Maria Metsäpelto

Restoring Culturally Appropriate African Leadership: a Case Study of Finnish, Kenyan and Tanzanian Perspectives on a Leadership and Management Training Programme Maria Metsäpelto

While examining a pilot leadership and management training programme provided by a Finnish non-governmental organisation to East African trainees, this study describes characteristics of outstanding African leaders. Kenyan and Tanzanian leaders together with Finnish trainers describe what good leadership and management could mean in the African context and how they are realised in the training programme. Evidently, the training programme takes advantage of certain African core values to restore more culturally appropriate African leadership. The results indicate that good African leadership consists of humane orientation, sharing, integrity and work for the common good. On the other hand, greatest cultural differences in the training programme are related to ethical decision-making in financial management. The results provide suggestions for similar training programmes to encourage leadership that better meets the expectations of the surrounding African societies.