Examining leadership preferences of working adults in Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia

ABSTRACT

Do traditional, gender-based expectations and widely disseminated notions of African culture apply to preferred leadership behaviors in African nations? This study examines leadership preferences of working adults in Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia using the Leader behavior Description Questionnaire-XII (LBDQXII), a theoretical model of explicit leader behavior. Contrary to the premises of Social Role Theory, males and females did not differ significantly in their preferences for the 12 leadership behaviors represented in the LBDQXII. The behaviors of Initiating Structure and Integration were most preferred, and the behaviors of Tolerance of Uncertainty and Tolerance of Freedom were the least preferred. Based on socio-cultural experiences at the nation-level, findings revealed that working adults in Ghana and Zambia have comparable leadership behavior preferences, with similarities found for seven of 12 leadership behaviors. Working adults in Kenya, however, with dissimilar socio-cultural experiences compared to Ghana and Zambia, reported different preferences for 10 of the 12 leadership behaviors. Overall, our findings revealed that popular generalizations that view African nations with singular assumptions are not warranted.

KEYWORDS:

• leadership
• sub-Saharan Africa
• gender differences
• cultural differences

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge that the Rotary Foundation sponsored Nai Lamb as a Rotary World Peace Fellow for an internship in Kenya. The data were collected during the internship, but the project was not associated with the internship. We greatly appreciate the generous and voluntary assistance of Ipsos (formerly the Steadman Group) in Kenya with the interviews in all three countries.

This research was supported by a subsidy granted to the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, by the Government of the Russian Federation for the implementation of the Global Competitiveness Program.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Data employed in this study were collected in collaboration within the Leadership & Management Studies in Sub-Saharan Africa consortium (http://crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/lmsssa.html), and parts of the data were utilized in other studies with different research questions, hypotheses, and analysis approaches.

2 The assistance of Steadman Group in Kenya that aided with the collection of the surveys in all three countries is greatly appreciated.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

W. Randy Evans

W. Randy Evans (PhD, University of Mississippi) is a UC Foundation Professor of Management at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he teaches courses in organizational behavior. His research centers on human capital issues including employee performance, ethical leadership, and how corporate social responsibility impacts employee level outcomes.

Romie Frederick Littrell

Romie Frederick Littrel (PhD, Auckland University of Technology) is an organizer of the Centre for Cross Cultural Comparisons and is a Professor of Management at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has an extensive research and publication background in leadership and management in international business, winning several awards for journal articles and conference papers.

Nai H. Lamb

Nai H. Lamb (PhD, Texas A&M University) is a UC Foundation Associate Professor of Management at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where she teaches courses in strategic management. Her research interests focus on topics such as corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, board interlocks, and social networks.

Bradley Kirkman

Bradley L. Kirkman (PhD, University of North Carolina) is the General (Ret.) H. Hugh Shelton Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Department Head of the Department of Management, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at North Carolina State University. His research focuses on leadership, international management, virtual teams, and work team leadership and empowerment. He is currently the Chief Operating Officer of the Organizational Behavior Division in the Academy of Management.