NOTE: This post comes from a paper I wrote in 2018 for a leadership class.
Since 2016, visits to Ethiopia routinely came with notices that the country was under a State of Emergency, another protest was imminent, and the internet had once again been turned off. A common theme typically emerged in discussions about leadership with pastors in various countries: our government officials need to be part of these conversations. Ethiopia’s pastors shared the same sentiment until the Spring of 2018 when Abiy Ahmed became Ethiopia’s prime minister. In contrast to past discussions, the group spoke highly of the leadership of their new prime minister. They admired how Ahmed set an example of servant leadership for Ethiopians. Furthermore, Ahmed’s endorsement went far beyond this group of pastors to almost every car in the capital parading pictures of their new prime minister.
This begged the question, what occurred to attribute Ahmed with servant leadership qualities?
In research for this paper, I had difficulty finding any empirical literature regarding servant leadership and Ethiopia. Most of the empirical papers tended to focus on the country of South Africa. However, Ethiopia’s economic developmental state model, shared only by Rwanda in Africa, has drawn the attention of researchers (Dejene & Cochrane, 2018) seeking to analyze the economic effectiveness of various government programs (Nunzio, 2015; Smit, Muche, Ahlers, & van der Zaag; 2017). Although others have attempted to address the broader perspective of leadership in Africa from an ethnic bias perspective (Ilorah, 2009) and cultural understanding (Mogahalul, 2017), every study I found repeatedly emphasized economic measurements for defining effective leadership. According to these studies and popular press pieces, Ethiopia has been praised for almost two decades for its strong economic performance (Habermann, 2011; Nunzio, 2015; Dejene & Cochrane, 2018; Anberbir, 2018).
Nonetheless, in February 2018, the former prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, voluntarily stepped down to “allow for political reforms to be undertaken” (Shaban, 2019). According to the BBC (“Abiy Ahmed: Ethiopia’s Prime Minister,” 2018), “one of the protestors’ main complaints was that they have been politically, economically, and culturally marginalized for years.” It stands to reason that economic measurements alone might not suffice to evaluate the effectiveness of the government’s leadership in Ethiopia. Therefore, based on the commendations of Ethiopian pastors that Abiy Ahmed is a servant leader, this paper explores how servant leadership might offer a better form of measuring effective leadership in Ethiopia.
This paper consists of four sections. First, a brief history will be provided for contextual purposes. Second, Ethiopia’s revolutionary democracy and developmental state model will be discussed. Third, key measurements that researchers have used to measure the effectiveness of Ethiopia’s developmental model will be provided and compared with competencies of servant leadership. Finally, this paper will highlight items in Ahmed’s inauguration speech and several of his early initiatives in office to see where his leadership possibly aligns with servant leadership.
History
Over the last 50 years, Ethiopia has endured imperial rule, a socialist military dictatorship, and a federal democratic republic (“Ethiopia’s Developmental State: Dead or Alive,” 2019). In 1991, a group of young rebels, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), led by the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) (Barata, 2012), overthrew the Marxist Derg regime. According to Ilorah (2009) and Moghalu (2017), many African countries struggle with ethnic tensions as their populations are often divided by ethnic and religious identities. This was the case when the EPRDF took control; furthermore, they also assumed responsibility for fourteen imperial provinces. Eventually, the EPRDF restructured the county into nine ethnonational states: Tigrai, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, Beneshangul-Gumuz, Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP), Gambela, and Harari. This allowed each state to maintain its own language, culture, history, and geographic territory (Barata, 2012). It should be noted here that according to a 2007 census, the ruling ethnic group (Tigrai) only composed six percent of the country’s population. Oromo is the largest ethnic group (34%), followed by Amhara (27%) (“Abiy Ahmed’s reforms”, 2019). Although Tigrai is one of the smallest ethnic groups, they led the fight against the Derg, thus allowing them to establish themselves in a position of power over two considerably larger ethnic groups.
In 1995, Meles Zenawi became the country’s prime minister, held the role until he died in 2012, and has been hailed as the primary architect behind Ethiopia’s developmental state. His long tenure looks dubious in view of the controversial 2005 elections. According to Abbink (2006), the 2005 elections revealed the government’s insecurity and the discontent among the people. During the elections, the ruling powers won in an unbelievable and overwhelming landslide. When the votes were contested, the government chose to ignore both the appeals for a recount and the public’s discontent; instead, they took repressive measures with a massive clampdown on the independent press, the opposition party, and protestors, sending many journalists into hiding. In the first two months, the government arrested an estimated 40,000 people (pp. 190-193). Furthermore, although elections have been held every five years, little has changed. In fact, in the last election in 2015, “not a single opposition MP was elected” (“Abiy Ahmed: Ethiopia’s prime minister”, 2018). In other words, the discontent continued after Zenawi’s death when the deputy prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, became the acting prime minister.
In the article “Ethiopia PM Hailemariam Desalegn in Surprise Resignation” (2018), it was reported that Desalegn voluntarily stepped down, making the following statements, “unrest and a political crisis have led to the loss of lives and displacement of many” and “I see my resignation as vital in the bid to carry out reforms that would lead to sustainable peace and democracy.” According to Shaban (2019), Desalegn’s five-year reign was littered with anti-government protests, which led to the death of hundreds of protestors, the detainment of dissidents, and several state emergencies. In April 2018, Abiy Ahmed became prime minister. One of his first acts was to acknowledge that the EPRDF had become tainted by corruption and even accused it of conducting terrorism against its own people (Anberbir, 2018). Simply put, the EPRDF had come to embody the very corruption, violence, and political repression it originally fought against.
Ethiopia’s Revolutionary Democracy
According to Barata (2012), early on, Western politicians applauded the new leaders of the EPRDF as Africa’s new generation of progressive leaders; furthermore, the EPRDF pledged to make a fundamental break from Ethiopia’s long history of a centralized authoritarian model of governance (p. 62). To a certain degree, the EPRDF proposed an ethnic rights ideology when they restructured the country based on the nine ethnonational states. The TPLF recognized an ethnicity-based ideology alone would be difficult to justify because even though they dominated the EPRDF, they themselves were part of a minority ethnic group. Such a dynamic would make it difficult for them to control and stabilize the nation. Therefore, they combined their ideology of ethnicity with the notion of revolutionary democracy (Barata, 2012), also referred to as Abyotawi democracy. The roots of this democracy come from opposition to capitalist liberal ideology and Lenin’s revolutionary project.
Nonetheless, Abyotawi and revolutionary are not synonymous; rather, Abyotawi might more appropriately be viewed as a branch or schism of revolutionary democracy or a “peculiar hybrid” (Bach, 2011, p. 65). In this sense, Abyotawi democracy evolved. According to Abbink (as cited in Barata, 2012), this occurred in four phases over twenty years, with the last phase incorporating the building of a developmental state; furthermore, it has been suggested that the EPRDF only demonstrated a genuine interest in building a just social order in the first phase (p. 68). Some, like Barata (2012), have described the authoritarian motives as evolutionary, emerging as difficulties arose.
In contrast, Bach (2011) described the authoritarian motives as incorporated into the original ideology of the EPRDF, making Abyotawi democracy an exclusionary weapon directed against opposition movements (p. 655). In other words, the EPRDF succeeded in creating a malleable form of democracy, which they could use on-demand to define what was ideal for Ethiopia (typically defined in opposition to its enemies) while blaming or vilifying others when they perceived their power and prestige as being challenged. The question, therefore, has not been: was the EPRDF authoritarian, but when did they become authoritarian?
Ethiopia’s Developmental Model
Part of the confusion about when the EPRDF became authoritarian appears to be caused by their economic success and the accolades they received from Western countries. For example, Nunzio (2015) cited Time magazine’s excitement over Ethiopia’s economic growth, “once synonymous with poverty, peace, and strong economic management have turned the nation around” (p. 1182). Ethiopia has maintained a GDP growth rate between seven and eleven percent for over a decade (Habermann, 2011; Nunzio, 2015; Moghalu, 2017), repeatedly demonstrating some of the highest and most consistent macroeconomic growth in the world (Dejene & Cochrane, 2018). These results align with the objective of a developmental model (or state) where the government becomes much more than a watchman and takes an interventional role to prevent market failures (“Ethiopia’s Version of Developmental State,” 2017). In the same article, Ethiopia’s model was also further distinguished from countries such as China, South Korea, and Taiwan because the EPRDF chose to talk about democracy from the outset. This would make Ethipia’s democratic developmental state a temporary strategy; ideally, as the model succeeded the country ought to develop a form of capitalism. Planel (2014) explored how government policies were implemented in local communities and concluded the people “remain an object of intervention rather than a partner in collaboration” (p. 432). In other words, the government’s involvement restricts locals’ ability to react or express their grievances.
Furthermore, in researching the developmental model in Ethiopia, additional research was found regarding its impact on taxis (Mains & Kinfu, 2017), small-scale entrepreneurship (Nunzio, 2015), and farmland degradation (Smit, Muche, Ahlers, and van der Zaag, 2017). In the case of the taxis, the government vilified taxi drivers as not working for the people, and in the other two cases, failures were placed on the backs of the lazy entrepreneurs and the inadequate farmers. Dejene and Cochrane (2018) cited “some evidence seems to suggest that unless a balance of power is allowed to emerge, such as civil society or opposition political voices, states tend to become authoritarian and dictatorial, moving in the opposite direction of democratization, inclusion, and participation” (p. 163). Whether discussing Ethiopia’s revolutionary democracy or its unique developmental model, one gets a sense that both have historically been utilized as government tools to control the country’s agenda. This is not to say the EPRDF has not gone unquestioned, but they were able to internally stifle criticism through governance and externally through economic success.
Measuring the Ethiopian Developmental State
Historically, the EPRDF discouraged debate or criticism of their developmental model. This changed two months after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office, when the deputy prime minister called for “scholarly deliberations on the Ethiopian developmental state model,” suggesting the country needed to understand its benefits, opportunities, and limitations (Dejene & Cochrane, 2018). Utilizing the UK’s building stability framework, Dejene & Cochrane (2018) took up the deputy prime minister’s call and analyzed Ethiopia’s developmental model. The framework included five building blocks for driving long-term stability. These included fair power structures, inclusive economic development, conflict-resolution mechanisms, effective and legitimate institutions, and enabling a supportive regional environment (DFID, 2016). Furthermore, although they concluded that the EPRDF succeeded in creating stability, they found none of the building blocks of a stable long-term nation, and such stability was not going to occur within the ideology of Ethiopia’s developmental model (Dejene & Cochrane, 2018). In other words, the barriers of an authoritarian system trump the development of any democratic process.
Political Leadership
According to Moghalu (2017), although many effective leaders reside in Africa, their government leaders continue to struggle due to seven very broad anecdotal “roots.”
- A sub-optimal understanding of the meaning of leadership exists.
- Even among countries with formalized democracies, many countries have rulers rather than leaders.
- Political leadership is perceived as authority or raw power rather than service and responsibility.
- Loyalty trumps competency.
- Many African countries remain internally divided by ethnic and religious ideologies, which create in-group and out-group mentalities.
- The in-group, out-group mentality motivates corruption, and the power over responsibility legitimizes it.
- “The countries of the continent are not driven by any discernible worldview”. (pp. 172-175).
This paper will not address the first or last point. The first point placed an overtly ethnocentric perspective of leadership, failing to respect African historical, cultural, sociological, and philosophical perspectives as valid. The last point is beyond the scope of this paper; however, it should be noted that everyone has a worldview, and animism as a worldview is quite prevalent in Ethiopia. Points two through six have remained to connect Dejene and Cochrane’s (2018) findings with leadership.
Regarding the ERDPF behaving more like rulers than leaders, Dejene and Cochrane (2018) found the government historically unwilling to accept terms it did not dictate (p. 171). This elite vanguard ideology led the ERDPF to repeatedly rely on their use of raw power and control while claiming responsibility to protect an ignorant populace. In short, they believed “the public was not able to determine the direction of the nation” (p. 167). Like Moghalu (2017), Abraham (as cited in Dejence & Cochrane, 2018) articulated that the Ethiopian government valued loyalty above competence (p. 167). The development of the nine ethnonational states and the TPLF’s ethnic control over the ERDPF demonstrated the ethnic diversity, the reinforced in-group and out-group mentalities, and the corruption that developed.
Servant Leadership
Greenleaf’s (2002) definition of servant leadership, which emphasizes ensuring others’ highest priority needs are being served, quickly unveils the antithetical nature of servant leadership to the ERDPF’s authoritarian system. Interestingly, Sendjaya (2015) described the path of the TPLF when he articulated how it is not always power that corrupts; instead, it is powerlessness (perceived or real) that often leads people to wield power in destructive ways. Furthermore, this is the potential pathway for any ethnic group that comes into leadership from the perspective of having been previously powerless.
Regarding the new prime minister, his actions have been far from authoritarian. In the “Full English Transcript of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahdmed’s Inaugural Address” (2018), the prime minister articulated the country’s appreciation for the peaceful transfer of power and thanked the ERDPF for laying a foundation to build upon. Furthermore, he called upon Ethiopia’s history and unity, indicating how the country has often unified to protect its sovereignty. Ethiopians are very proud of never having been colonized. In stressing the importance of building a democratic system, Ahmed acknowledged the importance of listening to one another and giving people the full right to criticize its public servants. He acknowledged the painful past, asked for forgiveness, and called on all to forgive from their hearts. To those who fled the country, he acknowledged feelings of regret about their country and invited them to come home, reminding everyone of the saying, “You can take an Ethiopian out of Ethiopia, but you cannot take Ethiopia out of the heart of an Ethiopian.” In the months following Ahmed’s inauguration, the prime minister settled a long-standing conflict with Ethiopia’s neighbor Eritrea (Gebreselassie, 2019), helped to end Ethiopia’s Orthodox schism (Casper, 2018), mediated a divided Muslim community resulting in the first Ramadan in years celebrated in true unity (Getachew, 2019), and has been holding numerous town meetings to listen to the people. To date, the prime minister’s words and actions appear to be moving in a non-authoritarian style. His inclusiveness and his work to empower others is undoubtedly characteristic of a servant leader; however, the 2020 elections will reveal much about this new leader and exactly how committed Prime Minister Ahmed is to serving the people of Ethiopia.
Conclusion
This paper sought to explore how servant leadership might offer a better form of measuring effective leadership in Ethiopia. The authoritarian style was found empirically insufficient to assist Ethiopia’s economy at the local level; however, the same study utilized a lot of language in servant leadership in their recommendations for change. Although no literature could be found regarding the new prime minister’s leadership style, his inauguration speech and early actions signify this possibility. It should be noted that the Ethiopians would prefer any communal form of leadership over the previous authoritarian style. In other words, anything would be better. Furthermore, although Ahmed’s willingness to be inclusive and his empowering groups through reconciliation could be indicative of servant leadership, they might also represent transformational leadership; therefore, further research on Abiy’s actions is still needed. Bottom line, time will tell.
References
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