Leadership and motivation in Africa and the African Diaspora (LEAD): Summary and Epilogue

• Author: David L. Ford,Carliss D. Miller
• Published date: 01 December 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1294
• Date: 01 December 2014

Leadership and motivation in Africa and the

African Diaspora (LEAD): Summary and Epilogue

David L. Ford Jr.*and Carliss D. Miller

University of Texas at Dallas

Abstract

This paper consolidates and summarizes the f‌indings of the

preceding three empirical papers in the LEAD special issue.

A research framework is offered that ref‌lects the research

approach followed to date and that incorporates the Ubuntu

leadership philosophy as an antecedent for explaining

certain leader attributes and behaviours. The research

framework also serves as a vehicle against which to examine

the quantitative data resulting from the future administra-

tion of a quantitative survey in the next phase of the LEAD

research project. The paper concludes with the presentation

of several propositions to stimulate thinking and to serve as

initial guides for future research. Copyright © 2014 ASAC.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: African Diaspora, leadership, motivation, sum-

mary, epilogue, Ubuntu, LEAD

Résumé

Le présent article consolide et résume les résultats des trois

articles empiriques précédents du numéro spécial consacré

au projet LEAD. Le cadre de recherche qu’il propose met

en évidence l’approche scientif‌ique privilégiée jusqu’àce

jour. Cette approche s’appuie sur la philosophie de leader-

ship inspirée de l’Ubuntu pour rendre compte de certains

attributs et comportements des leaders. Notre cadre de

recherche permet aussi d’examiner les données quantita-

tives qui résulteront de l’enquête qualitative entreprise

pendant la prochaine phase du projet de recherche LEAD.

L’article s’achève par la présentation de plusieurs proposi-

tions visant à stimuler la réf‌lexion et à orienter les étapes

préliminaires des recherches futures. Copyright © 2014

ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mots-clés : Diaspora africaine, leadership, motivation,

résumé, épilogue, Ubuntu, LEAD

The Leadership Effectiveness and Motivation in Africa

and the Diaspora (LEAD) Project is a multiphase research

undertaking designed to provide useful know ledge that will

inform management and leadership practices in several

countries in Africa as well as throughout the diaspora

located in the Caribbean, Canada, and the United States. The

African Diaspora is simplydef‌ined as “having African roots,”

thus the inclusion of respondents of African descent from the

US and Canada is critical to understanding how the

similarities of perceptions of leadership effectiveness and

motivation persist across national boundaries. Indeed, the

participants in the studies described in the preceding papers

and summarized herein were all of African descent or were

themselves Africans living outside the continent of Africa.

The project involves several phases alternating between

emic and etic approaches to the research undertaking. The

preceding papers, based on the initial phase of the project,

have provided insightful glimpses of what persons from

these various regions perceive as effective behaviours on

the part of their leaders. These insights emerge from the

emic nature of the LEAD research methodology, which be-

gan with a “blank page”and an attempt to avoid imposing

Western paradigms and Western thinking on the respon-

dents. As such, the data that have emerged from the earlier

Delphi process, and the more recent focus groups on which

these papers were based, represent a “grounded theory”ap-

proach to data gathering and summary (Glaser & Strauss,

1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Grounded theory is an ap-

plied methodology closely linked to qualitative data gather-

ing to build and extend theory, particularly in new research

and substantive areas. The project did not begin with a priori

specif‌ied leadership theories or motivation theories around

which we built our Delphi and focus group questions.

Rather, we sought to allow the respondents’answers to

our questions “speak”to us unf‌iltered by predetermined

theoretical frameworks. Nonetheless, as we consolidate

our f‌indings and draw inferences and conceptual meanings

from them, we continue to wrestle with gaining a full

understanding of the similarities to, and differences from,

other published research on leadership and motivation.

*Please address correspondence to: David L. Ford Jr., University of Texas

at Dallas, Naveen Jindal School of Management, 800 West Campbell Road

MS SM43, Richardson, Texas 75080, US. Email: mzad@utdallas.edu

Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences

Revue canadienne des sciences de l’administration

31: 270–279 (2014)

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/CJAS.1294

Can J Adm Sci

31(4), 270–279 (2014)Copyright © 2014 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 270