Time for collective leadership in Eastern Africa

Abstract

The discussion cut across the relationship between leaders and followers, qualities of good leadership in the present dispensation, the rights and responsibilities of leaders and followers as well as on tools to enable participation in leadership. According to Mr Antonio Pedro, Director of the Sub-Regional Office for Eastern Africa of ECA, the relationship between followers and leaders should be a dynamic one that “requires new types of organisations beyond the top-down and heavily-centralised forms of government that we are used to. “This is about new platforms for multi-stakeholder participation,” Mr Pedro went on, while stating that in today’s world, leaders must follow at some point, while followers must lead at another.