Leadership in Africa redefined, with Taaka Awori

Опубликовано: 11 Август 2026
на канале: Five Oaks Consulting

137

Summary
What does it mean by: transformational leadership, from the inside out?

Does personality not play an important role, though, in addition to national or regional cultural differences?

To what extent are there truly different global south-normed leadership models?

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Taaka Awori, Founder & CEO of Busara Africa, on redefining leadership in Africa.

Taaka's Bio:
 Founder and CEO of Busara Africa, a pan-African leadership development firm based in Accra, Ghana
 Author of the book Leadership Redefined: Untold Stories
 Associate Certified Coach with International Coaching Federation (ICF)
 Podcast host of Leadership Redefined: Untold Stories
 Member of the editorial board of Coaching Perspectives
 Chair of the board of the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF)
 Former Country Director of AAI
 Assistant Social Development Adviser, DFID (now called FCDO)
 Degrees from Harvard and Columbia Universities

We discuss:
 Taaka started specializing in leadership development and organizational development, after discovering as a Country Director at ActionAid that what was most needed from her was good leadership – not any technical specialization
 Busara’s tagline is - transformational leadership from the inside out – signals that leadership starts with self-awareness and self-regulation
 Equally, good leadership is a combination of not just intellect or analytical capabilities, but also innate and learned wisdom, and the heart
 Other premises of Busara: let’s build on the examples of excellent leadership in Africa (not the negative examples); and feminist leadership
 70% of Busara’s clients are NGOs; the rest are private sector and government agencies
 How are African leadership models distinct, if in any way, from global North-formed models?
 Another distinct element is the explicit inclusion of politization and thus the need for leaders to be aware of this, and to navigate it in a mission focused manner
 Busara is also interested to learn more about what’s to be learned from leaders of informal, non-registered organizations: informal worker associations, social movements and networks
 Interesting sub-continental dimensions of leadership within the African continent: in former French colonized Africa, there is a bit more focus on formality, giving credence to each other based on hierarchy, greater power distance etc, than in the rest of the continent

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