This book is intended to invite and advance complex discussions on processes and practices of leadership in Africa. Leadership practices and processes that shape communities, that work inside, outside, and beyond (authorized/ing) institutions; that decolonize, resist, adapt, shift, challenge, and frighten those outside leadership work.  “Proverbs and Riddles for Leadership: Building Bridges for Practice From Africa” seeks to build bridges between what is “known” as characteristic of “Leadership in Africa”, and to expose the under-theorized mundane practices, and processes, and other ways of knowing that are contextually grounded within Africa.

Proverbs are the cliché hallmarks of an African safari: If you know a greeting in Kiswahili, if you can utter pithy statements in Xhosa, you have proven to be one with the ‘folk’, you ‘know the people’. Left here, this stance is problematic. Such an understanding re-creates and re-transmits stereotypes while enclosing everyone involved into echo chambers that inhibit dialogue, and possibilities for learning, together. Proverbs and riddles are bound to a dynamic process of co-creation that is at the heart of the community. Their meanings and interpretations are often contradictory and change just as their community of origin. Taken out of context, they are meaningless.  Thus, we are reminded that our lives, our worlds, and the meanings we attach to them are invariably linked to the lives, worlds, and meanings of other people – those around us, those we surround.

Africa is often depicted as a homogenous country lacking in ‘great leaders’ and in need of lessons from the West. This ignores how the contextually situated peoples and communities engage in leadership practice and process and forecloses dialogue on how power dynamics shape discourses of leadership in civic and organizational contexts across Africa. Sharing processes, practices, and ways of knowing leadership work from and through African perspectives is the focus of this work, to center Africa through building an intentional record of scholarship reflective of emergent leadership work.  This volume will shed light on processes, and practice of leadership evident through social movements, community work, cross-sector collaboration and collective efforts. Practitioner and scholar contributions are invited from the global community with a focus on those based in or from Africa. Proverbs and riddles that will frame each chapter will be from communities throughout the African continent.

This book will be published by Emerald Publishing as part of the Building Leadership Bridges series by the International Leadership Association with an anticipated publication date of April 2026.

Abstracts should be between 100–350 words submitted on or before 11:59 PM EST, 10 January 2025, for full consideration.  Submissions are welcome on a broad range of topics including (but not limited) to the topics in the draft outline below.  Send submissions to: BLBSubmissions@gmail.com

DRAFT OUTLINE

Submissions are welcome on a broad range of topics including (but not limited) to the following draft outline: 

Section One: Disturbing the Peace

1. Exploring Emergent process, practices, and a practice of Leadership that disrupts authorized(zing) narratives.
2. Removing the podium: Discourses to Decolonize Small “d” Democratic Practice in Africa
3. Leadership-as-Practice; Not as Perfect — Decolonizing, Recognizing and Naming Culturally Relevant Leadership Process and Practice
4. Negotiating Ideologies of Feminism(s) in the African Contexts

Section Two: Promises of Peace

1. Transformation & Community Change – Frameworks for Change
2. Prioritizing human dignity and African Sovereignty in Peacebuilding, and the integration of new ways
3. Examining the Role and Elevating the Need for Discourse Among State and Non-State Actors in Peacebuilding in East Africa

Section Three: African Discourses of Leadership, Practice, and Democracy

1. Discourses of Leadership and Understanding Democratic Backsliding
2. Enter the Dialectic: Discourses to Rebuild African Practices of Democracy
3. Economic Development as a Leadership Practice — Exploring New Models
4. The Outsider Lens-In: Focusing on Efficacy International Legal Instrument for Peace Leadership in Africa

Section Four: National Needs in a Continental Context

1. Wrestling with the position of national priorities, continental priorities, community needs and priorities
2. Pan-African Leadership: Making Room for Expanded Orientations
3. Philosophies that Frame Leadership in Africa Today