Collective Leadership for Sustainable Development: Evidence from Research and Practice

This report contends that global development efforts are still mostly focused on developing proven practices, policies, innovations, and technologies that have a short-term and direct impact on outcomes and can be scaled, instead of doing so alongside strategic efforts to support the development of leaders and leadership within systems. And yet, evidence demonstrates that people are a critical part of the development equation; who leads, as well as how they perceive their purpose and their motivation, effort, and agency, matters for development outcomes. At the same time, realizing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals is not just about getting existing systems to perform better, it will require improving and, in some cases, transforming them. We won’t have healthy, well-educated, thriving people or a thriving planet without changing the local and global systems that are leading to a global learning crisis, poor-quality healthcare, and economic, racial, and social inequality. Collective leadership is a vital ingredient for transformative change.

Author: Jean Arkedis, Mac Benavides, Laurence Dessein, Lori Kniffin, Sonia M. Ospina, and Kerry Priest