For more than a decade, Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF) has been investing in the training and development of emerging leaders around the world with a focus on the character virtues needed to advance human flourishing. With TWCF funding, a project team led by Dr. Edward Brooks, Director of The Oxford Character Project, with research led by Dr. Luna Wei Wang, of The Oxford Department of International Development, set out to map values-based leadership development in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Findings from The 2023 Character and Global Leadership Survey, the first significant survey focusing on character-based leadership research and education in LMICs, are now available. Below, Dr. Wang shares what her team learned from this study that gathered data in 137 countries.
Global Challenges Call for Values-based Leadership, Particularly in LMICs
Global challenges, including climate change, poverty, war, and inequality, highlight the need for ‘character-based leadership,’ i.e., courageous and purpose-driven leadership that combines knowledge, skills, and fundamental qualities of character. This kind of leadership must be effective and ethical, joining the knowledge and skills that enable communication, collaboration and decision-making to fundamental qualities of character such as integrity, purpose, and hope.
These global challenges are transnational, but their impact is felt most keenly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Local leadership is essential to engage these challenges and advance positive change, yet academic work in leadership studies and investment in leadership education has often been led by organizations in high-income nations. Our recently released report identified 1,071 academic papers published between 1990 and 2022 as well as 99 programs focusing on developing leaders with character and virtue in LMICs. There are seven major findings.
Our main research questions were:
Key Findings
1. There is 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.
Global distribution of low- and middle-income countries
Total number of papers
2. The survey found a particularly high volume of research on character-based leadership in East and Southeast Asia. Many countries have no papers published on character-based leadership.
Number of publications on character-based leadership in LMICs (1990-2022)
3. The most popular research theme is the impact of character-based leadership, which accounts for nearly 70% of papers. The vast majority of papers report a positive and multilayer effect, including positive outcomes for individuals (e.g. improved work performance and job satisfaction), organizations (e.g. improved team performance and organizational culture) and society (e.g. reduction in corruption).
Impact of character-based leadership at the individual, organizational and societal level
4. The most valued leadership virtues across LMICs are empathy, honesty, courage, transparency, care, and fairness.
5. Servant leadership, a leadership style that sees leaders as servants who put the needs of others before their own, is the most prominent model in academic research. Most character-based leadership models used in research were developed in North America and Europe, and there is a dearth of research on contextualized models.
Most researched leadership models by region (percentage of regional papers)
6. Only 5% of character-based leadership programs focus on public-sector leadership, and 6% of all programs develop women leaders.
7. Intentional and systematic development of leader character is rare. Practitioners around the world face challenges of justifying the relevance and importance of character in leadership development, and there is a lack of network to facilitate idea sharing and resource exchange.
The findings of the report suggest that strategic investment of time and resources is vital to support existing programs, develop a reliable understanding of effective practice, and enable the development of contextualized approaches. The strategic role of universities in leadership development provides a major opportunity to scale programs amongst young people who will hold positions of responsibility and influence in the future.
The research team hopes the findings of this survey will further the study of global leadership and leadership development, facilitate new collaboration and partnership opportunities, and advance the design and delivery of effective leadership and character development programs.
Learn more about The Oxford Character Project's Character and Global Leadership report here.
