What Do We Mean by Global Leadership?

This chapter builds on the previous chapter, broadening the understanding of leadership to include cultural contexts. The chapter looks at how leadership is viewed in a range of cultures and via different theories, including the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu, the eastern philosophy of Taoism, and other philosophical and cultural perspectives. The chapter also implicates culture in the question of vision in leadership. The chapter applies some of its learning through case studies. More specifically, the chapter looks an example of ground-up leadership in the form of the #endSARS movement in Nigeria, and top-down leadership in the One Laptop Per Child project. The aim of the chapter is to gain a more informed perspective on Global Leadership as an area of enquiry and practice for the higher education curriculum. The chapter presents additional theories and examples of their instantiation. Questions of culture in leadership also support a discussion of vision; where it comes from and its orientation.