Managerial Leadership and Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa

Wanasika, Isaac; Howell, Jon P.; Littrell, Romie Frederick; Dorfman, Peter W.

doi:10.1016/j.jwb.2010.11.004

Cited by 116 publications

(104 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Also, in Ghana, God is regarded as a caring and benevolent Supreme Being and therefore if a leader is presumed to be God fearing then possibly he/she is perceived to exhibit these benevolent characteristic associated with God. This is consistent with the human oriented leadership findings of Wanasika et al, (2010) in sub Saharan Africa (which Ghana forms part) that when leaders are perceived as being supportive and considerate exhibiting compassion and benevolence for followers they are regarded as great leaders in sub Saharan Africa.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Bestowing Authentic Leadership: A Comparative Study of Two Organisations in Ghana

Owusu-Bempah¹

2012

IJBM

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Bestowing authentic leadership (AL) by leaders and followers in organisations involve the subjective interpretation of the meanings and understandings given to the construct. The likely implication here is that evaluations of the AL construct may vary in different settings. Therefore, the leaders' and followers' constructs of authentic leadership in a public and a private organisation in Ghana were documented and compared using Q methodology. Thirty leaders and followers in each of the two organisations sorted selected statements about authentic leadership. Three factors or types of authentic leadership were identified and named for each of the two settings yielding six different perceptions of authentic leadership. While these results suggest that authentic leadership is idiosyncratic, further analysis showed that some attributes of authentic leadership were common to the organisations. The study concluded that in defining authenticity in leadership in the organisations used for this study in Ghana the following characteristics cannot be overlooked: leader goal orientedness, good listening, leader respect for followers, objectivity and justice, inspirational teaching and leader commitment, God fearing, leader fairness, and leader flexibility. This implies that in designing leadership training programs for organisational success, these attributes, if incorporated could prove helpful.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Bestowing Authentic Leadership: A Comparative Study of Two Organisations in Ghana

Owusu-Bempah¹

2012

IJBM

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“…Also, in Ghana, God was regarded as a caring and benevolent Supreme Being and, therefore, if a leader is presumed to be God-fearing then possibly he/she is perceived to exhibit these benevolent characteristic associated with God. This is consistent with the human oriented leadership findings of Wanasika et al, (2010) in sub Saharan Africa (of which Ghana forms part) that when leaders were perceived as being supportive and considerate, exhibiting compassion and benevolence for followers they were regarded as great leaders in sub Saharan Africa. Objectivity and justice is another preferred authentic leader attribute specific to the Ghanaian subjects.…”

Section: Dıscussıonsupporting

confidence: 89%

Interpreting Authentic Leadership: A Cross Cultural Comparison of A New Zealand University and Ghanaian University

Bempah

2013

APMBA

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National culture theory proponents have argued that due to differences in national cultures, expectations and preferences differ and this affect prioritizations in value systems. However, the authentic leadership (AL) theory presents an authentic leader as honest, transparent and behaves with integrity regardless of culture. By presenting AL this way, the proponents of the AL theory are discounting the effects of contexts/culture in the subjective interpretations and prioritizations of individuals in explaining constructs and concepts. This study, therefore, explored and compared the preferred authentic leadership attributes from leaders' and followers' perspectives using respondents from a Ghanaian university and a New Zealand university. The Q method was used to gather information from 60 respondents, 30 in each university. The findings show that the subjects, though in different cultural contexts, have some common shared preferences for certain authentic leadership attributes. However, there were some attributes that were country specific. This suggests that though certain authentic leadership attributes are universal whereas some are context specific and therefore in defining authenticity in leadership context specific preferences cannot be overlooked. The findings of study apart from being useful in the design of training programs to training practicing and upcoming leaders in universities, has also contributed a cross cultural dimension of authentic leadership attributes to the authentic leadership theory. KeywordsNational culture, Authentic Leadership, New Zealand, Ghana IntroductıonNew challenges facing the world today has made the suitability and the applicability of the known leadership theories been questioned . There is therefore the need to come up with a model of leadership that would be suitable to meet the challenges of today"s organizations and still be relevant for the future as well. Researchers and practitioners (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999;May et al., 2003;Harris, 2004;Avolio and Gardner, 2005;Gardner et al., 2005;Spillane, 2005;Walumbwa et al., 2008) asked for the redirection of research efforts towards the understanding of leadership practice, which they believe is revealed in leader-follower interactions rather than concentrating on the leader as an individual. Understanding leaderfollower dynamics is vital because it is within this that we can know the expectations, anticipations and reactions of leaders and followers, which are very important ingredients of organizational development. Researchers (Harris, 2004;Avolio and Gardner, 2005;Spillane, 2005), highlight the opportunities to be derived from understanding leaderfollower interactions. They suggest that inherent in the leader-follower dynamism lies collaborative and collective learning and knowledge generation which, is a strong foundation for building innovation and trust in organizations. Also the issues of integrity become evident. Gardner et al., (2005) echo that in times of rapid changes like our world today, people (em...

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“…Using GLOBE data, Kabasakal and Bodur (2007) and Kabasakal, Dastmalchian, Karacay and Bayraktar (manuscript in preparation for submission to Journal of World Business) report both similarities and differences among countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions. Wanasika, Howell, Littrell, and Dorfman (2011) provide an analysis of managerial leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).…”

Section: Qualitative Globe Data Supporting Culturally Contingent Leadmentioning

confidence: 99%

GLOBE: A twenty year journey into the intriguing world of culture and leadership

Dorfman

Javidan

Hanges

et al. 2012

Journal of World Business

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246

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Managerial Leadership and Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa

Cited by 116 publications

References 8 publications

Bestowing Authentic Leadership: A Comparative Study of Two Organisations in Ghana

Bestowing Authentic Leadership: A Comparative Study of Two Organisations in Ghana

Interpreting Authentic Leadership: A Cross Cultural Comparison of A New Zealand University and Ghanaian University

GLOBE: A twenty year journey into the intriguing world of culture and leadership

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