Sub-Saharan Africa

Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe

The GLOBE Sub-Saharan Africa cluster consists of Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and South Africa (Black sample). The societies belonging to this cluster reflect high scores of the societal cultural practices on the dimensions of In-Group Collectivism and Power Distance (i.e. the degree to which the community accepts and endorses authority, power differentials, status privileges, and social inequality), but low scores on Gender Egalitarianism. Overall, these societies maintain close family ties and individuals express pride and loyalty in organizations and family. Members of these societies do not expect power to be distributed evenly among citizens, nor do they have gender equity. Many of the other societal culture dimensions, including Uncertainty Avoidance, Performance Orientation, Institutional Collectivism and Assertiveness are rated in the mid-range. They are, however, slightly higher than the average on the Humane Orientation dimension.

The Sub-Saharan Africa cluster's societal values (what the society believes should be), on the other hand, are considerably different than its cultural practices. Specifically, all societies in the Sub-Saharan Africa cluster desire to be much more Performance and Future-Oriented, being especially high on the latter dimension of Future Orientation. They desire to be more Humane-Oriented and much less Power Distance. Interestingly, these societies also desire to have more Uncertainty Avoidance (i.e., relying on social norms, rules, and procedures to alleviate unpredictability). They seek a slight bit more Gender Egalitarianism, almost the same level of Assertiveness and wish to maintain the same high level of In-Group Collectivism. Overall, individuals belonging to this cluster feel a strong attachment to members of their families and other in-groups (e.g., neighborhood, village, and school friend). Other essential features of the Sub-Saharan Africa cluster encompass societal practices that embody an unequal distribution of power, authority and status, significant gender stereotypes, gender role differences and relatively strong male domination concerning societal practices, but desire more gender equality.

In the Sub-Saharan Africa cluster, leadership dimensions viewed as contributing the most to outstanding leadership include Charismatic/Value-Based, Team-Oriented and Participative Leadership. The Charismatic attributes that are endorsed include a realistic vision, high performance orientation, integrity, and decisiveness. These societies also value team- oriented leaders whose characteristics include developing outstanding teams by using their administrative and interpersonal skills to create cohesive working groups. The desirability of these leadership behaviors is consistent with many other clusters, and they do not stand out except for the relatively high score for Humane-Oriented Leadership in contrast to other cultures. In fact, the Humane-Oriented leadership score is the second highest for all GLOBE clusters. The Autonomous dimension is viewed as being slightly negative but, in fact, is the second lowest score on this dimension indicating that it is perceived as being more negative than most other clusters. The Self-Protective leadership dimension is also viewed as slightly negative, and therefore seen as somewhat restricting outstanding leadership. Overall, an outstanding leader for this cluster would exhibit charismatic, team oriented, and participative behaviors. They would not be particularly independent, but likely to enact humane oriented leadership.