1900-1950
… the years of emergence
During this time leadership in Africa entered a period of intense development on a scale not witnessed before outside the cultural context. Politics presented the platform for new leadership in Africa. Let us try to take the developments one stage at a time in order to understand the development of leadership through this period.
By the early 1900s the colonialists had settled (formalized their stay) into their self-allocated spaces and regulated the plunder of the land through agriculture, mining and other activities they did this effectively using a (leadership) tool called administration. The most advanced form of organization of the day. By interacting, observing and participating in the administrative process local leadership in Africa became acutely familiar with its operations.
Meanwhile because the missionary had established formal education, leadership in Africa was able to obtain definitions and interpretations of foreign governance, organization and administration. Some of those who received this new education became less awed by it and developed the ability to think freely (outside the conformity of an education curriculum). These people were not bound by what they read but became governed by what they understood. Leadership must think. Leadership in Africa wrestled with ideas and came to the conclusion that ideas are the preserve of no man. It is from this group that the foundations of independent leadership and the first strong signals of the corporate liberation movement were born. Much leadership was to be grown through education but it is important to remember that leadership in Africa was established outside the education system.
The colonial administration grouped and corralled Africans along ethnic lines. Leadership in Africa observed this tendency and determined that the fractious relations between their communities would be their continual undoing. Political movement to develop wider more powerful forms of leadership support cutting across ethnic barriers and founded on individual rights and civil liberties watered the seeds of cooperation. The movement started slowly. Leaders in this direction were few but they grew in numbers and in association. At this early stage leaders may not have been able to organize freedom, but leadership in Africa would definitely push for social welfare. Leadership in Africa needed to develop a little more and rally the people to support their efforts.
What was to explode into the freedom movements in the 1930s was founded on the work of leadership at the turn of the century. Movements were born and established. The movements were led by those who had been born into colonialism. They yearned for a freedom they had never known. These were not democratic forces; they were movements of a people dissatisfied with their lot and fed up of living without a hope. There was no ideological or industrial content in their message. They were purely about freedom.
Many of these movements were led and steered by the formally educated in society at the time. This is probably why later leadership in Africa was strongly associated with formal education. It was believed that education would empower one to understand the colonial (new foreign systems) structures with the aim taking over those same structures and systems and return power to the people.
The goal was therefore to take over the existing administration. This could be achieved through a popular (informal) movement disrupting colonial governance. And so Africa launched its first corporate effort to self-determination under the banner of political leadership.