Humanistic Leadership in Africa: A Relational Ideal of Maat

Abstract

The increasing view that “traditional, hierarchical views of leadership are less and less useful given the complexities of our modern world” (Lichtenstein et al., Emergence: Complexity and Organization 8:2–12, 2006) and the heightened level of complexity in Africa necessitate an understanding of leadership that is humanistic, the process by which an individual in a leadership role influences others to achieve desire goals through human-centred principles of trust, ethicality, compassion, and engagement. Humanistic leadership has been part of Africa since the pre-modern era (i.e., ancient Egypt) through the Maat philosophy. Maat is a philosophy of the people of ancient Kemet or black Egypt. It “is a fundamental, pervasive, and enduring element in ancient Egyptian civilization and an inclusive and defining cultural category” (Karenga, Maât. The moral ideal in ancient Egypt: A study in classical African ethics, Routledge, 2004). Such leadership is particularly significant in this era of the Africa Union Agenda 2063, which views one of the critical success factors for the achievement of the agenda as “leadership and political commitment with transformational and visionary qualities at all levels and in all fields.” This view is also encapsulated in the World Economic Forum which indicates that “Africa doesn’t need charity, it needs good leadership.” In addition, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, advocates effective leadership in Africa, established an award for good national leaders and a proprietary index that gauges the quality of governance and leadership in African countries (Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Governance progress in Africa stalling, reports Mo Ibrahim, 2015). This award has not been won in eight of the twelve years because no leader has been found worthy of the award. The chapter integrates historical, anthropological, and philosophical accounts of leadership in Africa to situate humanistic leadership in modern Africa. The framework is limited to the period before the colonial eras of Africa (i.e., the Kemetic era). Following a brief review of extant leadership in Africa, I discuss the Maatian view of humanistic leadership. Leveraging that historical perspective, I discuss exemplars of humanistic leaders in modern Africa. Three such leaders are Nelson Mandela (Glad and Blanton, Presidential Studies Quarterly 27:565–590, 1997; Pietersen, Leader to Leader 2015:60–66, 2015), Desmond Tutu (Blankstein et al., Excellence through equity: Five principles of courageous leadership to guide achievement for every student. ASCD, 2016), James Mwangi of Equity Bank of Kenya (Chironga et al., Leadership lessons from Africa’s trailblazers. McKinsey Quarterly, 1–10, 2019). While Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu epitomize the Ubuntu principles of humanism, James Nwangi exemplifies the Maatian humanistic principles. Both the traditional or ancient view of humanistic leadership which is illustrated with modern leaders affords an opportunity for scholars conducting research on humanistic leadership in Africa to ground their studies in Indigenous philosophical and humanistic principles. Humanistic leadership is proposed as a function of decisions and actions of African traditional orientations that derive from Maat philosophy. This perspective unearths the source of modern understanding of humanistic leadership and reorients the field of leadership development and prevention of bad leadership as they relate to management of organizations in Africa.