Moral and ethical leadership: The case for Africa

Introduction
Moral and ethical leadership is needed in the continent of Africa, more than ever today. The continent faces numerous challenges that have resulted in the hindrance in economic development and the improvement of the living conditions and standards of its people. One of the Key ingredients to this failure is the lack of moral and ethical leadership. Corruption, tribalism, nepotism and the like continue to ravage the continent.
This paper aims to look at the issue of moral and ethical leadership as it is being played out in the African continent and to examine some of the implications of a lack of clear leadership in terms of economic development and the general welfare of the people.
Before looking at the ethical and moral leadership in the context of Africa, it is imperative to define the terms ethics and morality and give a brief overview what has been written about ethical and moral leadership in organizations or institutions today. According to Northouse (2005), leadership ethics as a topic of study is a recent phenomenon. He points out that one of the earliest writings on leadership ethics was as recent as 1996 in the work of a group sponsored by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The groups’ ideas were published in a volume titled Ethic:, the Heart of Leadership (Ciulla, 1998). However, Northouse points out that during the last ten years, interest in the nature of ethical leadership has increased.
Ethics is defined as “the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group and also as a set of moral principles or values” (Mariam-Webster’s Collegiate dictionary, 3rd ed.) Morals on the other hand relates to “principles of right and wrong” (Mariam-Webster’s Collegiate dictionary, 3rd ed.). Northouse (2005) states that “ ethical theory provides a system of rules or principles that guide us in making decisions about what is “right or wrong” and “good or bad” in a particular situation” (p. 302). In terms of leadership, Northouse points out that ethics deals with a leader’s behavior and integrity. Practicing ethical leadership leads to the building of strong trust among all stakeholders. This in turn leads to collaboration in undertaking various tasks and meeting the national goals for development. Northouse argues that ethical leadership is a key to effective leadership. To him, since leaders have been vested with power, they ought to use that power in a positive way to influence their followers in significant ways. Northouse says that some of the characteristics of ethical leadership include: “respect for others, service to others, justice, honesty, focus on community building” (p. 310).
Heifetz (1994), another scholar who studied the importance of ethical leadership pointed out that leaders need to use their authority to help their followers deal with the conflicting demands of a changing work environment by creating trusting and supportive environments.
Greenleaf (1970, 1971) was another key figure who argued for ethical leadership through what he called ‘servant leadership’. According to Greenleaf, an effective leader must be ready to serve his followers. Servant leadership allows everybody to participate in the life of the community and helps build trust and respect among all the stakeholders.
An Individual’s values are the basic principles and tenets that guide beliefs, attitudes, and behavior (Gordon, 1996). A value is believed to function as a guide to the individual’s adaptation to the surrounding environment (Kahle and GoffTimmer, 1983). Thus, values are the point on which the individual intersects with society (Grunert and Scherhorn, 1990).
The relationship between leadership and values has long been studied in the management literature (e.g., Barnard, 1938; Selznick, 1957). Selzick (1957) argued that the real task of leadership is to create a social structure of shared values. Schein (1985) notes that top managers attempt to communicate their organizational values to employees to shape behavior and lead the firm. The ethical orientation of the manager, in terms of traits and behaviors, is a key factor in promoting ethical behavior in an organization (Carlson and Perrewe, 1995). An ethically oriented organization is one that has the capacity to reflect on values in the decision making process and establish how managers can use these observations in managing the organization (Caroll, 1987).
Thompson (2004) asserts that leadership is fundamentally a moral endeavor. She notes that “effective leaders are able to engage with others in building, by example and constructive effort, an environment within which individuals and groups are free and encouraged to discern and actualize the right and the good in fulfillment of shared goals, values and purpose” (p.28).
Leadership especially at an institutional level or a national level sets the tone of the ethical orientation of their environments. Leaders communicate and exhibit the values that lead to an ethical orientation in their settings (Hood, 2003). Therefore, when studying leadership in the African context it is important to examine some of the values that African leaders exhibit in their practice of leadership.

Colonial experience
The colonial experience in Africa was not a pleasant one. Because of repression and the way in which the colonial administrators treated the people within their colonies, the leadership model displayed was not a positive one. Often, the colonial leaders used the divide and rule approach to dealing the indigenous people thus breeding mistrust and animosity between different ethnic groups within a country. A good example of this is what happened in Rwanda and Burundi where seeds of distrust were planted within the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups that decades later led to devastating massacres of innocent people.
Post-colonial experience
Although, the colonial experience for many African countries was not pleasant and a lot of damage was done in the leadership and governance practices of the varied countries, the post-colonial experience has not been very rosy either. Failure in African leaderships is still evident today four decades after colonialism ended. Numerous scholars have posited different views as to why this has been the case. The general consensus however, has been the notion that a lack of a value driven leadership has been the weakness of most African leadership (Bonsu, 2002). Bonsu notes that “politically, the Sub-Saharan African leadership has always built organizations where networks of trust are confined to families and cronies, and those of mistrust and suspicion are relegated to outside groups” (p. 5) Regional conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone for instance has led to terrible human rights abuses and economically impoverished those nations.
However, a small number of African nations have shown some progress in terms of leadership and economic development during this post colonial period. Botswana for instance has not experienced internal instability since its independence from the British in the mid sixties. This has been attributed to Botswana’s post colonial leaders who fostered and maintained a high moral leadership culture that reduced corruption (Bonsu, 2002).

Governance
Leaders who uphold ethical and moral values help build societies that value good governance. Amoako (2001), states “that good governance generates confidence in institutions and process of government.” He continues to add that good governance creates value for all sectors in an economy including the private sector. Good governance demands peace and security both of which are in scarce supply in many African countries as a result of internal conflicts. However, Amoaki notes that a number of peace efforts have been initiated and moral leadership provided by such luminary figures as Nelson Mandela.

Corruption
Corruption and graft are not unique to the African continent. Corruption exists everywhere and anywhere due to the nature of man and due to the cultural context in which he or she operates. Examples of massive corruption and ethical lapses has been witnessed not only in the U.S., but also in many European countries and even in Asia. However, we find that corruption has often become more institutionalized in some regions as compared to others. In many African countries, corruption has become such an embedded feature in the leadership practice that it has become a very serious and moral crisis.
Because of rampant corruption in many African nations today, people have lost trust in their government. Kenya for example was recently cited as one of the most corrupt nations in the world by Transparency international (Transparency International, Kenya, 2006). A lot of Kenyans interviewed after the corruption index report was released expressed an increased level of frustration as they saw that corruption was increasing every year. In addition, Kenya was recently said to be a high level transit hub of the illegal drug trade. How can such things happen if the elements with the government are not condoning such practices? Such practices cannot happen within a vacuum. Corrupt and greedy government officials must either be colluding with the drug cartels or they must be looking the other way as illegal drugs are transited through the country. The present Kenyan government was elected on the platform of zero tolerance to corruption. However, four years down the road those declarations seem mere platitudes as corruption has hardly been tackled. In fact, what happened once the new government came into power was the inheriting of the corruption rings and corrupt systems of the past regime, to benefit those who now wielded power.
High levels of corruption have led to political elites to embezzle from the national treasury for personal use, thereby undermining the accumulation of financial capital resources essential for economic development (Bonsu, 2002). The late President Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo had, according to one estimate, well over $5 billion in foreign account, an amount the size of Congo’s foreign debt at the time (Economist, 1993). Kauffman (1997) notes that corruption is negatively associated with developmental objectives everywhere. He notes that the results gathered from surveys conducted among high level officials from emerging economies shows that public sector corruption is rated as the most severe developmental obstacle facing their countries
However, the good news is that there are a number of African countries that have been cited in a new World Bank research as among countries which have made progress in improving governance and corruption. These include: Botswana, Ghana, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, and Liberia. Moral and ethical leadership will say no to corruption and under hand dealings that are driven by selfishness and greed.