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Employee turnover has been established as a major cause of the abysmal performance of SMEs in Nigeria. Hence, the study explored the role of servant leadership and the work climate created by the leader in the reduction of employee turnover in SMEs.

The study involved 1,000 participants drawn from 200 SMEs in the city of Lagos. Cross-sectional data was acquired through questionnaire designed in such a way as to minimise common method variance.

Results indicate that servant leadership reduced employee turnover, and that employee voice and the career growth dimensions partially mediated this relationship. The study variables explained 59% of the variance in employee turnover.

The paper highlights that SMEs leaders who adopt servant leadership behaviour can reduce employee turnover directly and through the positive work environment they create. SMEs leaders must not only be servant leaders but must ensure that the entire organisation is managed by servant leaders. They achieve this through recruitment and promotion process.

Past studies in Nigeria were in the area of government intervention and the effects of turnover on the productivity of SMEs. This appears to be the only paper that studied the effects of leadership on employee turnover in SMEs in Nigeria. This study advances research by studying the effect of servant leadership and the work environment created by leaders on employee turnover. Thus, the study advances past studies by suggesting possible ways to reduce employee turnover and enhancing the needed productivity of SMEs in Nigeria.

The epilogue summarized the contents of the book's chapters, which showed that leadership would be effective in Africa when it is situated in African countries' context, history, and values. It showed that Africa had a life and history before the arrival of the colonial masters, that leaders crafted a path to progress and development, recognized the imperfection in the system, and created an environment that favored innovation and creativity of their people. The leaders used this to progress the governance structures and their plans toward perfection. Leaders in the precolonial era demonstrated a growth/external mindset that saw leadership as a call to service and to develop people for productivity. The colonial masters did not come for a symbiotic relationship to build their nations and Africa. They came to exploit Africa based on the motives they had. They maneuvered their way but encountered resistance. They worked to identify surrogates, equipped them, and used them to marginalize the other leaders. When they left, Africa was left underdeveloped. Some postcolonial leaders again put their nations on the development path by linking the past with the present. Others did not do this because their fixed/internal mindset emphasized personal and narrow group interests instead of the national common good. In the end, African leaders should take full responsibility for what happened to their nations and how to salvage it. Africa helped the colonial masters to underdevelop Africa, and we can also drive the development progress.

Ethiopia was under the rule of monarchies between 1811 and 1974, a reign long enough to create good value for Ethiopia. The emperors came from eight dynasties, and 86 emperors ruled Ethiopia from these dynasties. Apart from 1936 to 1941, when the Italians occupied Ethiopia, the nation was never under colonial rule. Vices such as concentration of power, inequity, favoritism, expansionist drive, and the marginalization of the population were prevalent during the reign of the emperors. Most of the emperors preferred a positive external reputation over internal respect. They maintained legitimacy despite their negative contributions because of their link to the gods, reinforced by the national religion. In the end, the emperors achieved marginalization and expansion, leading to wars, and draining the nation's natural and human resources. They did not create or leave behind any sustainable and effective legacy, and all they did ended with the termination of monarchical rule in 1974. In other words, in 1974, Ethiopia started from ground zero because what was left by the emperors had no use in the modern nation.

The precolonial Botswana ran an autocratic governance structure where the chiefs had great power and authority. Despite this, some checks and balances ensured the Chiefs exercised their sovereignty for the common good. They had direct reports appointed by the chiefs and the entire community. They had advisers and the general assembly that discussed the proposal put forward by the executive committee. One thing that allowed the Chiefs to subject themselves to the actions of their subjects despite their enormous powers was their leadership mindset. The Chiefs saw leadership as an opportunity to lift the standard of their subjects to gain continuous legitimacy to their rule. The economy of precolonial Botswana was “self-sufficient, autonomous and ecologically sound” (Monageng, 2006, p. 69). The only thing that limited production was the level of technology, and studies had argued that if the colonial head provided the technology, Botswana would have been better under colonialism. Although the economy was closed, there was evidence of some levels of international trade (Parson, 1977, 1985). Hence, the leaders in the precolonial Botswana laid a solid foundation that could have been important in the future development of Botswana.

Nigeria gained independence from the British in 1960, and by 1963, it became a republic. For the 61 years of independence, Nigeria has passed through civilian and military rule successions. Most of the time, self-rule had military leaders in control of governance. The British government did not prepare the country for self-rule and was in control from 1960 to 1963, with the Governor-General acting as the ultimate power in selecting who remained in control. The country left by the British was divided along the ethnic, regional, and religious lines, which made it difficult to have a nationalistic ideology governed by the common good. This faulty foundation was the primary purpose of the postcolonial era's failed statehood and fragile state. Every criterion used to gauge the performance of governance in this era indicated that the military and civilian leaders did not move the country forward. One noticed that when the British dismantled the leadership structure in the precolonial era, they broke the link between the new and the old, which would have ensured the new had the cultural and historical foundation to succeed.

Evidence shows that before the arrival of the colonial masters in Nigeria, the people who inhabited the landmass referred to as Nigeria had an organized form of governance (Audu, 2014; Ibenekwe, 2014). The area had over 470 ethnic groups with three major ethnic groups: Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo. All the ethnic groups had their unique form of government. However, two dominant forms were identified: the centralized and the non-centralized government. One common form of government is the hierarchical nature and the bureaucracy involved. Even though the people did not practice democracy the way the western world would define democracy, the people developed the type of democracy that ensured the utilization and mobilization of all the human and material resources needed to achieve the ethnic group's common goal. The precolonial leaders emphasized that leadership actions and activities should be directed at achieving societal needs, growth, and development. Hence, they applied sanctions using all the instruments of governance or the divinely developed source when necessary to ensure that no leader acted contrary to the belief in the common good. Leaders could not have pursued the common interest if they had a leadership mindset emphasizing selfish motives over the common interest. Thus, it is not unreasonable to state that servant leadership principles were applied even when not mentioned in literature.

The book chapter discusses the various leaders in postcolonial Egypt to understand their contributions to developing postcolonial Egypt. After the veiled independence, the first set of leaders in Egypt were surrogates of the imperial lords who had absolute power even when self-rule was granted. The true nationalists applied force to wrestle control from Britain and their surrogates. This started the institutionalization of force as a means for social change in Egypt. Almost all the rulers from 1952 to 2022 were either military or military personnel turned civilian. The ideological direction for Egypt was set after the 1952 coup that included Arabism, Africanism, and Islamism but excluded turning Egypt into an Islamic state. Some rulers attempted to circumvent this and turn Egypt into an Islamic state despite the nation's wish not to. They failed through the constant intervention of military personnel in governance. Egypt also suffered from a complete disconnect between the activities and successes of the ancient era and those of the colonial and postcolonial periods. The colonial lords truncated the progress made in the bygone era because it did not align with the motives for the occupation of Egypt. The postcolonial leaders had no link with the colonial because it was anti-Egyptian progress. Like all other African countries, all the criteria used in gauging the quality of governance and development showed that the performance of the postcolonial leaders was poor and left Egypt underdeveloped.

Apart from some minor powers that occupied Egypt, the major ones that occupied Egypt and altered the course of its history include the Ottoman Empire, France, and Britain. The imperial powers entered Egypt because of different motives and drivers. However, none of the reasons was directed at understanding the history of Egypt, the achievements of their past rulers, and crafting a better path for future prosperity from this understanding. They exploited the Egyptian resources, built their home economy, and left Egypt as an exporter of semi-finished goods and an importer of finished goods. Three primary motives were outstanding, among others. The first was to obtain revenue through the imposition of a tax, the second was to protect their home economy by having a continuous supply of raw materials and exportation of finished goods, and the third was to protect the strategic position of Egypt on the trade route to India and other raw material suppliers. Their reluctance to leave the country led to branding some nationalists as unfriendly and preference for those considered moderate nationalists who would be satisfied with superficial power. In contrast, the real power resided in the colonial lords. The imperialists were forced out, leaving a divided country stripped of its past glory. The book chapter discussed the occupation of the colonial lords and what they achieved. The conclusion was that Egypt was not better through its occupation by the colonial lords. The country lost its root in the past, which could have been the foundation for future prosperity.