From classrooms in Ogun State to policy summits in Nairobi, African women are reshaping leadership by drawing from their own experiences. New models are emerging that emphasise authenticity, confidence, and collective growth.
Bonface Orucho, bird story agency
A journey begins in Ogun
When Ezeoha Nneka returned to her classroom in Ogun State after a four-month leadership expedition, something had shifted. She no longer saw herself as simply a teacher tasked with delivering lessons. She saw herself as a leader, inviting students to step forward and chart how they would love to learn and lead.
“This journey completely transformed my perspective as the expedition provided a valuable opportunity to connect with women from diverse leadership backgrounds, learning from their experiences, skills, and knowledge. These interactions significantly shaped my leadership ideology, teaching me the importance of humility, self-awareness, and continuous improvement,” she said.
That change filtered directly into the lives of her pupils, mostly 16-year-old girls. She began dividing them into small teams, asking them to debate what leadership meant in their lives, share stories, and try out decision-making. For many, it was the first time they were invited to see themselves as leaders.
A global movement rooted in local classrooms
Ms Nneka was one of 24 teacher-fellows who joined a Women Emerging expedition run in partnership with Teach For Nigeria in 2024. Over seven weeks, the fellows guided 311 teenage girls across 25 remote schools through structured conversations and activities.
According to Women Emerging’s April 2025 impact report, each fellow led a cohort of roughly 20 girls through weekly 90–120 minute sessions designed to practice leadership in real settings.
Women Emerging describes itself as a global non-profit movement launched in 2022 to reframe leadership so more women choose to step into it. Its founder, Julia Middleton, says the movement began because “there’s a piece of the jigsaw missing” in women’s empowerment, a way to describe leading that comes from women themselves, not from a manual written elsewhere.
“When we stopped talking about hierarchy, women began to recognise the leadership they practise every day,” Ms Middleton shared in a call.
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From the first expedition in 2022, the movement developed a map called the 4Es, a framework that helps women explore and experiment, not conform. Expeditions are framed as journeys, not traditional training programmes; months of group reflection, mentorship from more senior guides, and small experiments that participants take back into their communities.
Women Emerging’s Expedition Director, based in Lagos, Funmi Adeyemi, described the model as both inward and outward work.
“We ask women to journey inward, to understand themselves, but also to connect with others and build their own leadership maps,” she said. The maps, she added, are not templates handed down from outside; they are personal guides produced through the expedition’s work.
Teaching Teachers to Lead: The Nigeria pilot
In Nigeria, a pilot tested a cascade: train the teachers, who then lead local expeditions for girls in their classrooms. Ms Adeyemi explained the partnership with Teach For Nigeria as “natural, organic,” two organisations seeing the same need: teachers in remote communities who did not yet identify as leaders, and a generation of girls in those classrooms who needed the language and permission to lead.
“We had 24 teacher-fellows from Teach For Nigeria do the expedition, and then they became expedition leaders for the girls they teach,” Ms Adeyemi said. “Altogether, we had over 300 girls who were directly led by their own teachers.”
Leadership on the Continent: Bridging the gender gap
To see why pilots like this matter, put the classroom in the context of the continent’s wider leadership picture: representation remains uneven and far from parity. As of early 2025, women held roughly 27 per cent of seats in national parliaments globally, a level only marginally higher in many African legislatures, and progress has been slow.
Women also remain underrepresented in executive government posts. In Africa, women hold about 23 per cent of ministerial portfolios, a reminder that top-level power still skews male, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA).
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Country contrasts are sharp, with progress being witnessed in countries such as Rwanda, where women hold the majority of parliamentary seats. By contrast, large countries such as Nigeria show much lower representation. Current chamber data indicate only a handful of women sit in the House and Senate, yielding a combined parliamentary share in the low single digits.
For example, IPU-derived counts show 16 women in the 360-member House of Representatives and four women in the 109-member Senate. These structural gaps are the reason many organisations are experimenting with different leadership models: cohort journeys, fellowships, and alumni networks.
A spot check of recent developments in late 2025 shows a crowded field of experiments and investments. WomenLift Health launched regional cohorts for Southern and East Africa in September 2025, signalling demand for sector-focused leadership journeys.
FEMNET, meanwhile, took feminist leadership messages into major policy moments like the Africa Climate Summit and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September, while Akina Mama wa Afrika continued programmatic activity in August and planned an African Women’s Leadership Institute (AWLI) alumni summit for October.
Funding to women-focused programs is also increasing, exemplified by organisations such as the African Women’s Development Fund, which ran grant cycles in August. The impact of these initiatives can best be seen in Ogun State, where the pilot’s human outcomes are the point.
When women lead differently: Lessons from the field
Teacher testimonials in Women Emerging’s reports speak to new confidence, intentional classroom change, and a readiness to pass the learning on.
Another teacher-fellow in the Nigerian expedition, Winsol Ubani, captured the inward work when she wrote about “essence.”
“One of the most significant insights I gained is the importance of being aware of my essence. There are aspects of my essence I need to let go of, as well as parts I need to reframe to become a better leader,” Ms Ubani stated.
Ms Adeyemi argues that strong shifts in self-perception are evident among fellows.
“95 per cent of the fellows… over 96 per cent of girls say that now they want to lead,” she said during the interview with bird story agency.
“Expeditions are not about teaching women how to lead in someone else’s image. They are about helping women uncover what leadership feels like for them, and creating space for that to flourish,” Ms Middleton said.
**bird story agency**
