Leading Against the Odds

Faith Wambura Ngunjiri’s book Women’s Spiritual Leadership in Africa: Tempered Radicals and Critical Servant Leadership seeks to answer the question, “What does it mean to be a woman leader in an African context?” (7) In her study Ngunjiri describes “how women make meaning of their experiences as leaders, including how they are able to thrive and be effective in spite of challenges to their authority.” (7) With her book she seeks to fill in a void regarding scholarly studies concerning African women leadership. Furthermore, she provides examples and stories of women who have advanced to leadership position in spite of the odds being against them. Ngunjiri notes, “It has become increasingly clear that women in leadership positions in Africa … have struggled under challenges and constraints to their leadership and authority emanating from the intersection of several variables: African culture and traditions and gender, race, and organizational cultures consisting of invisibility and lack of recognition.” (28) In order to fight this invisibility and lack of recognition of women leaders Ngunjiri engages in an “exploration of the survival and success strategies of existing women leaders” (29) within the African contexts.

 

In order to process and evaluate the women’s success strategies and stories Ngunjiri worked with an a pirori conceptual framework that consisted of three elements: spirituality, tempered radicalism, and servant leadership. Out of her study emerges what Ngunjiri has termed “spirited leadership: courageous, committed, conviction-filled, and spirit inspired leadership.” (13) Describing spirited leadership in a later point in the book Ngunjiri writes:

 

When all three elements and their defining characteristics are put together, what emerges is spirited leadership, the kind of leadership that combines servant leadership, tempered radicalism, and critical spirituality in agency for social justice. The women’s identities as women, as Africans, as leaders, as Christians, and as members of particular communities combined and intersected in producing this form of spirited leadership. (203-204)

 

Ngunjiri describes African women leadership with what she has termed spirited leadership. With her book she starts filling the void of scholarly studies on African women leadership. Furthermore, in chapter 5-11 she provides in-depth portraits of seven African women leaders that can serve future African women leaders as inspiring examples of overcoming “African women’s oppression under racism, sexism, colonialism, neocolonialism, and patriarchal culture ….” (8)

 

I want to end my post with what I found personally the most interesting element of Ngunjiri conceptual framework, namely tempered radicalism. The participants of her study were women leading in predominantly male dominated institutions in a predominantly patriarchal culture. Ngunjir draws on Myerson’s when she writes, “tempered radicals are men and women who find themselves as poor fits with the dominant culture of their organizations: Tempered radicals want to fit in and they want to retain what makes them different. They want to rock the boat, and they want to stay in it.” (9) Ngunjir quoting Myerson notes,

 

‘Tempered radicals reflect important aspects of leadership that are absent in the more traditional portraits. It is leadership that tends to be less visible, less coordinated, and less vested with forma authority; it is also more local, more diffuse, more opportunistic, and more humble than the activity attributed to the modern-day here. This version of leadership depends not on charismatic flair, instant success, or inspirational visions, but on qualities such as patience, self-knowledge, humility, flexibility, idealism, vigilance and commitment. And, although tempered radicals often act as individual agents of change, they are not lone heroes …they are quick to acknowledge they cannot do it alone. (p. 171).’

 

Ngunjiri found that tempered radicalism was a suitable concept for describing one aspect of the African women leaders that she interviewed. Myerson provided five ways through which tempered radicals can have an impact in their organizations and make a difference for the good.

1. Resisting quietly and staying true to oneself

2. Turning personal threats into opportunities

3. Broadening the impact through negotiation

4. Leveraging small wins

5. Organizing collective action

In her study Ngunjiri demonstrates how the African women leaders have acted as tempered radicals within their organization working towards accomplishing the desired change.

 

Tempered radicalism seems appropriate for someone who wants to work within an organizational structure to bring about change. It seems easier to abandon an organization than to engage in the tough work of bringing the needed change from within. The concept of tempered radicalism provides leaders with useful tools of how to work for change from within the organization.