African Leadership in the Diaspora: Collective, Constructionist, and Practice Approaches to Leadership

Abstract

Leadership studies, as an academic discipline and field of practice, have predominantly been developed in relation to Western forms of knowledge, norms, and cultural practices. Knowledge and ways of practicing leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa contexts are often unseen or marginalized in formal leadership studies literature. This is also true for the way leadership is practiced throughout the networks of the African Diaspora. The influence of uniquely African ways of knowing, doing, and experiencing leadership is even more challenging in the context of the African Diaspora. Often contextualized within the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trades, and increasingly shaped by contemporary dynamics of globalization, the African Diaspora and leadership exist at the intersection of multiple cultures and contexts. Leadership theory and practice must account for these inter- and multicultural contexts to better understand and practice leadership in the African Diaspora. The objective of this chapter is to develop a collective, constructionist, and practice frame capable of teasing apart cultural and contextual influences of leadership in the African Diaspora. This is not a comprehensive account of approaches to African Leadership, but instead a preliminary effort to mark out collective, constructionist, and practice approaches to leadership in the African Diaspora as it exists in practice and might inform future research and leadership learning and development efforts.