This Africa Day, May 25, 2019, I am celebrating the release of our Second We Will Lead Africa volume, featuring leading Africa Women’s stories. The volume is an important step in our journey to creating platforms for sharing and inspiring everyday African leadership through storytelling. It is particularly significant because: “Writers from all minority groups, and women writers, and those from colonized nations—all of us who have been spoken for, instead of listened to, have had to seize our own narratives.” Aminatta Forna
This volume gives voice, depth and colour to the narratives of contemporary Africa women leaders who are defying status quo, dreaming forward and taking action for the prosperity of the continent. So how are African women paving the way as leaders in Africa’s male dominated environment? They simply are. In the facilitation world we talk about completing versus competing in partnerships. African women are completers. They pick up whatever’s left undone, they fill gaps left glaringly open, they pioneer the trails that are undiscovered. African women have traditionally done this, in the majority by leading quietly and by example first. The questions for our times are: how do we now lead with more presence? How do we both speak up and lead out? How do we lead while honouring our mother’s roles in giving is their shoulders to stand on, whether they chose to do so in traditional or unconventional ways? How do we lead with confidence and assurance, while opening fields of possibilities instead of drawing battles lines for competition? We will lead – African women are ingenious and innovative in exercising our agency – we always find the way.
See our Press Release and details We Will Lead Africa book series for more details or visit www.wewillleadafrica.com.
