Local leadership in community crisis: Lessons from the electricity billing impasse in Lower Manya Krobo, Ghana

The paper reflects on the roles of local community leaders during the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) billing crisis in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipal (LMKM) in the Eastern region of Ghana. Using Greenleaf’s servant leadership theory as a normative evaluative framework, the study assessed the extent to which local leaders met or fell short of servant leadership ideals during the crisis. The concurrent mixed-methods design was employed, combining a Likert-type questionnaire administered to 120 community members (CMs) with in-depth interviews with 2 community leaders. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed independently and triangulated during interpretation. The results show that the majority of CMs disagreed that local leaders set clear goals, responded quickly to the crisis, involved CMs in decision-making, promoted open communication, or built trust within the community. The qualitative data revealed a divided leadership front, a breakdown in the communication chain between leaders and CMs, and intensifying effects of political interference and unresolved chieftaincy disputes. These results reflect a significant gap between servant leadership ideals and the leadership behaviors that CMs experienced during the crisis. The study recommends investment in proactive leadership capacity building, the development of trust-based leader-CM relationships, and governance frameworks that separate crisis management from political contestation in community settings.