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After several years of political emancipation from colonial rule, it is time for African nations to do the same economically. Our analysis indicates that the current political leadership environment is VUCA laden and complicated, leading to grand challenges on the continent. Therefore, the old political leadership models are inadequate for addressing the African VUCA and leadership landscape, hence, the inability to achieve the needed economic advancement. We propose a paradigm shift in political leadership for the continent to bring the decades-long desire for economic freedom to fruition by adopting the relevant organizational science and corporate leadership models for political leadership effectiveness in this complex and dynamic environment. We accomplish this by integrating three frameworks to derive nascent management and leadership capabilities relevant to the new African political leadership context and to ensure current and future leadership readiness for this new environment.

Countries in Africa have undergone an unprecedented transformation that has shaped the continent as they move ahead from the clutches of colonialism. The evolution of leadership and how organisations function optimally has given rise to the review of leadership approaches and practices, revolutionising its position in the global markets. With the recent spate of global suffering from the pandemic, the formal and traditional work structures are becoming transient. At the same time, the economic consequences of the Russo-Ukrainian crisis have catastrophic effects globally.

The research was conducted via a systematic review of scientific sources from various academic websites. Eligibility criteria were defined with the agreement of pertinent themes and concepts.

By evaluating and analysing characteristics and success indicators from the blend of leadership competencies ascertained from Afrocentric principles in response to African associated problems, Africa can cement its leadership concepts without following the global north principles. These philosophies are resilient enough to contend with a range of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) complexities, including the impact of the recent global pandemic of immeasurable proportions and the prospect of war as the Russo-Ukrainian conflict intensifies.

Within the African environment, there is a greater focus on the human element in shared values, holistic well-being, cooperation and experience. The global community band together to deal with these complexities. This is a typical example of global connectedness with positive and negative connotations.

Introduction: A company or organisation must resolve various problems in the business environment for better operation in any corporate environment. Such issues are traditionally handled in multiple ways. A small sector unit with many employees encounters this corporate issue, for example, the handicraft sector. The impact of handicraft issues and their intensity, speed, and regularity is growing in our system.

Purpose: This chapter studies how small businesses might succeed in the handcraft industry in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment. There is a lack of proper knowledge of how the VUCA affects business proficiency in the Indian handicraft sector. A novel business strategy for the handicraft sector, like other business proficiency called best practices in handicraft business in a VUCA environment, will be presented along with a discussion about VUCA environments. This considers both the individual influences of each particular word and the overall impact of VUCA.

Methodology: The study included a thorough literature analysis for three learning areas: performance improvement, including VUCA, and the leadership incorporation of risk and quality. Awareness in the trade will be examined in further sections, as the mastery of VUCA is achieved with various traditional and digital management ideas.

Findings: The research defined a new unorganised firm concept to maintain and succeed in a high VUCA environment in the handicraft sector, identifying 18 important success characteristics through a comprehensive literature review. The authors proposed a conceptual framework for fusing quality management to attain proficiency in the handicraft sector VUCA environment.

Purpose: Since its inception in 1987, the literature on the VUCA that represents the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous nature of the business environment has progressively increased. This study systematically evaluates the vast literature on the VUCA world. Since review-based studies have been criticised as biased, this study uniquely amalgamates bibliometric analysis with content analysis, thereby taking a research triangulation discourse.

Need of the Study: This study was conducted to consolidate the literature about the VUCA environment and uncover the foundational and emerging themes for future research agendas.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This study conducts a performance analysis and science mapping of 193 carefully selected articles (using PRISMA) published in various sources during 2012–2023. Articles for the study were procured from the SCOPUS database. While performance analysis focused on analysing publication and citation evolution, thematic evolution, leading publications, country publication analysis, and most relevant authors and sources. On the other hand, science mapping revealed conceptual structures (keyword plus co-occurrence analysis and thematic maps) and intellectual structures (co-authorship analysis). VOSviewer and Biblioshiny (R-tool for comprehensive science mapping) were used for this study’s choice of application.

Findings: This chapter concludes with future research agendas using content analysis of the ‘scope for the future research’ section of selected publications and bibliographic coupling (to unearth emerging themes).

Practical Implications: The work presented in this chapter will help the researchers gain a structured conceptual, intellectual, and social understanding of the vast literature on the VUCA environment.

This paper aims to discuss the notion of resilience in the context of the Basotho of Lesotho who managed prospering as a nation in the era of uncertainty during the “VUCA” world of the nineteenth-century southern Africa.

Using historical data from leadership and organizational behaviour perspectives, the theoretical context of the paper is established to inform discussion on the resilience of the Basotho during the “VUCA” world of the nineteenth-century southern Africa.

The paper has established that the notion of resilience was synonymous to Basotho’s way of life and livelihood during the “VUCA” world of the nineteenth-century southern Africa. The paper has also established that resilience became the key quality of Basotho as they continued prospering as a nation in the era of uncertainty during the “VUCA” world of the nineteenth-century southern Africa.

From both leadership and organizational behaviour perspectives, the paper uses mainly historical data that are considered to be most relevant, valid and reliable to inform discussions on the notion of resilience as it relates to the Basotho as a nation during the “VUCA” world of the nineteenth-century southern Africa.

Introduction: Amidst Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA), turbulence is a vital component of an entrepreneurial landscape. VUCA world has set a new dynamic in the business environment and organisation’s settings. In such an environment, it is pertinent for entrepreneurs to exhibit creativity, innovative service behaviour, and performance.

Purpose: The study investigates whether creativity, innovative service behaviour, and performance of entrepreneurs are fostered through employee engagement practices in a highly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment.

Methodology: The methodology involves a systematic review and meta-synthesis. By identifying the major topics, a systematic literature review helped critically analyse and synthesise the literature.

Findings: According to the study, corporate entrepreneurial factors like (management reinforcement, reward/reinforcement, job autonomy/discretion, time attainability, and organisational boundaries) entrepreneurial potential, entrepreneurial orientation, human capital, self-efficacy beliefs lead to employee engagement, which, in turn, fosters creativity, innovative service behaviour, and performance among entrepreneurs in the VUCA world.

Whereas leadership has existed on the continent of Africa as long as African peoples therein, the study of the same is limited in scope, depth and availability. Even as African scholars decry this dearth of available literature, they are at the same time actively involved in remedying the situation. In this chapter, the author attempts to answer a couple of questions: what is African about African Leadership? How can we engage in radical scholarship of African leadership? The author concludes with an invitation to readers of the edited volume to answer those two questions for themselves, as well as allow the chapters to help them rethink their own position and practices, arguing that leadership scholarship is always about both theory building and enhanced practice.