Acta Universitatis Danubius: Administratio (Dec 2015)
Innovative Pathways for Effective E-Governance in Africa: The Imperative of Authentic Leadership
Abstract
The evolving concept of e-governance has become one of the leading praxis of the 21st Century. This again reinforces, not just the importance of governance in human societies, but the need to redefine, reappraise, reinvent and redirect the path of governance towards effective and efficient service delivery. The paradigm of Science and Technology therefore presents the leading edge in our contemporary world thereby validating the viability of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in governance at diverse levels of operations. This paper, employs secondary data and presents the position that in the light of the fact that e-governance covers areas such as government, citizens and businesses/interest groups, the central place of leadership that will authenticate trust and confidence in the effective delivery of the e-governance protocols therefore becomes an imperative. In the gamut of literature on leadership, this paper identifies authentic leadership as a necessary condition that will facilitate effectiveness and efficiency of e-governance. This paper concludes that since there is a human dimension to the process of e-governance, creating innovative pathways for its effectiveness in Africa calls for authentic leadership which emphasizes constructive and developmental interactions between leaders and followers.