the
data, and the ways in which key themes are treated and connected, we start with a diachronic
presentation of our analysis. We highlight representative articles, articles that introduce new
themes or debates, and articles that are, in some sense, unique or controversial.

1950–1959
Research on leadership in Africa – or at least published, peer-reviewed and digitalised
research – had a very slow start during the first decade of the first wave of African states’
gaining independence. Only two articles from the 1950s are included in the review. Both
articles focus on political leadership. Garigue (1954) investigates the complexity of post-
independence political leadership and, in particular, the tension and complexity related to
transferring and applying tribal hierarchy to colonial administration and professionalisation.
Morris (1958) investigates the link between political leadership and religion. He introduces
the notion of theocracy to the discussion and engages with the question as to how it can be
contextualised in the changing political sphere of North Africa.
Even though the quantity of articles from this decade is unimpressive, the themes
addressed by these articles will remain part of the academic discourse on leadership in
Africa for the next 50 years: political leadership as a broad and enduringly relevant
theme, post-independence leadership, traditional leadership in its different guises and the
relationship between leadership and religion. It should be noted that in these two articles
political leadership functions as the overarching theme under which traditional leadership,
post-independence leadership and leadership and religion are subsumed.

1960–1969
The 1960s sees an increase in the number of articles; political leadership continues to dom-
inate the themes that are addressed. In addition to articles covering the connection between
political leadership, traditional leadership and post-independence leadership (Duggan, 1966;
Miller and Skinner 1968), and political leadership and religion (Mazrui, 1967), articles on its
connection with local leadership (Lonsdale, 1968; Micaud, 1969) and socio-economic devel-
opment (Micaud, 1969) further expand the discourse on political leadership.
The endurance of traditional leadership in post-independence Africa is a key theme in the
research done by Miller and Skinner (1968). Their combined article is significant as it is the
first fairly comprehensive attempt at addressing the complex issue of previously co-opted
228 Leadership 13(2)

traditional leaders in Africa’s new democracies. Their analysis leads them to the development
of the concept ‘‘syncretistic leadership’’. Miller and Skinner identify three forms of syncretistic
leadership, namely alliance, coercion and mutual hostility. Alliance occurs when ‘‘communi-
cation between the traditional leader and the modernising agent is established, and the trad-
itional leader translates the desires of the modernising agent to the people’’ (Miller and
Skinner, 1968: 185); coercion is when ‘‘overt bureaucratic coercion is applied to the traditional
leader and partial co-operation is gained’’ (Miller and Skinner, 1968: 185); and mutual hos-
tility is when ‘‘the relationship between the two leadership groups has broken down and
syncretistic leadership is non-existent’’ (Miller and Skinner, 1968: 186). Even though the
proposal by Miller and Skinner of the concept ‘‘syncretistic leadership’’ has not resonated
with a large number of theorists, their problematisation of traditional leadership and analysis
of the tension with eventually deliberative democracy has remained valid.
Ali Mazrui (1967), arguably the most important African scholar on issues related to
leadership in the period shortly after independence, starts his contribution to the relationship
between leadership and religion with a provocative question: ‘‘How conservative a force is
Islam in Africa?’’ (Mazrui, 1967: 274). In the resulting argument, he formulates ‘‘broad
hypotheses about Islam in Africa and its relation to the impact of the West and to ideas
of economic radicalism’’ (Mazrui, 1967: 275) with a particular focus on the connection
between Islam and ‘‘radical’’ political leadership.
Research on the connection between political leadership and local leadership, and
between political leadership and socio-economic development can be seen as the introduc-
tion of two further themes that would endure until the 2000s. With regard to local leader-
ship, Lonsdale (1968) investigates the perceived tension between leaders’ ‘‘popular
following’’ and their ‘‘official recognition’’. He is one of the first theorists who investigates
the role of ‘‘ordinary Africans’’ and emphasises the importance of rural leadership in bring-
ing about national revolutions, as distinct from the mere coordination done by the elite.
Micaud (1969) also devotes some attention to local expressions of leadership, but in the
context of socio-economic development. According to our analysis, he is the first to use the
concept ‘‘local leadership’’, which is closely related to what Lonsdale calls ‘‘rural leader-
ship’’. He identifies charisma, ideology, strategy and organisation as leadership qualities
needed to drive development in Tunisia. With reference to Tunisia’s Habib Bourguiba’s
regime (see also Ashford, 1965), he develops the connection between organisation and
local leadership. Most of the articles reviewed between 1960 and 1969 reflect the attempts
of societies across Africa to come to terms with independence. Micaud’s argument that
authoritarian leadership practices precede truly pluralist political systems has not been
proven to be true across Africa, even though this line of thought remains part of the
public discourse on leadership in Africa.
In addition to his contribution to the development of the understanding between religion,
in particular Islam, and leadership in Africa, Mazrui (1969) also makes a contribution to
knowledge on African leadership styles. This contribution is significant as it is the first
reflection on leadership styles in Africa and, as such, it is more than a mere application of
existing theory developed elsewhere. According to Mazrui, four categories of African leaders
can be identified, namely (i) intimidatory leaders; (ii) patriarchal leaders; (iii) leaders of
reconciliation; and (iv) leaders of mobilisation. An intimidatory leader ‘‘relies primarily
on fear and on instruments of coercion to assert his authority’’ (Mazrui, 1969: 538). A
patriarchal leader ‘‘commands neo-filial reverence’’, and can be either permissive – a
Fourie et al. 229

person who ‘‘prefers to withdraw from involvement in the affairs of the nation and dominate
the scene from a god-like position in the background rather than as a participating
politician’’ – or interventionist – ‘‘determining the direction of national change’’ (Mazrui,
1969: 538). According to Mazrui, Jomo Kenyatta, then President of Kenya, qualified as a
patriarchal leader.
A leader of reconciliation ‘‘relies for his effectiveness on qualities of tactical accommo-
dation and a capacity to discover areas of compromise between otherwise antagonistic
viewpoints’’ (Mazrui, 1969: 538). Milton Obote and, to a limited extent, Julius Nyerere
can be viewed as leaders of reconciliation. A leader of mobilisation, lastly, is ‘‘activated
more by ideological factors than do the other three kinds of leader’’ and ‘‘needs personal
charismatic qualities’’ in order to ‘‘alert the masses to certain enterprises’’ (Mazrui, 1969:
539). Mazrui views Nyerere as a leader of mobilisation par excellence.
Mazrui’s use of political leaders to make general suppositions about different types of
leaders resonates with the work of James McGregor Burns (1978) on political leadership.
Burns’ research strongly influenced the development of transformational leadership theory
(Yukl, 2006). Mazrui’s contribution, however, has influenced general leadership theory for
the African context.
A last article that merits discussion in this section is Clapham’s study (1969) of imperial
leadership in Ethiopia under the emperorship of Haile-Selassie. It is one of the very few
articles that reflect on leadership in Ethiopia, a country with a unique experience during the
colonial period and a political system that continues to differ drastically from those in
the rest of Africa. Indeed, its ‘‘indigenous political system stretches back into murky anti-
quity’’ (Clapham, 1969: 110). He concludes his analysis of imperial leadership by showing
(1969: 114) that Haile-Selassie
retained existing conceptions of the emperorship; that he . . . used traditional manipulative tech-
niques in order to maintain and extend his personal control; and that since his goals [were]
maintenance ones, he . . . met the problems of change by adapting himself to developments in his
environment, rather than by trying to enforce his own initiatives upon it.

1970–1979
The dominance of research on political leadership and themes related to it continues into the
1970s, even though a slight expansion of the themes can be discerned.
Reflection on individual political leaders becomes an important and significant develop-
ment within the theme of political leadership during the 1970s. The leadership of Julius
Nyerere, first president of Tanzania, features in numerous articles. In a study of Nyerere’s
political ideology and its potential for longevity, McGowan and Wacirah (1974) come to a
conclusion not shared by many scholars of their time. They argue that, among other things,
the ‘‘selfless’’ and ‘‘responsible’’ leadership of Nyerere has the potential to further the ideals
of the national socialist project of self-reliance, and that leadership stability and continued
emphasis on post-independence values can be expected in the 1970s. Their analysis of the
endurance of Tanzania’s political ideology at least into the 1970s and early 1980s has stood
the test of time. In the first contribution on the influential concept of pan-Africanism,
Agyeman (1975) contrasts Nyerere’s view with that of another father of independence in
Anglophone Africa, Kwame Nkrumah. The value of Agyeman’s contribution lies in his
230 Leadership 13(2)

identification of a concept that still plays a major role in African politics, and his analysis of
the archetypical quality of the positions of Nyerere and Nkrumah.
Gupta (1972) takes a different and more critical approach towards individual African
leaders. He uses the leadership of Nyerere to critique that of military leaders, notably Idi
Amin of Uganda. He comes to the conclusion that African military leaders act as ‘‘mere
supplicants to foreign power’’, unable to fulfil the needs of their people and prone to cor-
ruption and violence. In his analysis of the military regime of Sudan’s Gaafar Nimeiry, Wai
(1979) addresses the issue of military leadership in post-independence Africa. The articles by
Gupta and Wai are the first on the issue of military leadership in Africa and, surprisingly,
remain two of the very few contributions on this topic.
Ashford (1973) and Laitin and Lustick (1974) represent the gradual expansion of the
political leadership discourse. Ashford, at least in terms of the articles included in our
review, is the first to introduce the theme of leadership succession, which was to become
an important theme in subsequent decades. He investigates the dynamics of political lead-
ership succession in Tunisia. This provides an important example of the challenges related to
open and organised leadership succession processes in one-party states (Ashford, 1973: 39).
Laitin and Lustick (1974), in their comparative study, seek to conceptualise the link between
leadership, skill and learning in Zambia and Syria. This leads them to describe dimensions of
skill in terms of scope, accuracy, ‘‘adaptiveness’’, imagination and energy, and to conclude
that skill is an ‘‘intervening variable’’ (Laitin and Lustick, 1974: 92–108).
Despite the dominance of political leadership, the 1970s sees the expansion of research on
leadership in Africa on three fronts. A first development is the decoupling of traditional
leadership and political leadership. Nypan (1970) investigates the connection between
‘‘formal leadership’’, that is, traditional leadership in communities, and the diffusion of agri-
cultural innovation in Northern Tanzania. This is the first study in which traditional leader-
ship is discussed in isolation from the political leadership of African states. He shows that
formal leadership played an active and positive role in the diffusing innovation. Secondly, this
decade sees a number of independent challenges to the hegemony of the theme of political
leadership. In the only article on the topic, Hotchkiss (1979) investigates the characteristics of
union leadership in Sierra Leone, showing that union leaders by and large come from within
the respective industry or the subsequent union. He also shows that grassroots organisation is
significant, that the level of education and command of English is important for reaching
positions and that union offices are spread evenly across tribes (Hotchkiss, 1979: 444).
The third and, in our view, the most significant expansion of the discourse on leadership
in Africa takes place at the level of reflection on leadership styles. As distinct from the more
inductive approach of Mazrui (1969), Klinghoffer (1973) and Kofele-Kale (1978) apply
existing theory to the phenomenon of leadership in Africa. Klinghoffer makes use of the
concept of charismatic leadership and argues that charismatic leaders in Africa are often a
fragile replacement for weak institutions, and that reliance on charismatic leaders can lead to
difficulties (Klinghoffer, 1973). Kofele-Kale (1978) goes further than Klinghoffer by mod-
ifying existing theory in the light of African (political) realities. He identifies instrumental
leadership as the major problem facing leadership in Africa and contrasts it with ‘‘societal
leadership’’. Drawing on work done by Apter, he defines an instrumental leader in the
following manner (Kofele-Kale, 1978: 82):
For the instrumental leader, power and influence are used primarily in the pursuit of private-
regarding (personal, close family, clique) goals and only secondarily, community-regarding
Fourie et al. 231

objectives. . . . In practice. . . considerations of self are of paramount importance over the aggre-
gate interests of the society which he [sic] leads.

Kofele-Kale provides a number of sociological explanations for instrumental leadership

and provocatively argues that the majority of African leaders are instrumental leaders. We
view the distinction between instrumental and societal leadership as the most important
contribution this article makes to the academic discourse on leadership in Africa, as it
expands existing theory. According to Kofele-Kale (1978: 82), a societal leader is
a public person first and only secondarily a private person . . . [subordinating] narrow privatistic
goals for broader community-regarding objectives. Power and influence . . . are important only
to the extent that they can be effectively harnessed for the solution of human problems.

In his short but substantive article, Le Vine (1977) approaches the identification of African
leadership styles from a different perspective from those adopted by Klinghoffer and Kofele-
Kale. He proposes that African leadership styles should be analysed in terms of three elements
in their respective political environments (Le Vine, 1977: 631). Firstly, the role, style and image
of African political leaders should be viewed in terms of ‘‘the idiosyncratic – but precarious –
balance between the expression of a leader’s personality and his [sic] response to the complex
of pressures attending and impinging upon his role’’ (Le Vine, 1977: 632). Secondly, regarding
their followers, he argues that African leaders ‘‘adopt role-images that serve to create or
maintain. . . affect between themselves and their followers to induce submission, acquiescence
or support, as well as to satisfy their own role-cognitions’’ (Le Vine, 1977: 632).
Thirdly, regarding the ‘‘salience and valence of important symbols’’ (Le Vine, 1977: 631),
he identifies significant differences between pre-independence and post-independence lead-
ership, stating (1997: 637) that whereas
African political styles before independence tended to reflect the constraints imposed by
European expectations of role-performance in European-generated institutions, those that fol-
lowed independence tended to reflect the extent to which these constraints were loosened, or
rejected entirely. . . . [T]he creation of single-party, authoritarian regimes in a number of coun-
tries, and the appearance of military dictatorships in others, gave impetus to the development of
much more idiosyncratic, highly personalised leadership styles than had been possible before
independence.

Cartwright (1977), in attempting to bridge the gap between the abundance of articles that
investigate the phenomenon of political leadership and methodologies that can enable the
investigation into the phenomenon, subordinates leadership style to the legitimacy of polit-
ical leaders. He argues that the relationship between the leader and the members of the state
is of paramount importance, and not ‘‘social background, motivation or skills’’ (Cartwright,
1977: 436). It is, therefore, about ‘‘who accepts his [sic] leadership, under what conditions,
and why’’. Cartwright’s article is significant as it articulates a key issue in discourse on
leadership in Africa: the importance and complexity of leadership legitimacy.

1980–1989
Political leadership also dominates the academic discourse on leadership in Africa in the
1980s. However, a shift away from overly individualistic understanding of leadership
becomes clear in this decade.
232 Leadership 13(2)

A first sign of this shift, as evidenced by the biographical approaches found in the 1970s,
can be found in the connection between political leadership and institutionalisation. In his
article on the topic, Hayward (1984: 19) astutely diagnoses and critiques the emphasis on
political leadership in African leadership scholarship, in our view one of the most important
and clearest explanations of its endurance:
The early scholarship on post-independence Africa contained a decided focus on and preoccu-
pation with political leadership. This emphasis was due in part to the fact that political leaders
were particularly visible embodiments of the state and that the institutions of the state were
much more amorphous and elusive of analysis than the leadership. . . . This focus on political
leaders was based on the expectation . . . that the new political elites of Africa were going to
transform the political, economic, and social life of these states in the very near future.

Using Sierra Leone as a case study, Hayward argues for approaches that assess the role of
leadership in state building and development and investigates the discrepancy between
expectations and actual performance. His approach corresponds to that of Ayittey (1987),
even though the latter articulates the discrepancy between expectations of leaders and their
eventual performance as leaders’ contribution to the failure of development in societies
across Africa. Ayittey identifies ‘‘defective political leadership’’ (1987: 214) as one of the
main causes of Africa’s ‘‘economic atrophy’’. According to Ayittey (1987: 219) there are
reasons for Africa’s failure to develop, of which the first is leaders ‘‘given to megalomaniac,
kleptocratic tendencies’’, ‘‘obsessed with imitating the West’’.
Shaw and Chazan (1982), in one of the few articles that situate African leadership in a
concrete international geopolitical context, critique an overly individualistic understanding
of leadership on conceptual and real political grounds. They argue that the ‘‘golden age of
African diplomacy’’, in which individual African leaders, notably the fathers of independ-
ence, played a big role, has passed (1982: 544):
[l]eaders no longer appear to be more important than the structures in which they operate.
Structures, in turn, are far less ephemeral than the hands that have sought to manipulate
them. Not that leadership is now irrelevant; it is just less salient.

According to their analysis, African leaders in the diplomatic sphere – which is their discip-
linary focus – had considerable personal influence shortly after independence in the 1960s,
utilised collective leadership methods in the 1970s and are faced with a ‘‘more complicated
milieu’’ (Shaw and Chazan, 1982: 545). They ascribe the new limits on the influence of
individual leaders to a number of factors, among others generational leadership changes;
new issues to be addressed, or at least new priorities; and structural changes to global and
local socio-economic and political systems (Shaw and Chazan, 1982: 545).
The challenges related to post-independence political leadership continue to receive atten-
tion in the 1980s. We view Frank (1981) as an important contributor, as he bases his research
on an intra-African comparison of the diverging political development of two initially simi-
lar countries. This is a rather novel approach for the 1980s. Lesotho and Botswana became
independent in the same week, and in the early stages of their political development the
countries shared a number of characteristics. However, Botswana seemed to develop into a
stable state, while the same could not be said for Lesotho. Frank makes use of Max Weber’s
typology of sources of authority to argue that Botswana’s Seretse Khama rejected trad-
itional and charismatic bases of power, opting for a legal-rational base, which played a
major role in Botswana’s continued stability (Frank, 1981: 197). His analysis is slightly at
Fourie et al. 233

odds with that of Adamolekun (1988), who analyses African leaders active in the nation-
building phases of their respective societies. He concludes that ‘‘it is difficult to point to a
single success story’’ (Adamolekun, 1988: 103).
Bienen and Van de Walle (1989) investigate the phenomenon of leadership succession in
Africa, and published what we view as a seminal study. They are the first scholars that
identify and attempt to explain why some African leaders stay in power longer than
others. In their rigorous analysis they find that the longer a leader is in power, the better
the chances are that the leader will stay in power, and that particularities of the country or
leader do not play a significant role in how long the leader stays in power. Tindigarukayo
(1988) also examines leadership succession in post-independence Africa, and uses Uganda as
a case study. He somewhat controversially concludes that Obote did not fare much better
than the inhumane Amin. He justifies this conclusion in the following manner
(Tindigarukayo 1988: 621):
As many as five post-Amin regimes were unable to establish the supremacy of civil political
institutions over the military, and they also failed either to acquire popular legitimacy or
to restore political order in a country that had been ravaged by eight years of arbitrary
tyrannical rule.

During the 1980s, the discourse on political leadership is further expanded by research that
reflects on African values and symbols in political leadership. The contributions by Hayward
(1983) and Goldsworthy (1982) are, ironically, both by authors from outside the continent,
but set the stage for a theme that will inform that leadership discourse until the end of the
2000s. Hayward describes the relation between leadership legitimacy and leadership authen-
ticity, and in our view provides a nuanced reflection on two of the most important issues in
the discourse on leadership in Africa. According to his analysis of traditional symbols and
myths to create political legitimacy, this is done by means of (i) invoking ties to the past; (ii)
projecting an image of leadership or charisma; (iii) emphasising power, authority and status;
(iv) attempting to use African symbols and myths to legitimise seizure of power; (v)
emphasising the progressive state; and (vi) using these symbols and myths to identify the
‘‘real’’ enemy.
In addition to numerous articles on political leadership, the authors found the first
contributions on private-sector leadership (Van der Merwe and Van der Merwe, 1985)
and on the relationship between leadership and management in Africa (Montgomery,
1986). Montgomery is the first, at least in terms of the articles included in the review,
to apply the concept ‘‘managerial leadership’’ to the African leadership discourse, as
‘‘successful managers must be leaders’’ (Montgomery, 1986: 15). He studies managers
in nine countries in southern Africa and finds that the ‘‘motivation of subordinates’’ is
the main challenge and strength of interviewees. On the level of ‘‘personal action’’ he
finds that African managers employ numerous strategies to change employees’ attitude
and thus address the lack of motivation. He finds that ‘‘creative leadership, including
offering to share an employee’s burden, singling out unusually good performance for
public comment, or displaying a sense of professional solidarity’’ is particularly effective
(Montgomery, 1986: 20). On the level of systemic change, he proposes the Herzberg
model but finds that it has significant deficiencies in Africa. According to his analysis,
African managers have a ‘‘much larger range of functions’’ than their American coun-
terparts (Montgomery, 1986: 23), which should make institutional reforms viable in
African organisations.
234 Leadership 13(2)

1990–1999
The 1990s is a decade of transition in research on leadership in Africa, as it precedes the 2000s,
a decade that seems to represent major shifts on numerous fronts. In contrast to the 2000s, the
theme of political leadership still dominates in the 1990s, contributions from outside Africa are
still more numerous than contributions from any of the continent’s regions, and contributions
from female scholars still account for less than half of the research on the topic.
Within the ambit of research on political leadership, Elaigwu (1991) applies one of the
earliest African characterisations of African leadership styles, namely that of Mazrui (1969),
to leadership and increased federalism in Nigeria. This is a significant article, not merely
because of its content, but especially owing to its use of existing documented African lead-
ership theory. He concludes (1991: 144) that ‘‘successful’’ leaders in Nigeria make use of
a reconciliation style of leadership coupled with a mobilizational ability to use military govern-
ance to effect change, primarily by strengthening the federal government in order to promote
national unity.

The theme of leadership succession continues to be associated with the theme of political
leadership. Bienen and Van de Walle expand their ground-breaking research published in
1989 with an article on the link between ethnicity and leadership succession (Londregan,
et al., 1995). It traces the link between ethnicity and leadership succession. The authors
conclude that ethnicity plays a major role in leadership succession, but in surprising ways.
While acknowledging that ‘‘ethnic membership remains difficult to measure’’ (Londregan
et al., 1995: 22), they find that ‘‘leaders from the largest ethnic groups are the most likely to
lose power’’ (1994: 23). They also find that ‘‘among leaders from ethnic groups with
population shares that are large within the context of their country, the probability of
non-constitutional replacement actually rises with the size of the leader’s ethnic group’’
(Londregan et al., 1995: 23). They find, lastly, that ‘‘rulers are disproportionately likely to
be replaced by members of their own ethnic group’’ (1994: 23).
These results are, partly at least, illuminated by the research of Govea and Holm (1998)
on patterns of regulated and non-regulated political leadership succession in Africa.
They find that a third of successions are regulated, owing in most instances to political
crises. They also find that political crises are of greater significance in this regard than
economic or cultural crises. However, economic performance is ‘‘a significant factor for a
country’s long-term succession record’’ (Govea and Holm 1998: 129), leading to the conclu-
sion that ‘‘long-term economic weakness seems ultimately more damaging to the succession
process than short-term economic problems’’ (Govea and Holm 1998: 147). Even though
Govea and Holm do not confine their definition of ‘‘regulated successions’’ to leadership
succession in democracies, their study corresponds with the research of Balogun (1997). In
his review of democratisation in Nigeria, Balogun finds that democracy is not merely the
result of the actions of leaders, even though their action is one of the important factors
needed for processes of democratisation. Active opposition to democracy from leaders will,
however, have a destructive impact. The research by Govea and Holm and Balogun is
important, as they illuminate the patterns of leadership succession in Africa, and provide
reliable data on the prerequisites for stable political leadership.
Jones et al., (1996) and Fletcher (1999) continue the emerging research focus on the
relationship between leadership and management. Jones et al. (1996) investigate the limits
of Western leadership theory in Africa and Asia. They acknowledge the danger of
Fourie et al. 235

disregarding the diversity of societies across Africa (1996: 15), but nonetheless seem to base
their analysis on a number of weakly motivated general statements on ‘‘African societies’’.
We view their acknowledgement of the limits of Western leadership theory as the main
contribution of their article. They find that in Botswana managers do not subscribe to the
‘‘Western’’ distinction between management and leadership. The perceived leader is ‘‘kindly,
supportive’’ and ‘‘directive’’ (Jones et al., 1996: 455). In a slight variation of research on the
relationship between leadership and management, as seen in previous decades, Yousuf
(1990) examines the administrative leadership of political leaders. He uses six variables,
namely personality, role, organisation, task, values and setting in order to describe the
behaviour of the respective leaders in terms of these variables.
A continuing trend, also observed in the 1980s, was the presence of contributions on the
relation between African values and knowledge systems, and those developed outside the
continent. Interestingly, both the article by Blunt and Jones (1996) on the limits of Western
leadership theory in Africa and their article co-written with Sharma (Jones et al., 1996)
reflect on this theme from outside Africa.
The first article on leadership in NGOs can also be found in the 1990s. In this article, Bingen
uses the Cotton Farmers’ Movement in Mali as a case study and ‘‘identifies critical issues related
to the development and sustainability of rural leadership’’ (Bingen, 1996: 24). He highlights the
importance of membership and links ‘‘heroic’’ and ‘‘post-heroic’’ concepts of leadership.
According to Bingen, ‘‘heroic’’ leadership is required in order to ‘‘bring people together’’ and
‘‘influence policy’’ in the short term (1996: 24). He argues that in the longer term a different kind
of rural leadership will be necessary: post-heroic leadership, which can aid the ‘‘transition from
organized rural protest to organized action for sustainable development’’ (Bingen, 1996: 24).

2000–2009
Even a quick glance at the metadata makes it clear that the 2000s mark a decade of major
developments in the field of research on leadership in Africa. The numbers are astonishing:
more articles on the topic were published in this decade alone than the articles from 1950 to
1999 combined. The same goes for female authors. The 2000s is also the first decade in which
contributions from within Africa outnumber contributions from outside the continent.
In terms of themes that are addressed in these articles, we found major shifts in focus. For
the first time since the 1950s, political leadership shares the landscape with other themes.
Leadership and gender, leadership styles and the leadership-management nexus receive com-
parable attention by researchers. In addition, articles on leadership and development not
only make their first appearance but now constitute a significant thematic complex. The
theme of leadership and African values and systems, as well as the closely related themes of
leadership and ethnicity and traditional leadership, also continue to feature prominently.
The institutional dimensions of political leadership continue to generate a fair number of
articles. Only one article, an assessment of Thabo Mbeki’s role in facilitating change in
Africa (Olivier, 2003), focuses on individual political leadership. Mangu (2008) argues
that Africa’s development crisis is primarily one of state capacity and leadership legitimacy.
He argues (2008: 2–3) for a symbiotic relationship between these elements:
Leadership legitimacy is critical for the reinforcement of state capacity and for the success of the
developmental project. Such leadership is promoted by constitutionalism and democracy which
require open, free and fair elections.
236 Leadership 13(2)

As distinct from many theorists – and this we view as one of his main contributions –
Mangu argues that the ‘‘incapacity of the post-colonial state and its legitimacy’’ is not due to
the fact that the post-colonial state is an ‘‘imported product’’ (Mangu, 2008: 18). He argues
that its incapacity is due to the absence of legitimate, democratically elected leaders in ‘‘a
constitutional and democratic state where constitutionalism and the rule of law prevail’’
(Mangu, 2008: 18). Mangu’s argument seems to be supported by that of Goldsmith (2001a),
even though the approach of the latter is significantly more descriptive. Goldsmith investi-
gates the enabling circumstances for leaders to build strong institutions. He correlates risk
and leadership behaviour, and shows that lower risks to leaders lead to their being less prone
to short-term and economically destructive policies. He concludes that ‘‘more orderly sys-
tems of political competition’’ could incentivise African leaders to ‘‘act more responsibly and
even-handedly’’ (Goldsmith, 2001a: 86).
The acknowledgement of the fact that democracy, an ‘‘imported product’’ (Mangu, 2008),
is necessary for ensuring legitimate political leaders naturally raises questions regarding how
to appropriate democracy, and indeed which form of democracy should be appropriated in
Africa. LiPuma and Koelble (2009) address these questions from the perspective of the role
of traditional leaders in South Africa. This is one of the most convincing and rigorously
argued articles on the relationship between democratic leadership practices and traditional
leaders, and a key contribution to research on traditional leadership in African democracies.
Their central question is whether or not traditional leadership can in fact constitute a
‘‘potentially indigenous form of participatory deliberative democracy’’ (LiPuma and
Koelble, 2009: 201). The authors synthesise research on the role of traditional leaders in
Africa by highlighting two characteristics of traditional leadership in post-colonial societies.
Firstly, ‘‘the character of the leadership has metamorphosed in response to changing polit-
ical landscapes, including those that predate colonialism’’; and secondly, ‘‘traditional lead-
ership. . . is now, and has historically been, deeply decentralised and thus open to local
interpretation in its conception and institutionalisation’’ (LiPuma and Koelble, 2009: 202).
After investigating the phenomenon of traditional leadership in South Africa and proposing
two criteria that could contribute to traditional leaders strengthening deliberative democ-
racy, the authors controversially conclude that current conditions ‘‘are likely to entrench
autocracy, patrimony, and despotism and if left without citizen education, it will not lead to
the reformation of this institution and the creation of oversight and accountability’’(LiPuma
and Koelble, 2009: 219).
The conclusion cited above is in tension with contributions by Lutabingwa, et al., (2006)
and Fokwang (2005). According to Lutabingwa et al. (2006: 78) ‘‘traditional systems of
governance have democratic traditions and are in the process of converging with multi-
party democracy through changes such as elected Indunas’’. They also refer to the
Bafokeng, where ‘‘the Kgosi, the most senior person in the community, carries out the
will of the people, political representation at multiple levels of local government, [including]
even a system for electing village representatives to the council’’ (Lutabingwa et al. 2006: 79).
They conclude that ‘‘shared local governance’’ of ‘‘elected officials’’ and ‘‘traditional
leaders’’ is possible and preferable (Lutabingwa et al., 2006: 86).
Owing to the increase in contributions on leadership styles in Africa during the 2000s, it
becomes possible to identify two general groups: the development of theory that emerges
primarily from within African contexts and the application to African contexts of leadership
theory developed elsewhere. Examples of the first group can be found in contributions by
Meiring (2002) and Tutu (2002). Both authors argue from a theological perspective, and
Fourie et al. 237

Meiring, drawing on South African experiences, identifies ‘‘leadership for reconciliation’’ as

an important leadership style needed in Africa. He develops five characteristics of this lead-
ership style, namely (i) clear understanding of issues at stake; (ii) respect for the truth;
(iii) sense of justice; (iv) understanding the dynamics of forgiveness; (v) firm commitment.
The research conducted by Shokane et al., (2004) is a representative example of the second
group. They find that leaders in South African organisations demonstrate a combination of
transactional and transformational leadership, with a gradual shift towards transform-
ational leadership practices. Hale and Fields (2007) similarly use servant leadership as an
instrument to examine leadership practices in Ghana and compare them with similar prac-
tices in the United States of America (US).
Walumbwa et al., (2005) and Leonard and Grobler (2006) link reflection on leadership
styles, specifically transformational leadership, with another key thematic complex, namely
the leadership-management nexus. Even though one of their stated purposes is to make a
contribution to ‘‘cross-cultural comparative research’’ on leadership (Walumbwa et al.,
2005: 235), this is done within the more general field of management. They conclude that
transformational leadership has a positive effect on both organisational commitment and job
satisfaction in both the US and Kenya. Leonard and Grobler (2006) focus on the importance
of effective communication of transformational leaders.
A surprising and, based on the available data, new theme related to the leadership-
management nexus is its contextualisation in the education sector. In the majority of the
contributions, the principal is the point of reference. In their comprehensive research,
Hoadley et al., (2009) test the relationship between ‘‘various dimensions of leadership’’
and ‘‘student achievements over time’’ in South Africa and find that school-community
relations are an important factor in optimising this relationship. In a similar vein, Christie
(2010) draws a distinction between managers and leaders in South African schools and
argues for a ‘‘situated’’ rather than a ‘‘generic’’ understanding of principals. According to
Christie (2010: 708),
constructions of the principalship in discourses that conflate leadership and management, that
over-generalize, and do not engage seriously with local conditions and the day-to-day experi-
ences of principals, are likely to provide distorted pictures and to create unrealistic expectations.

Christie’s findings seem to be supported by Ngcobo and Tikly (2010), who show that effect-
ive leadership in high-performing South African schools is dependent on contextual realities.
The emergence of the major theme of leadership and gender, coupled with the noteworthy
increase in female authors, is a further advance in the field of leadership studies in Africa.
However, research on this topic reveals many of the shortcomings of the field itself. In their
helpful literature, and the only available review of research on African women and leader-
ship, Nkomo and Ngambi (2009) show that the research is at best incomplete and relies
heavily on Western understandings of gender and gender relations. They propose that
African feminism and postcolonial theory provide ‘‘a means to fully interrogate the cultural,
historical, political and economic context influencing the study of African women in man-
agement and leadership’’ (Nkomo and Ngambi, 2009: 64).
Gouws and Kotzé (2007) and Milner et al. (2007) focus on the differences between women
and men in leadership positions. The bold study by Gouws and Kotzé explores potential
differences between male and female leaders. They compare the values of female and male
politicians in Africa and find that the women in their sample are ‘‘more progressive in their
values around issues pertaining to gender equality such as abortion, birth control, divorce
238 Leadership 13(2)

and homosexuality’’ (Gouws and Kotzé, 2007: 183). Their results show that ‘‘women make a
distinction between political values and social values and that their political values are more
similar to those of men than their social values’’ (Gouws and Kotzé, 2007: 183). In their
study, Milner et al. (2007) find a difference in the leader-member exchange relationship when
comparing men and women. They reveal the gendered nature of the experience of these
exchanges, as both men and women experience a more positive leader-member exchange
under the supervision of a person of the same gender. The studies by Gouws and Kotzé and
Milner et al. are significant because they contribute to what is a still largely under-researched
topic.
During the 2000s, leadership development starts to surface as a significant theme within
the field. James (2008) argues that leadership development in Africa differs in certain respects
from what is done in other countries. He argues for an approach that understands and builds
from the ‘‘local context and culture’’, even though ‘‘the process of human change transcends
geography and culture’’ (James, 2008: 373). We regard the contribution by Bolden and Kirk
(2009) as the most important illustration of how ‘‘local context and culture’’ can be used to
inform leadership development programmes and develop African leadership theory. In their
article they report and reflect on the experiences of a pan-African leadership development
project. They conclude that a ‘‘non-essentialist’’ perspective on leadership, using relational,
critical and constructionist approaches, can be especially helpful (Bolden and Kirk, 2009:
81). A relational view is proposed as it ‘‘relates well to. . . collectivist and humanist values’’
and can provide a ‘‘welcome alternative to more ‘heroic’ and individualistic accounts’’
(Bolden and Kirk, 2009: 81–82). A critical approach might be helpful, as it provides a
‘‘means for challenging dominant narratives of leadership, both imposed on Africa from
outside and assumed and propagated within’’ (2009: 82). Lastly, the proposed use of a
constructionist approach ‘‘offers the hope of a better future by offering a mechanism for
change’’ (Bolden and Kirk, 2009: 82). This leads the authors to the following thought-
provoking statement (2009: 82):
A constructionist approach to [leadership] development is not concerned with the transfer of
knowledge about leadership, but rather with the generation of new knowledge that enables
people to more effectively shape and take up their roles as leaders.

Malunga (2006) makes use of a similar line of argument, but argues from the perspective of
African values and systems. His is an important contribution, as it provides access to a
number of contributions that attempt to apply distinctive African cultural resources to
leadership theory. In his article he presents a case for the use of African resources in lead-
ership development initiatives and provides an interpretation of Ubuntu as a potentially
positive contribution in this regard. Van der Colff (2003) also makes use of the concept of
Ubuntu and applies it to the development of leaders in African organisations and the cre-
ation of ethical organisational cultures. Even though he does not use the concept as exten-
sively as Van der Colff or Malunga, Haruna (2009) uses a similar concept, namely the
importance of community in Africa. His rather pragmatic argument is in favour of an
approach to leadership in Africa that does not make use of a restrictive and personalised
viewpoint, emphasising individual leader traits, styles, and behaviours, but rather a broader
contextual, relational, and reflective perspective for promoting sound leadership.
Kuada (2010) is one of the few theorists who also reflect on the limits of African cultural
resources for African leadership scholarship. We include his article as he represents a line of
thinking that problematises both an overly pessimistic and overly optimistic view of African
Fourie et al. 239

values and systems. He identifies African cultures as unique defining characteristics and, in
some instances, constraining factors for African leaders. He argues that macro cultures of
African societies inform the goals, expectations, relationships and resource allocation deci-
sions of African leaders. These in turn shape their decisions and behavioural patterns within
organisations and their overall contributions to organisational performance. He subse-
quently concludes his argument as follows (Kuada, 2010: 21):
[S]ome aspects of African culture may constrain effective leadership. There may be the need to
unfreeze some of these established traditions and contest assumptions that have remained
unexamined for centuries. But not all aspects of African culture act as constraints to effective
leadership. Comprehensive empirical investigations into the impact of dominant African cultural
attributes on leadership and organizational performance are urgently required to guide leader
development interventions on the continent.

Synthesis
A diachronic approach to research on leadership in Africa, as we have shown in the section
above, is helpful for gaining a sense of the dynamics within such research over the past 60
years. However, in order to move beyond the analysis of data towards a synthesis, we
complemented the diachronic with a synchronic approach.
We found that research on leadership in Africa covers an extremely wide range of themes,
and that it is not possible to speak of a distinctly African theory of leadership. We are, in
fact, not convinced that it is sensible to attempt to synthesise the data into one distinctly
African theory of leadership. Such a project would run the risk of glossing over the socio-
cultural, economic and political diversity of the continent and its more than a billion inhab-
itants (see for example Nkomo, 2011, for a discussion). We therefore chose to synthesise the
review in four interpretive statements on African leadership scholarship. In our view these
statements summarise our analysis of the scholarship, without purporting to capture the full
diversity of six decades’ research.

The field has changed, and the change is lopsided

Two significant changes have taken place in African leadership scholarship in the six decades
under review, and both changes took place between 2000 and 2009: the number of articles
published between 2000 and 2009 are more than those of the previous five decades combined
(see Figure 2 for a visual representation) and leadership scholars from Africa now outnum-
ber scholars from elsewhere. However, closer scrutiny reveals some reason for concern. It is
clear that the increase in articles on leadership in Africa is not evenly distributed. A dispro-
portionately large number of articles continue to originate from outside Africa. Within
Africa the distribution of the origin and application of research is geographically lopsided.
The vast majority of articles from within Africa originate from South Africa and make use of
South Africa as country of application (see Figure 3).
The dominance of research from southern Africa can be explained with reference to the
African research landscape. In its report on research in Africa during the 2000s, Thomson
Reuters found that three countries, South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria, produced 32% of
Africa’s research (Adams, King and Hook, 2010: 5). Of the approximately 270,000 papers
that were published in Africa between 1999 and 2008 and that appeared in a journal included
by Thomson Reuters, South Africa produced 17%, Egypt 11% and Nigeria 4%. Despite
240 Leadership 13(2)

70
Number of articles
60

50

40

30

20

10

0
1950-1959 1960-1969 1970-1979 1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-2009

Figure 2. Number of articles published on leadership in Africa.

30
Outside West Africa
Southern Africa East Africa
25
Central Africa North Africa
20

15

10

0
1950-1959 1960-1969 1970-1979 1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-2009

Figure 3. Regions of origin of articles published on leadership in Africa.

comprising more than 30 of Africa’s countries, West, Central and East Africa (including
Nigeria) produced the smallest number of papers during this period, namely about 26%. In
conducting this review, we found that most of the research on leadership in Africa is pub-
lished in the fields labelled by Thomson Reuters as Economics and Business and Social
Sciences. Between 2004 and 2008 South Africa produced more than 2500 publications in
these fields, with Nigeria (less than 400) and Egypt (less than 200) lagging far behind (Adams
et al., 2010: 6).
Maturing research infrastructure, unequal access to journals, and disparities in the incen-
tives for publishing peer-reviewed research in other countries of Africa are but three reasons
for the dominance of South Africa. Van den Heuvel (2008) offers an additional reason for
South Africa’s dominance. In his research, he argues that an impetus for research on lead-
ership in South Africa emanated from the transition from a white-dominated government to
one led by Africans. The latter resulted in a search for ‘‘African’’ leadership and manage-
ment and how the concept of Ubuntu could form a foundation for a new type of leadership
(Mangaliso, 2001; Van den Heuvel, 2008). A number of institutional measures can be taken
Fourie et al. 241

40
Male
35
Female
30

25

20

15

10

0
1950-1959 1960-1969 1970-1979 1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-2009

Figure 4. Gender of authors of articles published on leadership in Africa.

to address the structural and institutional barriers, including strengthening existing scholars
and research institutions, nurturing a new generation of scholars, establishing programmes
or institutes that enable research on leadership in Africa, founding further African journals
that could stimulate and disseminate African research on leadership and providing incentives
for research on leadership in Africa.

Female scholars are increasing, and they work on different themes from male
scholars
The period under review reveals a significant change in the gender of authors on leadership
in Africa, as well as significant differences between the themes addressed by female and male
authors.
Figure 4 shows that, for the first five decades reviewed, most of the authors were male.
Female scholarship and the number of female authors who published on the topic of lead-
ership in Africa, however, increased dramatically in the last decade studied, proportionately
as well as in raw numbers. This is surprising, as this increase is certainly more pronounced
than the increase in the number of women academics in higher education (Wilson, 2012),
particularly in Africa, where a gender imbalance is common in most – if not all – of the
continent’s universities (Teferra and Altach, 2003: 35).
Between 2000 and 2009, female authors, or teams with one or more female authors,
showed a clear preference for research on two themes: leadership and gender and leadership
and management. During this decade all the articles on leadership and gender had a female
scholar as author or co-author. Conversely, no article on leadership and gender was single-
authored by male scholars or co-authored by all-male teams. The majority of the articles on
leadership and management were also authored or co-authored by female scholars. In this
regard it is interesting to note that the majority of these articles were written on the leader-
ship-management nexus in the educational sector.
We found that the contribution of female African scholars to leadership research between
2000 and 2009 significantly influenced the profile of research done by African scholars in this
decade. When the five most frequently recurring themes for non-African authors are com-
pared with those that recur most often in the articles of African authors, significant differ-
ences become evident, as illustrated in Figure 5(a) and (b). Political leadership is the theme
242 Leadership 13(2)

that appears most often in the work of non-African authors (eight articles), whereas the
themes of leadership and management (nine articles) and leadership and gender (nine art-
icles) occur most often in the work of African authors. However, if the articles by female
African scholars are removed, both leadership and gender and leadership and management
cease to be two of the five most recurring themes.
It is equally interesting to note that there are virtually no contributions from female
scholars, both in Africa and elsewhere, on two key themes. Apart from Agyeman (1975)
and Dashwood (2002), we did not find any female scholar who investigated themes directly
related to political leadership. We also found that very few female authors wrote on lead-
ership styles. In this regard only the contributions by Leonard and Grobler (2006) and
Preece (2003) can be mentioned.

Legitimacy remains a key issue, and continues to evolve

We view reflection on the meaning and requirements of legitimate African leadership as a
key, possibly even the most important, issue. The importance of leadership legitimacy should
not be surprising. During the period of colonialism, expressions of leadership in Africa were
in varying degrees delegitimised, some to the point of destruction. In addition, new, often
illegitimate, expressions of leadership were created with coercive power, and complex inter-
actions between these forms of leadership ensued.
Numerous articles identify illegitimate forms of political leadership. Most scholars, impli-
citly or explicitly, agree that authoritarian or military regimes constitute illegitimate forms of
political leadership (e.g. Blunt and Jones, 1996; Clark, 1994; Gramby-Sobukwe, 2005;
Kebonang, 2005; Sheik-Abid, 1981; Wai, 1979). Some scholars use individual African lea-
ders to illustrate this point, notably Uganda’s Idi Amin (e.g. Gupta, 1972;Obiakor, 2004;
Tindigarukayo, 1988) and Congo’s Mobutu Sese Seko (e.g. Kofele-Kale, 1978). In some
contributions clientelist leadership is also identified as illegitimate (e.g. Balogun, 1997).
Legitimate political leadership, on the other hand, is all but equated with electoral, par-
ticipatory, and, in some instances, deliberative democracy (e.g. Bakhari, 2003; Clark, 1994;
Dashwood, 2002; Frank, 1981; Gray and McPherson, 2001; LiPuma and Koelble, 2009;
Rotberg, 2009). In more recent articles this somewhat procedural conception of political
leadership legitimacy is complemented by a performance-based conception of legitimacy. In
these contributions political leadership is closely associated with socio-economic develop-
ment (e.g. Ayittey, 1987; Gray and McPherson, 2001; Kebonang, 2005).
A fair number of articles also reflect on the legitimacy of traditional leadership in post-
colonial Africa. Some scholars argue that the legitimacy of traditional leaders can only be
adequately understood when the role of traditional leaders in colonial regimes is taken into
account. The difference between the colonial leadership structures institutionalised in
Botswana and Somalia is a case in point. Samatar (1997: 689) shows how Botswana’s
monarchical social structure was ‘‘frozen’’ and annexed by colonial powers and partially
remade ‘‘in the colonial image’’. Pre-colonial Somalia, on the other hand, had a cooperative
and ‘‘network-based’’ social structure, based on the household, shared religion and kinship.
Somali chieftainship was by and large created by colonialists, and led to a class of quasi-
traditional leaders that derived their authority from the resources and coercive power of the
colonialists (Samatar, 1997: 694). As the period of colonialism progressed, resistance to
colonialism grew, and questions regarding the legitimacy of leaders became even more
complex.
Fourie et al. 243

(a)
9
Arcles published between 2000 and 2009
8

0
Polical Leadership Leadership Leadership Leadership in
leadership development and and educaon
management development
(b)
10
Arcles published between 2000 and 2009
9

0
Leadership and Leadership and gender Leadership styles Leadership and African Polical leadership
management values

Figure 5. (a) The five most important themes of articles published on leadership in Africa by non-
African authors. (b) The five most important themes of articles published on leadership in Africa by
African authors.
244 Leadership 13(2)

A seemingly growing body of work engages with the tension between democratically
elected political leaders and traditional leaders. These political leaders are often elected in
only partly legitimate democratic processes, and function in institutional settings that have
delegitimised and perverted pre-colonial expressions of leadership (cf. Frank 1981; Mangu
2008). They are required to strengthen their own legitimacy side by side with the complex
and often paradoxical claims of legitimacy of traditional leaders (cf. Fokwang, 2005;
LiPuma and Koelble, 2009; Wai, 1979).

Authenticity has become a key issue, and is now closely related to reclaiming African
values
We started the review with the contention that Africa is a socio-culturally diverse region, and
that much of this diversity was suppressed or denigrated during the colonial era. We found
numerous attempts at reclaiming some of these socio-cultural resources in order to construct
authentic forms of African leadership. Leadership authenticity is reflected upon in three
clusters of themes, namely religion, ethnicity and African values.
Research on the influence of religion and ethnicity on leadership in Africa started rela-
tively early, but has remained as small, albeit important, clusters of articles. The first article
by an African scholar included in our review is the article by Mazrui (1967) on leadership
and the political implications of Islam in Africa. He shows how Islam can be a motivation
for leaders to promote the well-being of Muslims and non-Muslims alike. As opposed to
current views that religious convictions are to be kept private as they separate persons,
Mazrui’s argument seems to lean in the opposite direction. Contributions from scholars
who argue from a distinctly Christian viewpoint seem to affirm Mazrui’s argument (see
for example Meiring, 2002;Tshaka, 2009; Tutu, 2002). Desmond Tutu is representative of
recent expressions of this line of thought when he argues from a Christian perspective that
Africa is in need of ‘‘authentic leaders’’, by which he means leaders who search for goodness,
are credible, ready to suffer and who lead in solidarity with their followers (Tutu, 2002). The
same line of thought, namely that leadership authenticity requires leaders to draw on their
particular resources, can be found in the contributions on leadership and ethnicity. In the
review’s first article on ethnicity and leadership in Africa, Goldsworthy (1982) uses the
Kenyan leader, Tom Mboya, as a case study to show how ethnic affiliation can create
inclusive and authentic leaders. Mboya is sketched as ethnically tolerant, and he uses eth-
nicity to structure the political situation in a constructive manner.
In our diachronic discussion we referred to the irony that the first attempts to critically
apply African cultural resources to the discourse on leadership and Africa (Goldsworthy,
1982; Hayward and Dumbuya, 1983), as well as extended critique against the uncritical use
of Western leadership theory in Africa (Blunt and Jones, 1996; Jones et al., 1997), initially
came from scholars in the so-called West. This changed in the 2000s. Numerous articles on
the reclamation and application of African values were published by African scholars in this
decade. The value and implications of an African value such as Ubuntu is developed in many
contributions (e.g. Bolden and Kirk, 2009; Haruna, 2009; Kunene, 1995; Malunga, 2006;
Mangaliso, 2001; Meiring, 2002; Van der Colff, 2003).
This does not mean that religious and cultural symbols are always innocent.
The danger of invoking these symbols in a manipulating way looms especially large
during ‘‘times of crisis or challenge’’ (Hayward and Dumbuya 1983: 667), and cultural
authenticity can also be used to distort leadership succession processes (Londregran
Fourie et al. 245

et al., 1994; Ilorah, 2009). This is why Kuada argues that particular cultural resources in
Africa can both ‘‘promote unique and positive leadership behaviours’’ and ‘‘act as drags
on effective leadership and management practices’’ (Kuada, 2010: 15). Or, as Nkomo
(2011) argues, evoking cultural symbols or practices often ends up essentialising and
homogenising Africa.

Areas for further research

Leadership in Africa remains one of the most energising and interesting themes for scholars
interested in interdisciplinary research with societal relevance and impact. It is a theme that
fundamentally challenges absolute divisions between disciplines, and all but disables scholars
from divorcing their research interest from its societal impact. In this paper we hope to have
provided a dual entrance point to the expansive body of literature on leadership in Africa: a
diachronic analysis of six decades’ research and four interpretative statements. Much, how-
ever, remains to be done. While we suspect, based on our diachronic analysis, that the
interest in political leadership will remain important and that interest in small but profiled
clusters of themes, such as leadership and religion, will continue, we conclude by highlighting
three areas for further research.
We view the need to develop African leadership theory as a key challenge, directed par-
ticularly at scholars from Africa. Even though leadership authenticity constitutes an emer-
ging issue, most of the research on African leadership theory originates from outside Africa.
Current and future generations of leadership scholars, especially those from Africa, would
do well to develop theory based on African experiences and socio-cultural resources and to
establish dialogue with those theories developed and tested outside Africa. Efforts at
developing African leadership theory would in all likelihood find much political support.
On the level of the African Union and its New Partnership for Africa’s Development
(NEPAD), efforts aimed at finding and using African leadership theory have been underway
for a few years (see for example NEPAD, 2010).
The role and influence of the private sector in Africa is the theme of numerous studies,
especially in the fields of economics and business management. Illicit financial flows consti-
tute a case in point. In their well-publicised report on illicit financial flows from Africa, the
African Development Bank (AfDB) and Global Financial Integrity (GFI) show that $1.2
trillion to $1.3 trillion left Africa illegally between 1980 and 2009 (AfDB and GFI, 2013: 32),
with the bulk of the money resulting from forms of tax evasion. However, despite the fact
that practices in the private sector in Africa are particularly topical, our review has shown
that leadership in the private sector remains under-researched and provides ample opportu-
nities for further research. The role of, for example, the extractive industry in Africa remains
at best controversial and its leadership practices and possibilities should make for fascinating
research.
A consequence of an increase in female authors has been the expansion of the themes
that are investigated. In reviewing the literature, we now found that the increase in
female authors is strongly correlated with the emergence of themes such as leadership
and gender and the prominence of research on leadership and management during the
2000s. Based on our review we recommend the development of initiatives that support
and expand research on leadership in Africa by female scholars. This is not so much an
area of further research as a way in which to establish further and alternative areas of
research.
246 Leadership 13(2)

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Stella Nkomo, Sandra Waddock, Derick de Jongh, Wolgang Huber,
Bernard Slippers, Florence Nazare, Elaine Venter and the anonymous reviewers for constructive
exchanges on elements of this review.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article: Funding provided by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enabled
parts of this research.

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Author biographies
Willem Fourie teaches ethics at the University of Pretoria and he is an Associate at the Albert
Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership at the same university.

Suzanne C van der Merwe is an Associate at the Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible
Leadership at the University of Pretoria.

Ben van der Merwe teaches business management at the University of Pretoria and is Senior
Research Officer at the Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership at the same
university.