081. Leadership Lessons From African Cultures, With Albert Momo

Summary

What are the key principles of African leadership that nonprofit leaders globally could benefit from adopting?

How does the African concept of Ubuntu translate into practical leadership strategies for nonprofit organizations?

How does African leadership balance individual and collective success, and how might nonprofit teams benefit from seeking the same balance?

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Albert Anoubon Momo, axecutive, author, and board member, about leadership lessons we can all learn from African cultures.

Albert's Bio:

• Co-founder of a brand new company offering geospatial consulting services to emerging economies
• Former Vice President and Executive Director, Emerging Markets and Funded Projects at the Trimble company
• Former Director of Institutional Business Development at Trimble
• Management and Program Analyst at USAID
• Albert played multiple other roles as senior geo-scientist and GIS and software engineer, including at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) inside the US Government.

We discuss: 

• Albert has been a student of leadership from early adult life onwards, and he runs a large Facebook group on leadership. His experience has been primarily in the private sector , though he also plays governance roles in the nonprofit sphere, such as his role Board Chair of Cadasta (where Tosca is also on the board)
• Albert urges listeners to focus on what the African continent can bring to the rest of the world, and not to assume Africa just consumes from the rest of the world (especially when it comes to West-influenced leadership models)
• Subregions within the huge continent of Africa have had different influences on leadership approaches and practices: in Northern Africa and the Sahel, Islamic influences have prevailed while French colonizers brought more hierarchically oriented thinking to leadership; in coastal Africa, colonizers introduced Christianity which persists till today; and in Southern and Eastern Africa, Zulu-inspired Ubuntu philosophy has dominated
• Ubuntu as the most well known African philosophy emphasizes interdependence, solidarity, shared community, and communalism (also within organizational leadership and management) – different from the individualism more prevalent in Western societies
• What Western leadership practices can learn from African leadership approaches regarding employee engagement, shared value, shared futures, solidarity, and humanism
• In African cultures, traditionally councils of elders have played an important conflict resolution role; it is beneficial for global North/Western nonprofits to take account of these Councils' approach to seeking win-win resolutions rather than zero-sum litigation, their focus on the common good, common ground and shared goals.

Resources:

Albert’s LinkedIn Profile

Albert's Facebook group on Leadership

Book

YouTube video of this podcast

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