Character and global leadership

Context

To advance positive change and human flourishing in the face of significant global challenges requires courageous and purpose-driven leadership - understood in this report as ‘character-based leadership’. Such leadership must be effective and ethical, joining the knowledge and skills that enable leadership competencies to fundamental qualities of character such as integrity, purpose, and hope.

This report focuses on the 137 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) around the world, which are home to 6.65 billion people, over 80% of the global population. A multicultural group of researchers from eight countries examined academic literature and educational programmes focused on character-based leadership, with particular attention to five regions: Southern and East Africa, Central and West Africa, Latin America, East and Southeast Asia, and South and Central Asia. In each region, we investigated prevalent values, reviewed leadership literature, and analysed leadership development programmes. The leadership challenge in these nations goes beyond raising GDP to address poverty in all its dimensions, including health, education, and well-being alongside socio-economic indicators. Local leadership and contextual knowledge are essential to engage these challenges, yet leadership research and investment in leadership education have often been led by organisations in high-income nations.

Key findings

We identified 1,071 papers on character-based leadership in LMICs published between 1990 and 2022, and 99 programmes focusing on developing character-based leaders in LMICs. In our analysis, we found that -

• Since 2000, there has been a consistent increase in published papers on character-based leadership across LMICs, with major increases following the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and the COVID pandemic in 2020. Character-based leadership seems to be one of the answers people turn to when facing challenges and uncertainty.
• There is a particularly high volume of research on character-based leadership in East and Southeast Asia.
• Over half (55%) of research papers focus on the corporate sector, with education second at 22%. The most popular theme is the impact of character-based leadership, which accounts for nearly 70% of papers.
• Consolidating the research results on leadership attributes, the most highly valued leadership virtues across LMICs are empathy, honesty, courage, transparency, and care.
• Servant leadership is the most prominent model in academic research.

• There is a dearth of research on contextualised models of character-based leadership.
• The largest provider of character-based leadership programmes is the NGO sector, followed by universities. Young people are the largest target audience. Only 5% of programmes focus on public-sector leadership.
• Central themes emphasised by character-based leadership programmes include leaders as change makers, leadership as service, and change coming from within. Prevalent ideas also include the power of leadership to transform specific sectors, contribute to the development of the nation, and change the world for the better.
• The most prominent educational virtues emphasised in educational programmes are integrity, responsibility, service, compassion, empathy, inclusion, courage, wisdom, perseverance and purpose.
• Common programme components and educational strategies include service-learning projects, role models, and learning communities.
• The strategic role of universities in leadership development provides a major opportunity to scale programmes amongst young people who will hold positions of responsibility and influence in the future.