Transformative leadership in unconventional terrain: examining the personality, values, and vision of Jerry John Rawlings of Ghana

Marguerite (Maggy) Barankitse established Maison Shalom in Burundi in 1993 to shelter children surviving the massacres of the time. Those first saved were Hutu children, not members of her own Tutsi ethnic community. In 2015, another crisis provoked mass refugee movements to neighbouring countries, and Barankitse began humanitarian action again. Using literature on leadership, grey literature on Maison Shalom (mainly unpublished annual reports and speeches) and Barankitse, and interviews with political and civil society and academic actors, this chapter examines transformative leadership theories to analyse Barankitse's approach to crisis management. The analysis uses a sociohistorical approach to demonstrate what constitute Barankiste's leadership in practice, and what this implies for social change in Burundi and refugee camps in neighbouring countries. The analyses raises three aspects of transformative leadership: an original approach to Burundian conflicts, actions taken to break the structural cause of the conflict, and new dynamics of social and cultural changes in Burundi.