Views on Leadership by Youth and Staff at the Children and Youth Empowerment Centre, Nyeri, Kenya
Open Access
- Author:
- Thieman, Andrea M
- Area of Honors:
- Community, Environment, and Development
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Linda L Caldwell, Thesis Supervisor
Theodore Roberts Alter, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Kenya
leadership
street children
perspective - Abstract:
- Former Zambian presidential candidate, Elias Chipimo, charges mediocre leadership in key-decision making positions of government as the cause of many Sub-Saharan African countries’ continual underdevelopment despite their resources and potential. He notes that when people lose their civic responsibility, they begin to accept ‘abnormal’ characteristics, such as corruption and greed, as ‘normal’ expectations from government officials; these accepted norms perpetuate the cycle of mediocrity in leadership positions. The objective of this research was to gain Kenyan indigenous knowledge on both quality and poor leadership, and what comprises each, in order to have a better understanding of an African perspective on leadership and whether it supports or negates the validity of Chipimo’s argument. In order to achieve this objective I interviewed 17 children and staff from the Children and Youth Empowerment Centre (CYEC) in Nyeri, Kenya. The CYEC serves street-dwelling children in Nyeri and its surrounding areas, creating a holistic and sustainable approach to caring for the children and eventually reintegrating them back into Kenyan society. Among other themes, the interviews revealed that while Kenyans could quickly identify examples of good leadership, it was harder for many of those interviewed, particularly the children, to provide examples of poor leadership. Although the majority of those interviews could provide characteristics and traits of bad leaders, they could not identify them. I concluded that this supports Chipimo’s argument of the acceptance of ‘abnormal’ leadership characteristics as ‘normal’, thus the acceptance of and inability to identify mediocre leadership.