Ubuntu … much more than just a #hashtag
Having had my ear bent by several trusted marketing types about how best to ‘get the word out’ about my work, I’ve just started to re-engage with eduTwitter. So far so good.
One thing I’ve noticed though - besides the fact that the playground dynamics, vitriol and displaced bad behaviour remain - is that lots of people have incorporated the phrase ‘ubuntu’ as part of their profile. It’s wonderful to see, but I do hope that they have gone deeper in their exploration of the concept than just the definition, because it offers an incredibly powerful philosophy for collective forms of leadership as well as life.
If you’re interested in this, I recommend Discovering the Spirit of Ubuntu Leadership (Mtungwa Ndlovu, 2015) and LEAD: Leadership Effectiveness in Africa and the African Diaspora (Lituchy, Galperin & Punnett, 2014), both of which challenged my narrow white-man’s worldview and introduced me to a profoundly beautiful model of leadership, rooted deeply in our relationship with other people and with the earth beneath our feet.
But in the meantime, this fantastic overview by Richard Claydon, a global leadership development specialist, on his LinkedIn page will give you a taste. His references to the ‘blobs’ and the ‘white arc’ relate to the image, which I believe he created for the post:
The Bantu peoples originated in what is now called Cameroon.
2,000 years ago, their culture began to spread East and Southward across Africa.
Today, Ubuntu, their philosophy of living, resonates with Africans across the continent.
Ubuntu translates as:
- "because you are I am and because I am you are“
- "I am because we are"
- "humanity towards others"
Philosophically, it rejects the Cartesian "I think, therefore I am", positioning humanity as not being solely in the person as an individual, but bestowed upon people by people in a relational manner.
One aspect of this is "extroverted community" - the warmth in which people treat strangers as well as members of the community enabling spontaneous community to form.
It is BOTH/AND in structure, ensuring a community's good through an unconditional recognition and appreciation of individual uniqueness and difference.
African Leadership writers often position Ubuntu as the means by which modern Africans can reconnect with the land, ancestors, history and culture and develop an Afrocentric model of leadership suited to the specificities and complexities of the African context.
Arranged around this positioning are three other components - The Big Man, The Talking Tree and Rebellion.
The Big Man represents the wise elders who are entrusted with deep connection to the past, present and future.
The character of The Big Man is vital.
- A spiritual character frames and enables the collective dialogues and decision-making of the group
- A self-interested character coerces and controls
Much Afro-pessimism relates to the willingness to succumb to The Big Man's power even if it is alienating and harmful - as much postcolonial African leadership has been.
A spiritual Big Man counters his power via the Talking Tree.
Holding meetings under low-spreading branches makes everyone bow their head low.
This creates a flat hierarchy in which everybody is enabled and encouraged to talk, ensuring belongingness and collective intelligence in decision-making.
An ancient form of Psychological Safety.
To the right of the white arc sits The Trickster, a figure who holds The Big Man's power in check.
The Trickster uses jokes to speak truth to power and wit to interact in and with toxically charged situations.
Without a trickster, The Big Man can become narrow-minded and coercive.
Today, the Trickster represents much of the feminist writing on Afrocentric Leadership, focusing on Rebellion against colonial legacies of autocratic leadership and paternalistic power through covert and clever means (e.g. tempered radicalism).
The two blobs represent the two types of Afrocentric Leadership literature - the mainstream Reconnection Perspective and a more feminist Rebellion Perspective.
Combined, they provide a powerful counter-narrative to the many Anglo/Eurocentric leadership models that fail to appreciate Ubuntu and other similar philosophical perspectives.