Skip navigation | Text only using loband
Leadership development is currently a very high priority for capacity building in Africa. Practitioner experience, however, would suggest that the plethora of initiatives are largely imported from the West, and tend to have only limited application to the specific African contexts and cultures in which they operate. As a consequence, they achieve only limited success in developing leaders. This Praxis Note argues that, to stand any chance of being effective, leadership development in Africa must be rooted in the influential cultural heritage. New ideas should be grafted onto existing indigenous cultures, rather than simply uprooting them and transplanting foreign models. The Note explores aspects of leadership and leadership development in precolonial Africa and draws lessons for leadership development in civil society organisations.
