Are we all in it together? Constructions of responsible leadership through speechmaking at COP26

Abstract

The need for an alternative understanding of leadership that can address grand societal challenges, like the climate crisis, has inspired a rich research field under the umbrella of responsible leadership (RL). This paper explores how alternative meanings and understandings of RL emerge through the language leaders use. Using discourse analysis of speechmaking at COP26, we show how different leadership actors (politicians and climate activists) engage in sensemaking when constructing an RL discourse. We find that RL emerges in the ways in which leaders talk about separation versus unification of plan and action, chronological versus existential time, and individualistic-anthropocentric versus collective-ecocentric understanding of responsibility. We show that RL originates neither in the virtuous qualities of the leader nor in the social interactions and relations that the leader cultivates with stakeholders, but in the meaning-making practice worlds they inhabit. We discuss the theoretical relevance of these findings for developing an alternative sensemaking of responsible leadership outside the traditional business and corporate sphere.

Introduction

At the time of writing, catastrophic floods in Spain have resulted in over 200 fatalities and damage across communities. This event, like other grand societal challenges (GSCs), highlighted the growing social and political pressures on corporations, states and governments to be responsible (Schoeneborn et al., 2022; Voegtlin et al., 2022), in which leaders play a fundamental role (Grint, 2024; Tourish, 2020). In response to these pressures, the concept of responsible leadership (RL) has gained attention as a leadership approach that emphasises care and ethical commitment to societal and environmental wellbeing (Pless et al., 2012; Voegtlin et al., 2020; Waldman et al., 2020).

To date, RL has predominantly been discussed in the context of the tension between the corporate sphere and society (Winkler et al., 2020). Consequently, theorising has centred almost exclusively on business leadership (Johnson, 2018; Tirmizi, 2023). The literature is largely silent on the relevance of RL at national and global levels (Tirmizi, 2023). Since addressing GSCs pose entrenched issues that far exceed the corporate realm spanning natural, social and political environments (Roulet and Bothello, 2022), there is scope to expand RL theorising beyond organisational and business contexts (Tirmizi, 2023). Moreover, RL is often treated as a fixed set of virtuous qualities (Maak and Pless, 2009), behaviours (Maak and Pless, 2006), a belief system or a mindset (Waldman et al., 2020) rather than as a socially constructed and contested phenomenon that emerges through relations and interactions (Meliou et al., 2021). Expanding RL theorising thus requires attention to how a wide range of leadership actors ¹ ‘inside and outside formal leadership roles’ (Fairhurst and Uhl-Bien, 2012: 1044), construct responsibility in ways that shape action at local, national, international, and multiple levels (Voegtlin et al., 2022), Such recognition has the potential to reveal multiple, often conflicting, meanings around RL that are significant to understanding interpretations around what is responsible and the consequences of these interpretations (Maitlis and Christianson, 2014).

In this paper, we examine how RL is made sense of by various leadership actors by analysing speechmaking at COP26 ² , a critical multilateral forum where leadership roles are more fluid and where competing understandings of responsibility are made visible. COP26, held in 2021 as the first major global event after the pandemic, provided a valuable context for exploring how leaders from corporations, states, governments, and communities articulate RL in response to GSCs. Additionally, COP26 was one of the bigger summits organised every 5 years for nations to update their national climate plans, making it the first of its kind since 2015. Its significance was evidenced by the profile and diversity of attendees. Unlike typical COPs, which feature state representatives like ministers or experts, COP26 attracted many heads of state. It also saw a notable increase in the presence of community leaders, activists, and representatives from civil society compared to many previous COPs, since there was a stronger emphasis on just transition and local-level solutions, alongside heightened public and media scrutiny that pushed for greater inclusivity. With these qualities, COP26 provided broader access to leadership discourses.

Our contribution is twofold. First, we extend RL research beyond the corporate domain by examining how multiple leadership actors construct responsibility in the context of GSCs. Second, using a discursive sensemaking approach, we show how RL emerges through competing linguistic repertoires that shape understandings of both leadership and responsibility. Specifically, we identify two distinctive discourses and three representations of RL, demonstrating how tensions between separation versus unification of plan and action, chronological versus existential time, and individualistic-anthropocentric versus collective-ecocentric responsibility shape RL constructions. Our findings reveal that RL is not a singular construct, but a contested process shaped by discourse.

To proceed, we first provide an overview of RL scholarship before presenting our sensemaking perspective to extend theorising. We then outline our methodological approach and analyse how RL is constructed through speechmaking at COP26. Finally, we discuss the theoretical significance of our findings and conclude with reflections on future research directions.

Theoretical background

Responsible leadership scholarship

Although states and communities in the Global South contribute the least to environmental degradation, they are disproportionately affected by the impact of the grand challenge of the climate crisis (Jimenez-Luque, 2024). This disparity has heightened expectations for corporations, states and governments, particularly their leaders, to be more cosmopolitan and contribute to a just and sustainable global society (Maak and Pless, 2009). Existing research broadly agrees that leadership studies need to recognise leaders’ responsibility and accountability toward others, whether that be individual people, animate beings (e.g., animals) or more inanimate objects or systems (e.g., an organisation or the environment), even though leaders may differ by degree in their perceptions of their responsibility towards these entities (Pless et al., 2012). Recognising leaders' responsibility towards broader stakeholder values, beyond their shareholders (Doh and Quigley, 2014; Tsui, 2021), has created a rich research field investigating RL to promote environmental stewardship (Miska and Mendenhall, 2018).

Building on this, Voegtlin (2016) argues that RL is not merely a distinct leadership style but a fundamental dimension of leadership itself. His conceptualisation highlights three key aspects that make RL particularly suited to addressing GSCs such as the climate crisis: (a) RL is inherently relational, emerging through interactions between leaders and diverse stakeholders; (b) it emphasises the long-term societal implications of actions; and (c) it promotes shared problem-solving and collective responsibility rather than remaining leader-centred.

With these characteristics, RL provides a useful framework for studying leadership in the climate crisis, which involves complex, interdependent risks across environmental, social, and political dimensions (Pless et al., 2022) and underscores stakeholder interconnectedness (Stahl and Sully De Luque, 2014), including with the natural environment (Driscoll and Starik, 2004). By embedding leaders’ ethical obligations to address GSCs, RL helps explain how leadership emerges in contexts demanding shared accountability. This applies both in contexts where leadership roles are formalised and accepted as part of a political or organisational system but also where alternative forms of leadership that are more informal, distributed and networked are enacted such as in ‘leaderless’ social movements (Western, 2014) which ultimately become ‘leader-full’ organisations, enhancing climate action (Fotaki and Foroughi, 2022). RL thus supports collective deliberation and meaning-making, recognising the agency of all leadership actors and fostering accountability (Sutherland et al., 2014).

A key perspective in RL scholarship, virtue ethics, focuses on leaders’ values, orientation, and mindset. Through this lens, scholars have identified qualities such as ethical intelligence (Maak and Pless, 2006), authenticity (Freeman and Auster, 2012), and a cosmopolitan ethos (Maak and Pless, 2009). These qualities are thought to shape leaders’ influence over followers (Han et al., 2019), ultimately determining an organisation’s responsible orientation and behaviour. However, this perspective conflates leaders, particularly senior leaderss, with their organisations, emphasising their role in ‘revitalizing humanism on a global scale’ (Maak and Pless, 2009: 543). Empirically, it also risks treating senior leaders as a homogeneous group, overlooking variability in responsible leadership practices across an organisation (Waldman et al., 2020).

A stakeholder perspective shifts RL away from leader-centric understandings, framing it as a relational and interactional process between leaders and stakeholders (Tirmizi, 2023). It extends beyond traditional leader-follower relationships (James and Priyadarshini, 2021), emphasising the quality of relationships within and outside the organisation (e.g., Maak and Pless, 2006; Pless and Maak, 2011). This perspective recognises that leaders are embedded in complex relations involving employees, shareholders, and customers (James and Priyadarshini, 2021) as well as broader communities and environments (Han et al., 2019). They use their relational intelligence (Maak and Pless, 2006), relational competence (Tirmizi, 2023) and relational transparency (Taştan and Davoudi, 2019) to enable positive stakeholder interactions (Nicholson and Kurucz, 2019). By building strong relationships with stakeholders, fostering collaboration, and engaging in shared problem-solving, responsible leaders develop the capability to navigate complexity and volatility inherent in GSCs (Tirmizi, 2023). However, this perspective continues to emphasise an individual leader’s relational behaviour – what they do for stakeholders, for example, through weaving, cultivating and facilitating relational processes (Maak and Pless, 2006) with a collaborative and consensus orientation (Tirmizi, 2023). In this sense, while the value of shared processes and stakeholder engagement are acknowledged (e.g., Tirmizi, 2023), the leader remains central (e.g., Waldman and Balven, 2014). This leader-centred framing is precisely what environmental social movements challenge, questioning the notion of leadership as tied to a single individual (Sutherland et al., 2014).

Both the virtue-ethics and stakeholder perspectives, whether explicitly or implicitly, assume that an understanding of responsibility pre-exists—either as an intrinsic quality of the leader (Maak and Pless, 2009) or as something revealed through dialogue with stakeholders (Nicholson and Kurucz, 2019). This assumption is problematic given the complexity, diversity, and evolving nature of GSCs. While Tirmizi (2023) acknowledges that leaders must adapt to new information and changing contexts, their study does not fully explore how responsibility itself is shaped through stakeholder interactions, where collective concerns and expectations influence what is perceived as RL.

An emergentist perspective (Meliou et al., 2021), addresses this gap, arguing that responsibility in RL emerges from shared and nested concerns shaped by the social, regulatory, and commercial contexts in which leaders operate. This approach, rooted in social constructionism, examines how relationships inform what is considered ‘responsible’ for the other/Other ³ (De Gama et al., 2012). It significantly broadens the concept of responsibility to include an ethic of care (Meliou et al., 2021; Mussel, 2016), when engaging in RL as a broader shared, collective and communicative endeavour (Voegtlin, 2016). Gram-Hanssen (2021) extends this idea by conceptualising RL as a process of ‘individual-collective simultaneity’, where leadership emerges relationally within the collective while still depending on individual contributions toward equitable and sustainable futures. These leadership practices are fluid, evolving with changing contexts, and may not always be recognised as leadership in conventional terms (Western, 2014). Yet, they reflect the need for individuals to engage in leadership roles while remaining accountable to the shared goals of the collective (Fotaki and Foroughi, 2022; Sutherland et al., 2014).

Insights from other leadership literature further help us understand how social influence processes (Uhl-Bien, 2006) contribute to RL’s emergence through discursive engagement (Raelin, 2016) and how knowledge development enables leaders to influence debates in more dynamic and reciprocal ways (Carberry et al., 2019). Building on this, our paper adopts an emergentist approach, exploring how language contributes to the emergence of the meaning of ‘responsible’ and ‘responsible leadership’. Two implications arise from this. First, this perspective views responsibility and RL as emerging from discursive accounts, which shape thought and action (Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2015). This is a dynamic process in which multiple actors co-create meaning through sensemaking and sensegiving. Recognising the plurality in RL’s discursive construction ontologically separates ‘leadership’ from ‘the leader.’ This distinction leads to our second implication; we conceptualise RL as communicatively constituted amongst multiple (leadership) actors, where responsibility is articulated through narratives that guide action (Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2015: S15). In the following section, we examine how these narratives emerge.

Leadership as management of meaning – sensemaking perspectives

Sutherland (2018) argues that leadership is constituted through meaning-making, both intersubjectively—via the language a speaker employs—and extrasubjectively, through broader discourses that shape social understandings of leadership. The concept of leadership as the management of meaning (Smircich and Morgan, 1982) highlights how, through sensemaking processes, individuals assign meaning to behaviours deemed necessary in specific circumstances (Bruner, 1990), providing cues for action (Weick, 1995) and fostering a shared understanding of those actions (Czarniawska, 1997). For example, analyses of tropes in political leaders’ speeches (Adebomi, 2023) illustrate how ‘presidential discourse’ is strategically crafted to shape others’ sensemaking (Gioia and Chittipedi, 1991) and to influence public debate to achieve political objectives (Calderwood, 2019). In this regard, framing, narrating, and communicating do not merely describe RL but actively constitute its meaning, providing the ‘ground’ for its performance (Sutherland, 2018).

Sandberg and Tsoukas (2020) offer a valuable typology that differentiates modes of sensemaking based on the extent to which actors are absorbed in the situations they seek to interpret. They distinguish four types—immanent, involved-deliberate, detached-deliberate, and representational—each varying in how sensemaking is distanced from action in practical/contextual, temporal, bodily, and discursive terms. Immanent sensemaking involves grasping an evolving situation through direct, practical, and immediate engagement, where sense and action are fused. At the other end of the spectrum, representational sensemaking is primarily intellectual and conceptual, detached from practice, with sense and action separated. (Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2020). The different types of sensemaking suggest that different actors are likely to interpret (and shape) the scope of RL in addressing the climate crisis in varied ways. Exploring how RL ‘emerges’ through the framing and communication of what is deemed responsible thus presents a valuable avenue for empirical research.

From this perspective, high-profile rhetorical events such as COP26 serve as arenas in which leaders deploy ‘CEO speak’ to influence stakeholders’ ethical or unethical behaviour (Armenic and Craig, 2022) through sensemaking and sensegiving processes. While a detailed analysis of individual speech is beyond our scope, previous research has shown how leaders strategically craft their rhetoric – for example, by evoking emotion (pathos), establishing credibility (ethos), and appealing to reason (logos) (Adebomi, 2023) – to persuade specific audiences. Such rhetorical strategies rely on the assumption that audiences will recognise the speaker’s intent and feel compelled to act; for instance, by aligning their beliefs with the speaker’s (Bach and Harnish, 1979, in Lazuka, 2006). Indeed, the aspiration to influence an audience is often cited as a primary motivation for engaging in discourse (Grosz and Sidner, 1986).

Yet, implied in their individual speech is an assumption of a degree of shared understanding between the speaker and the audience. At summits such as COP, this may be a reasonable expectation. However, as Isaacs (1999) observes, an expressed common purpose does not necessarily equate to a shared understanding of that purpose. For such understanding to emerge, participants must engage with what he terms the three transcendentals: the true (logos: the language of meaning), the good (ethos: the language of power and action), and the beautiful (pathos: the language of feeling and aesthetics). Looked at in this light, a sensemaking perspective can reveal the multiplicity of contested, conflicting, and evolving interpretations of what constitutes ‘responsible’ leadership. Rather than erasing these tensions, RL discourse must acknowledge and engage with them; constructing a collective sense that accommodates ongoing contestation while building alignment around shared issues and purposes that can guide emerging views and actions for RL (Hartley and Stansfield, 2021).

Research design

We adopted a ‘language in use’ approach through discourse analysis to examine ‘talk and texts as instances of social practice’ (Grant et al., 2004: 9) of RL. Discourses shape how people understand phenomena (Phillips and Hardy, 1997) by ‘ruling in’ certain acceptable ways of speaking or behaving while ‘ruling out’ other ways (Hall, 2001: 72). Unlike other text-based methods, discourse analysis reveals the contrasting elements within discursive accounts, focusing on how different actors construct versions of social reality through language. This makes it particularly relevant for studying responsible leadership (RL), as it often involves navigating contradictions (Fairhurst and Putnam, 2019) such as balancing ethical duties with financial goals or short-term needs with long-term sustainability. Moreover, different leadership actors – whether corporate, political, or climate leaders –, interpret responsibility and leadership differently due to their varying positions in social structures. By examining these varied interpretations through discourse analysis, we can study RL as a communicative, socially constructed process (Schnurr and Schroeder, 2019), shaped by the interaction of discourse, text, and action (Phillips et al., 2004).

Corpus building

One of the first steps in discourse analysis is creating a ‘corpus’ – a carefully selected body of texts that represents a specific language variety (Baker et al., 2006). Following Neumann (2008), who argues that the anchor points of discourse are contained in a relatively limited number of texts, we identified our corpus as the speeches in the COP26 and Fringe Conferences.

In total, 204 country leaders and representatives of supranational organisations spoke during COP26, and five activists were invited to speak at the opening ceremony. In addition, over 1500 fringe events were listed through the COP Fringe Portal (climatefringe.org). Given the vast size of this corpus, we used a stratified random sampling strategy (Sönning and Krug, 2022) to create a sub-sample amenable to detailed, qualitative analysis. In this strategy, the speeches are grouped at the speaker level (the language producers) to ensure enough speakers from different subgroups (i.e., climate leaders from diverse realms of political and community leadership across the world) are included for capturing all significant categories of experiences ⁴ .

The transcripts of speeches were retrieved from the web and categorised into three groups: (1) politicians from G20 countries and intergovernmental/supranational organisations; (2) politicians from affected nations and tiny islands; and (3) climate activists, citizen Others, who are not speaking on behalf of a government or an organisation. These three groups of speakers, owing to their different positions within established power structures, articulate distinct viewpoints on leadership responsibility. Their discursive positioning enables us to juxtapose dominant interpretations, such as those of G20 politicians, with more marginalised perspectives, such as those of climate activists, capturing the ways power shapes meaning (Fairhurst and Putnam, 2019), and thereby affecting the interpretations and narratives that emerge with respect to leadership responsibility (Schildt et al., 2020).

Some transcripts were unavailable (62 speeches) from the COP26 website, and some were not published in English (22 speeches). To avoid the double interpretation of translation, we selected speeches with English transcripts. However, all speeches from South America were published only in Spanish (14 speeches). These were translated with Google Translate and checked and corrected by a Spanish speaker on the research team with native proficiency. Transcripts of speeches from the climate fringe events were sourced by following publicised links. Speeches were included in the corpus for selection as detailed in Table 1:

Table 1.

Corpus of speeches available for sampling.

Corpus	Size	Selected number of speeches per category
Speeches at the COP Summit	204	20 G20 leaders	8 opening ceremonies	5 climate activists	82 affected nations	62 not uploaded	32 not G20 or primary affected nations (e.g., Europe)
					60 English
					14 Spanish
					8 Other languages
Speeches at the Fringe Events a	1500	These were listed across a wide range of directories and were not categorised or publicised by national affiliation

^aAround each COP, a large amount of ‘fringe’ events are organised and held by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses, academic institutions, and advocacy groups. These events occur alongside the main COP negotiations, and therefore, are not official events but aim to complement the formal proceedings by allowing broader participation of different voices and showcasing diverse approaches to climate action.

The sample was then constructed in three stages. First, of the total speeches by G20 leaders (20 speeches), a stratified random selection was made by selecting a speech from each of the six continents and adding additional speeches to ensure gender balance. The resulting sample included eight speeches (40%). In this first group, we also included opening ceremony speeches from state leaders and leaders of intergovernmental organisations and supranational institutions, as these speeches set the tone of COP26 (8 speeches), taking the total in this group to 16. Secondly, available speeches of the leaders of affected nations (74 in total – 60 in English and 14 translated from Spanish) were similarly categorised by continent, using four categories as these were the primarily affected nations: Asia Pacific, South America, Africa and Island Nations and a sample of circa 25% was stratified. The resulting sample had 20 speeches (27%) (Group 2). Finally, it was not possible to fully quantify the total number of activist speeches since many participated in events, meetings and activities outside the official 3-day COP26 Summit as part of the Climate Fringe Festival. Therefore, the sample for the activist speeches was chosen from the Opening Ceremony (5 speeches) and then expanded to match the other sample sizes. The resulting sample had 19 speeches (Group 3). Table 2 lists the speeches in the sample:

Table 2.

Sample selection.

Group 1: G20 Leaders (out of 20) & Opening Ceremony (out of 8)	Group 2: Affected Nations Leaders (out of 74 available in English or Spanish)	Group 3: Climate Activists (out of 1500 available)
Total included: 8 a + 8	Total included: 20	Total included: 19
Australia – Scott Morrisson, Prime Minister	Angola – Joao Laurenco – President	b David Attenborough
Brazil – Joaquim Leite – Minister of the Environment	Bangladesh – Sheikh Hasina – Prime Minister	b Ysra Daley-Ward
Canada – Justin Trudeau – Prime Minister	Brunei – Suhaimi Gafar – Minister of Development	b Brianna Fruean
China – Xi Jinping – President	Cambodia – Say Samal – Deputy Prime Minister	b Txai Surui
EU – Ursula Von Der Leyen – President of the Commission & EU	Ecuador c – Guillermo Lasso Mendoza – President	b Elizabeth Wathuti
Charles Michel – President of the Council	El Salvador c – Fernando Andres Lopes Larreynaga- Minister of Environment and Natural Resources	d Xiye Bastide
India – Narendra Modi – Prime Minister	Eswatini – Cleopas Sipho Eswatini – Prime Minister	d Mikaela Loach
South Africa – Barbara Dalla Creecy – Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment	Gambia- Isatou Touray – Vice President	d Patience Nabukalu
Turkey – Murat Kurum- Minister for Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change	Honduras c – Juan Orlando Hernandez – President	d Vanessa Nakate
b Barbados – Mia Amor Mottley – Prime Minister	Jordan – King Abdullah II	d Greta Thunberg
b Italy – Mario Draghi – Prime Minister	Liberia - George Manneh Weah – President	e Serena Bashal
b UK – Alok Sharma – President for COP26	Mauritius – Pravind Jugnauth – Prime Minister	e Nisreen Elsaim
b UK – Boris Johnson- Prime Minister	Nepal – Sher Bahadur Deuba – Prime Minister	e Hajar Kahn Lishi
b UK – Prince Charles	Pacific SIDs – Bruce Bilimon - Minister of Health and Human Services, The Republic of The Marshall Islands	e India Logan Riley
b UN – Antonio Guterres – Secretary General	Rwanda – Edouard Ngirente – Prime Minister	e Carla Meleno
b UNFCCC – Patricia Espinosa – Executive Secretary	Singapore – Grace Fu – Minister for Sustainability and the Environment	e Ori Molloy Ayola Olufemi
b USA – Joe Biden – President	South Sudan – Josephine Napwon Cosmos – Minister for the Environment	e Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim
	Tuvalu – Kausea Natano – Prime Minister	e Vijay Prashard
	Venezuela c – Josue Alejandro Lorca Vega – Minister of Popular Power for Ecosocialism	e Vinisha Umanshankar
	Zambia – Hakiende Hichelima – President

^aMore speeches included to ensure representation across continents and a gender balance.

^bOpening Ceremony Speeches.

^cThese speeches were translated from Spanish and checked by a fluent speaker from the research team as all speeches from South America were published in Spanish.

^dSourced via Google Search.

^eSourced via YouTube.

Data analysis

We employed integrative discourse analysis methodology, which combines grounded theory with discourse analysis (Fairhurst and Putnam, 2019) to move from textual manifestations of the studied phenomenon to higher levels of abstraction. Fairhurst and Putnam’s (2019) integrative methodology is intended to help researchers identify oppositions and tensions in discursive constructions, going beyond what a traditional discourse analysis would reveal, making this methodology suitable to capture different meanings of RL. The analysis unfolded in three stages:

Step 1: Spotting repertoires

The first and second authors coded the speeches line-by-line to examine the language-in-use, ‘little “d” discourse’ (Fairhurst and Putnam, 2019: 921) by focusing on the choices of words and tropes (Adebomi, 2023). This revealed codes such as ‘goal, plan, strategy, framework, control’ for G20 and other state and international leaders. For the activists, the codes included ‘action, now, I have, Earth’. Once we curated a ‘laundry list’ of codes, in the second step, we used thematic patterning to group codes into broader categories (Fairhurst and Putnam, 2019). For example, ‘goal, plan, target, result’ were grouped under ‘planning vernacular’, while ‘time horizon’ included ‘by 20XX, now, in X years’. To achieve inter-coder reliability, we used collaborative coding (Krippendorff, 2004) and bi-weekly meetings during solo coding to resolve differences.

Step 2: Generating points of contrast

The four authors analysed the themes and used constant comparison technique between the ‘discourse’ repertories to generate points of contrast to identify the ‘Discourses’ and the clash between them (Fairhurst and Putnam, 2019). This stage revealed two primary discursive categories – Politician and Activist. Although some overlap occurred between the two, where some activists occasionally used features of the Politician Discourse, such as ‘targets’ and ‘budgets’, and vice versa, these two categories captured the dominant patterns. To our surprise, the affected nations leaders (Group 2) also mobilised the same discursive features as the G20 leaders in Group 1 and coalesced under the Politician Discourse.

Thus, while the dataset represented three distinct groups of speakers, only two contrasting Discourses remained that pointed towards a set of contrasts. For example, the Politician Discourse had a noun-heavy language, as captured under the theme of ‘planning vernacular’ in Step 1, detaching responsibility from the realm of action. Such use of language contrasted with the Activist Discourse, which employed dynamic verbs, such as ‘planting trees, growing fruit, working together, generating novel solutions’, that connected responsibility to immediate action. Focusing on grammatical structures revealed other oppositions; for example, the present-centred language of the Activist Discourse that was oriented towards a temporality portraying responsibility in the living present, in contrast to the Politician Discourse that constructed responsibility as causal events taking place in linear time (past or future) in the chronological counting of moments. Emotional language was another way to get at points of contrast (Fairhurst and Putnam, 2019) when we noticed that the Activist Discourse freely expressed emotion through a more visceral language while the Politician Discourse had a more scholastic language.

Step 3: Developing theoretical categories

In the final stage, we developed more abstract theoretical categories, which we used to organise our findings in the next section. This process was centred around ‘casing’ the data using alternative theoretical frameworks informed by our iterative engagement with the literature (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012). We iterated back and forth between data analysis and literature on sensemaking, specifically the work of Sandberg and Tsoukas (2020), which served as a ‘sensitising notion’ (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012: 173) that illuminated different aspects of the data. It is important to note that sensitising notions did not ‘determine the scope of perceivable findings’ (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012: 173) since we did not use the literature as a priori categories to impose explanations before the discourses and their points of contrasts have been understood from within. The data structure resulting from this three-tiered analysis is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Data structure.

To ensure the validity of our analysis, we followed Georgaca and Avdi’s (2012) quality criteria for discourse analysis. First, we ensured internal coherence by constructing consistent repertoires. The stratified sampling strategy allowed us to adjust the sample size as needed until we reached a coherent explanation. However, this was not required, as a paucity of new information was reached after analysing the selected speeches, indicative of coherence and congruence. Second, we maintained rigour by actively seeking and discussing contradictions through negative case analysis (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Finally, we made our research process transparent by grounding our findings in illustrative examples from the data, provided in Appendix A1 to A3.

Findings

When structuring themes, two dominant discourses emerged: Politician Discourse and Activist Discourse. As noted above, these labels represent the dominant speaker group reflected in each discourse, though crossovers between groups were present, with some leaders employing elements from both. In these two discourses, three distinctive representations of RL were identified concerning (1) connecting sense and action when engaging with RL (separation/unification of plan and action), (2) constructing and understanding temporality , specifically time horizons in understanding responsibility (chronological vs existential time), and (3) the scope of responsible leadership practices when exercising RL agency (individualistic-anthropocentric vs collective-ecocentric understanding of responsibility).

Connecting sense and action in RL

Findings suggest that politician and activist discourses construct different relationships between the sense given to RL and RL action in the context of the climate crisis. Politician discourse, driven by the intention of inspiring credibility, suggests a sense of disconnect between sense and action, given the static and detached spectatorial qualities evident in their discursive construction of responsibility. In contrast, in activist discourse, the intention is to provoke action by using a more emotive repertoire; here, sense and action are simultaneous and unified. Considering that individuals and organisations act based on their sensemaking, we can expect the more representational sensemaking in politician discourse to lead to different ways of engaging with RL than activists who exhibit a more involved type of sensemaking. Appendix A1 overviews the unique linguistic repertoire of the two discourses.

In politician discourse, a planning vernacular is evident which revolves around static nouns denoting a fixed and structured framework to communicate responsibility. Examples include devising ‘a robust framework of rules’, ‘protocols’ and ‘commitments’ that are universally understood and agreed upon by all Parties. RL is presented as the power to act by exerting influence over the ‘emission reduction targets’, ‘cost targets’, ‘climate finance goals’, the ability to develop a ‘long-term strategy’ and ‘regional and local action plans on climate change’, and the capacity to ‘mobilise the necessary resources to achieve the desired goals’, to ‘find an intelligent way to spend the private money available and spend them quickly’ and to ‘track the progress made in climate mitigation’ and ‘track climate finance’.

These frameworks are then used to guide the performance of RL action through a logic of compliance to the demands in the framework:

‘We are doing more than our fair share… The Gambia’s updated nationally determined contributions is recognised by Climate Action Tracker as a fundamental commitment to reducing global temperature rise to 1.5 ^o C’. (Isatou Touray, Gambia, Vice-President)

Whilst these frameworks are pronounced authoritatively, they are communicated through a more ‘scholastic’ language. The climate crisis is interpreted as a logical, intellectual problem that can be made sense of in an abstract way with a thorough understanding of ‘scientific data’ on ‘carbon emissions’, projections about ‘global warming trends’, cumulative ‘economic loss and damage’ and total investment to be deployed to address it. The intentions here are to demonstrate that leaders can be trusted to make ethical decisions (ethos) and that their proposed actions have a logic (logos). However, making sense of responsibility through such decontextualised features of climate crisis detaches RL from the specific locations or the diverse experiences across different communities.

‘We can phase out the use of cars with hydrocarbon internal combustion engines – by 2035... We can end the use of coal fired power stations… We can plant hundreds of millions of trees, a trillion, it’s not technologically difficult and [will] halt and reverse deforestation by 2030.’ (Boris Johnson, United Kingdom, Prime Minister)

In the quote above, the sense given to RL becomes representational because it has become an abstract object of discussion with no situational features that would ground it in a local context. The responsible leader is discursively positioned as an external, objective/neutral spectator who lacks direct, involved experience of the situation they are making sense of. In this respect, in politician discourse sense and action are separated. Arguably, making representational sense from a spectatorial viewpoint involves action, such as obtaining and declaring the figures, assessing them against benchmarks, and setting the measures taken to mitigate the discrepancy between the two. However, the language used detaches responsible leadership action from its local context, where practical accomplishments would have been visible.

In activist discourse RL is presented as an absorbed practice that involves keeping in tune and coping with the climate crisis by gradually developing a pragmatic sense of what is responsible and possible, emphasising the importance of acting.

‘Promises will not stop the suffering of the people, pledges will not stop the climate from warming, only immediate and drastic action will pull us back from the abyss.’ (Vanessa Nakate, Youth Activist)

In this type of sensemaking, responsibility is understood and interpreted as concrete, signalled by dynamic and active verbs denoting practical accomplishments.

‘Every time we have people doing their best, all of the possible and a little bit of the impossible to actually make things work.’ (Nisreen Elsaim, Youth Activist)

Furthermore, findings point towards the use of visceral language invoking emotions as activists talk about the ‘animals and people dying’, the ‘children crying’, and the ’Pacific youth fighting’ as they reflect on the ‘suffering’, ‘starvation’, ‘struggle’, and ‘heartbreak’. Providing emotion through speech contrasts with the method of influence evident in politician discourse that relies on factual language for logical appeal. By drawing on emotions, activist discourse suggests that the leader is deeply engaged with the situation so that the boundary between them and the context they are interpreting dissolves. It emphasises that sensemaking is more than a cognitive understanding and draws on pathos to appeal to others’ emotions using personalised narratives. RL is made sense of as a deeply embodied and situated activity, where the understanding of leadership responsibility and its performance are intertwined.

‘I have asked myself over and over what words might move you. And then I realised…my story will only move you if you can open up your heart. I cannot urge you to act at the pace and scale necessary… Your will to act must come from deep within. I need to tell you what is happening in my home country.’ (Elizabeth Wathuti, Youth Activist)

The emphasis on absorbed practice in activist discourse suggests taking responsibility without waiting to have all elements of the plan, all resources needed, and all roles and remits clarified before acting. In their sensemaking, activists, unencumbered by the desire to devise a universal framework to shape the scope of responsible action, act on the insight and assets available to them now at a local level with an awareness of the situational features of the unfolding climate crisis. Consequently, sense and action merge, fusing the sensemaker and the situation. Activists are no longer consciously reflecting on the context in a detached or abstract way. Instead, they are fully immersed, acting intuitively and responsively based on their contextual sensemaking of the evolving situation.

Constructing and understanding temporality in RL

Findings suggest that leaders’ engagement with the climate crisis is temporally constituted in that their perception of responsible action unfolds in and through time. These temporal features are communicated through discursive features that either emphasise a chronological, linear understanding of time, where past and future guide present actions, or suggest a more existential, present-centred awareness. Appendix A2 outlines how temporality is illustrated in the speeches.

The temporal dimension of the climate crisis might be expected to inject a sense of urgency into leaders’ sensemaking; it is imminent and takes place simultaneously with COP26. On the one hand, politicians’ speeches reflect this immediacy, expressing a desire to generate action in the present:

‘It’s one minute to midnight on the doomsday clock, and we need to act now. If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it’ll be too late for our children to get serious about it tomorrow.’ (Boris Johnson, United Kingdom, Prime Minister)

On the other hand, the language remains tethered to a discourse of past data, present plans and future goals. This reflects a reliance on chronological time whereby the temporal continuum is split into regions of past, present, and future. Politician discourse positions RL within a linear continuum, allowing retrospective reflection and prospective planning of responsibility towards the climate crisis. First, retrospective analysis establishes historical accountability for RL. Past progress is reflected upon to explain present challenges, thereby crafting narratives that assign responsibility through causal linkages between past and present:

‘Climate finance to frontline SIDS [small island developing states] declined by 25% in 2019. Failure to provide this critical finance…is measured in lives and livelihoods being lost in our communities.’ (Mia Amor Mottley, Barbados, Prime Minister)

Second, prospective analysis is used to project and plan future commitments. Future expectations of RL performances are framed in relation to present action plans, drawing a linear trajectory against which progress can be evaluated in later COP Summits. By outlining a path from the present to the future, temporality provides a distinct rhythm to direct future enactment of RL.

‘We fully subscribe to the achievement of SDG7 on clean and affordable energy for all by 2030, and net zero emissions by 2050.’ (Bruce Bilimon, The Republic of the Marshall Islands, Health Minister)

In this way, in politician discourse, time is employed as an analytical tool that enables structuring a sense of leadership responsibility both retrospectively, by examining past actions, and prospectively, by forecasting future outcomes.

‘Climate change is…costing our nations trillions of dollars. Record heat and drought are fuelling more widespread and more intense wildfires in some places and crop failures in others… But within the growing catastrophe…we have the ability to invest in ourselves and build an equitable clean-energy future and in the process create millions of good-paying jobs and opportunities around the world.’ (Joe Biden, United States of America, President)

In contrast to this chronological and analytical sensemaking of temporal framing of RL action, activist discourse suggests an existential sensemaking grounded in immediate lived experience. This discourse focuses on the ongoing, contemporaneous engagement with responsibility for mitigating the climate crisis, rooted in the present tense where past and future intersect with the current moment. Activists themselves become a bridge across these temporal domains, making their sensemaking inextricably tied to their personal existence.

‘When we talk about the impact of the climate crisis on future generations, we speak of them as if those generations were not here, but we’re present. By 2050, I’ll be 48 years old, and when I look out of the window, I’ll see the world you’re negotiating right now.’ (Xiye Bastide, Youth Activist)

This existential engagement with time reflects a present-centred awareness in the here and now that actively delves with the immediate, lived experience of the climate crisis. Responsibility is not a distant goal to be achieved. A lived, felt urgency guides RL action in the present moment.

‘Right now, as we sit comfortably here in this conference centre in Glasgow, over two million of my fellow Kenyans are facing climate related starvation.’ (Elizabeth Wathuti, Youth Activist)

In the statement above, there is no deferral to the past or projection of the future; there is only the urgency of the now. With this sense of urgency, the sensemaking of RL becomes dynamic, akin to a ‘living story’, filled with experiences, and a continuous unfolding as new events shape their understanding and practice of RL. The intention is to establish a shared ethic based on these experiences, which are inherently existential.

‘Nine million people, dying every year from breathing toxic air, from fossil fuel driven air pollution, don’t have time to wait for oil, gas and coal to be phased out.’ (Vanessa Nakate, Youth Activist)

Exercising RL agency

We found that leadership actors differed in their perceptions of where the agency resides to take RL action. These perceptions are communicated through discursive features that emphasise the focus on individual agency of specific people in formal positions, or a linguistic repertoire that contextualises individual RL actions in wider textures of community practices and assets. Appendix A3 summarises points of contrast we revealed through data analysis.

In the politician discourse, responsible leadership (RL) is framed as the exclusive domain of world leaders. Leadership agency is concentrated within the individual leader, who is positioned as a decision-maker operating from a higher authority to influence outcomes, often detached from the daily experiences and input of citizens and communities they represent. Responsibility for addressing the climate crisis is thus seen as the prerogative of this elite group of leaders.

‘When will we as world leaders address the pressing issues that are cause [sic] our people to worry ..? When will leaders lead?... What the world needs now is less than 200 persons who are willing and prepared to lead!! Leaders must not fail those who elect them to lead.’ (Mia Amor Mottley, Barbados, Prime Minister, our emphasis )

The ‘we’ in Mottley’s statement is an exclusive leader, ‘fellow leaders’, in that it presents the climate crisis as a responsibility that lies primarily within the hands of an elite group of world leaders, who are seen as possessing the unique capacity to take action. This collective responsibility, however, is framed in a way that reinforces detachment of leaders from broader society – intellectually, emotionally, and sometimes physically (e.g., in the COP summit). The call for action is directed at a small, powerful group of individuals, further solidifying the notion that RL is the domain of a few, rather than a shared responsibility across society. In this way, RL becomes about wielding authority from an elevated, symbolic status to claim the power of acting ethically:

‘I know all of us in this room want to be on the right side of history. This is why I call on all of us to do what is necessary for keeping the limit of 1,5°C warming within reach. This is our opportunity to write history.’ (Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission, President)

Furthermore, the responsibility for action is framed as contingent on all nations taking action, implying that RL is only meaningful if undertaken by all nations in unison. Even in the face of a global crisis, individual leaders often prioritise national interests, reinforcing a notion of RL that is primarily directed toward their immediate stakeholders:

‘Our carbon price trajectory is…designed not just to make life cleaner, but also make life more affordable and less expensive for Canadians.’ (Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister, Canada)

RL action is narrowly defined as meeting pre-defined commitments for pre-defined stakeholders. Meeting these commitments becomes the benchmark of RL, where success is measured by the degree of alignment between promised and realised outcomes:

‘Our installation of renewables is eight times faster than the global rate and three times faster than some of the most advanced economies. We have already reduced emissions by more than 20% since 2005. We are ahead of the pack.’ (Scott Morrison, Australia, Prime Minister)

Some politicians describe their leader(ship) responsibility more broadly. In the quote above, we see that Trudeau perceives his primary responsibility towards the Canadians. But some politicians take a more expansive interpretation of RL in recognising their responsibility towards the developing nations, like Joe Biden or Scott Morrison, who talk about ‘climate finance support for developing countries’ and ‘our Pacific family…and partners’. Some other politicians consider the interests of present and future generations. However, the anthropocentric sensemaking of leadership responsibility is evident. Humans are still at the centre of moral consideration of RL. Consequently, responsibility towards the environment becomes a trade-off between human-centric interests and the integrity of the environment.

‘Singapore will work with all Parties…to identify pragmatic solutions to achieve a credible and balanced package…that meets the needs of all Parties, while safeguarding environmental integrity.’ (Grace Fu, Singapore, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment)

In activist discourse, we observe a shift towards collective RL, moving away from the notion that responsibility for the climate crisis rests solely on individuals occupying formal leadership positions. The frequent use of inclusive ‘we’ in their speeches, including the addressee, suggests a broader interpretation of RL, where all are invited to take action.

‘We use our Indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge as a tool to protect nature… We have the map. We know where we are going, and we know how to drive. So give us the keys.’ (Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Indigenous Activist)

As the quote above suggests, this inclusive ‘we’ reinforces the idea that RL is not confined to formal positions of power but emerges from the collective agency that is released when multiple actors share the responsibility and accountability for leadership action.

‘If working apart, we’re a force powerful enough to destabilise our planet, surely working together, we’re powerful enough to save it.’ (David Attenborough, Climate Activist)

In this context, RL is seen as a shared practice that recognises the value in unrealised (or ignored) resources, including personal leadership attributes and skills in the community and relationships among people. Consequently, RL is framed as polyphonic, allowing leadership to emerge in multiple ways through collaboration and improvisation among peers.

‘You can’t always predict what’s going to happen thus we as a society need to ensure that we are always one step ahead of this continuously evolving thing that’s happening.’ (Serena Bashal, Youth Activist)

Furthermore, activist discourse points towards an ecocentric perspective, where the responsibility of leadership extends beyond human interests to include the broader ecological world. Nature is elevated as a stakeholder, and consequently, RL embraces a new role as a global citizen, encompassing an ethic of care for Others (Mussel, 2016) by balancing the needs of humans and non-humans.

‘We must listen to the stars, the moon, the wind, the animals and the trees.’ (Txai Suni, Youth Activist)

This is one area where the speeches of leaders of affected nations diverge from politician discourse, as they, too, call for a sense of collective responsibility that transcends national borders:

‘Together, we can heal the world from the scourges of climate change. Together, we can save this Earth from the deadly consequences of global warming. Together, we can bring humankind into harmony with nature.’ (George Manneh Weah, Liberia, President)

Discussion

In this paper, we argue that understanding the meaning of RL, as constructed by different leadership actors through speechmaking at COP26, is relevant to discussions of RL for two reasons. First, we engage with recent critiques of RL scholarship that highlight its exclusive focus on business leadership (Johnson, 2018; Tirmizi, 2023) – a limitation that it particularly problematic in the context of the climate crisis and other GSCs, since these issues exceed the corporate realm, spanning natural, social and political environments (Roulet and Bothello, 2022). By expanding RL’s conception to include leadership actors inside and outside formal leadership roles, operating at multiple levels and in diverse spheres, we enhance RL’s relevance across different sectors and contexts, including social movements in climate activism. Second, we contribute to the contemporary shift in RL research that emphasises responsibility as a shared (Voegtlin, 2016) and emergent phenomenon (Meliou et al., 2021), which may offer a more palatable sense of “leader-full” leadership that reframes responsibility in a more egalitarian way (Fotaki and Foroughi, 2022) .We extend the emergentist perspective by exploring the language used by multiple leadership actors, drawing on discursive theories of leadership (Fairhurst, 2008) to examine how RL emerged through the sensemaking processes at COP26. In doing so, we offer an important contribution by extending RL’s theorical domain.

Our findings reveal distinct forms of sensemaking used by different groups of leaders in their discursive construction of RL. Specifically, we identify two competing discourses with divergent understandings of ‘responsibility’. We show that in politician discourse, sensemaking typically separates sense and action, reflecting an ‘outsider’ perspective on climate leadership that is abstracted and detached from immediate responsible actions. We characterise this as representational sensemaking (Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2020), which seeks to explain problematic activities requiring leadership intervention by appealing to logic and evidence – logos (Adebomi, 2023). In contrast, activist discourse demonstrates a more involved form of sensemaking, from the ‘inside’, that emerges from direct engagement with the climate crisis. This form of sensemaking emphasises lived experience and immediacy, leveraging emotional appeals – pathos – (Adebomi, 2023) to influence audiences.

With these findings, we advance research on RL by showing that it originates in leaders’ sensemaking practices through which they construct a narratively organised understanding of responsibility to inform their actions (Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2015). Our research reveals different forms of sensemaking, which we summarise in Table 3 and elaborate on below.

Table 3.

A differentiated view of sensemaking of responsibility and responsible leadership.

	Representational sensemaking of RL (expressed in politicians’ discourse)	Involved sensemaking of RL (expressed in activists’ discourse)
Sense-action connection	Static, separated, spectatorial	Dynamic, unified, contextual
Temporality	Chronological, analytical	Existential, present-centred
Leadership agency	Individualistic, anthropocentric	Collective, ecocentric

At face value, these forms of sensemaking appear oppositional. However, rather than reinforcing polarised conceptions of RL, we argue for a more integrative approach that acknowledges the complexity and diversity of leadership responsibility. Recognising divergent perspectives and disruptive experiences enables a shift from binary, either/or framings to a both/and perspective that harnesses the strengths of each approach while exploring their synergistic potential (Lewis et al., 2014). We propose that RL can be reframed as an ongoing negotiation between dualities rather than dualisms (Smith et al., 2016), facilitated by rhetorical strategies that enable oscillation between competing perspectives (Simpson et al., 2022).

Both static and responsive

When leaders’ sensemaking of RL demonstrates a static and spectatorial engagement, leading responsibly becomes hidden behind static nouns, such as ‘plans’, ‘targets’ and ‘goals’. Bohm (1980) argues that ‘nounisation’ fragments thought ‘tending to divide things into separate entities…conceived of as essentially fixed and static’ (p. 29). In RL literature, this is reflected in the prevailing view of RL as an abstract construct, reduced to a fixed set of components detached from contextual realities. For example, Pless et al. (2012), break down RL into leadership characteristics, the nature of stakeholder relations and a firm’s strategic emphasis, with four fixed stances across these categories defining a leader’s orientation toward RL. This approach leads to ‘petrification’ (Czarniawska, 2004), treating RL behaviour as an artefact waiting to be leveraged. While such ‘nounisation’ and ‘petrification’ may impose structure and clarity on complex challenges like the climate crisis (Adebomi, 2023) and positions RL as a rational framework for addressing the scholarly and intellectual problem of the climate crisis, it also creates a detached sequence between the conceptualisation of responsibility (i.e., sense) and its enactment (i.e., action) (e.g., Foldøy et al., 2021).

The activist discourse illustrates a more dynamic engagement with RL, recognising its ongoing nature enacted through lived experience. The use of verbs in the present continuous tense (like doing, growing, providing, working) shifts RL from the completed actions of the past to the practical, embodied concerns rooted in the unfolding environmental and societal situation (Adebomi, 2023). This linguistic shift embeds RL within concrete activities – actions that are not just decided upon but physically carried out, often through collective practice in the moment. Instead of reducing leadership to predefined attributes or retrospective evaluations, the activist discourse emphasises how responsibility is continuously shaped through situated interactions, material engagements, and local contingencies. In this way, language unites sense and action in RL, accounting for the fluid, fluctuating nature of leadership becoming, as it constantly adjusts to ongoing experiences (Tsoukas, 2017).

Based on these insights, we propose that the discursive construction of RL can manage this opposition through careful oscillation (Simpson et al., 2022) between sense and action aimed by balancing the multiple logics of technical rationality with practical accomplishment.

Both linear temporality and existential living story

Much of the existing literature frames RL as a linear process, structured around a retrospective-prospective understanding of temporality. Leaders will prospectively be ‘determining how [stakeholders’] needs, expectations, or interests can and should best be served’ (Waldman et al., 2020: p. 6) in the present, and then then retrospectively evaluate past performance, and, if those needs or interests are not adequately met in the present, suggest corrective future action. (Waldman et al., 2020). This chronological framing of RL in the familiar temporal domains of past, present and future reinforces causal linkages, positioning leadership responsibility as a continuous cycle of evaluation, adjustment, and forward planning.

The activist discourse offers an alternative view of RL as a living story, one that unfolds in the immediacy of experience. Here, action and meaning emerge simultaneously, not as a linear cause-effect relationship but as an ongoing, recursive process. Past, present, and future are dynamically enmeshed, with leaders engaging fully in the present while reinterpreting the past in light of emerging realities (Boje, 2014). This existential, present-centered awareness moves RL beyond ‘planning-based futures’ (Wenzel et al., 2020: p. 1448), generating multiple, continually evolving pathways for RL action, which are never quite in a settled, completed position (Boje, 2014).

Tension emerges between the demands of differing chronological and existential understandings of temporality; as RL must navigate structured, linear timelines of objectives and the immediate, lived experiences of stakeholders. Reframing this relationship through an ‘integrative rhetoric’ (Simpson et al., 2022) which reconciles structured planning with the spontaneity and moral immediacy of lived interactions, can transcend this contradiction.

Both individualistic and collective

When leaders’ sensemaking positions themselves at the centre of responsible actions, this reflects the dominant perspective in RL literature, which constructs RL primarily as an individual-level phenomenon tied to executive authority (e.g., Waldman et al., 2020). This framing reinforces the notion that ‘only outside experts can provide real help…[and] denies the basic community wisdom’, treating the community like ‘consumers’ of government services without the incentive to be producers (Kretzmann and McKnight, 1993: 4). The prerogative for those taking up a leadership role is then to influence through displaying expertise and claims of power, legitimising their decisions and directing the process of responsibility enactment in ways that prioritise the interest of immediate stakeholders.

In the context of the climate crisis, this individualistic view of RL is incomplete since any leader’s contributions are constrained by the multitude of interrelationships that constitute GSCs (Voegtlin et al., 2022). Also, ideologically, the concentration of leadership and power in a few designated individuals is problematic, as it disregards the value of wider, mutual participation (Western, 2014). The activist discourse highlights the importance of RL as an emergent, collective construct rooted in shared social and ecological interdependencies, through personalised narratives. Rather than centring leadership on an individual, RL becomes embedded in place-based, community-driven initiatives, co-created practices, and reciprocal responsibilities, generating a ‘we-narrative’, that deepens and stabilises shared agency. This collective leaderfull-ness reimagines new ways of organising (Fotaki and Foroughi, 2022) and moves beyond the fantasy of leaderlessness to embrace context-responsive engagements (Tollefsen and Gallagher, 2017). Consequently, a ‘plurality of future making practices’ (Wenzel et al., 2020: 1448) can emerge from unexpected places in a multilocal and polycentric fashion (Meliou et al., 2021).

Our analysis illustrates that RL is both individual and collective. It shows how individuals and groups co-emerge through a shared process of co-becoming, where each individual’s actions shape the trajectory of the collective, while the community’s responses shape the individual leader’s sensemaking (Gram-Hanssen, 2021). The emergence of RL within this framework demands continual balancing of personal agency with a commitment to the collective wellbeing, as leaders navigate between their contributions and their embeddedness in the community’s evolving story.

Conclusion

In this paper, we illustrate how discourses of RL can become oppositional, and then argue for a creative, both/and approach that leverages the benefits of each side, tapping into their synergistic potential (Lewis et al., 2014). This is important because, dominant, one-sided narratives can distort democratic processes (Gallagher and Tollefsen, 2019), and when one narrative dominates, leaders may struggle to shift their rhetoric, reinforcing a singular discourse (Smith and Lewis, 2011). While this may offer a sense of stability and continuity to the audience and the stakeholders, it can also create a vicious circle of adversarial debate (Tsoukas and Cunha, 2017) that overlooks the complexity of contemporary challenges (Smith et al., 2016).

First, we argue that RL is inherently immanent and practical, requiring concrete action, while also necessitating a level of detachment to explain causal mechanisms and learn from past practices (Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2020). Second, we reveal how the latter would require a chronological understanding of temporality that allows retrospective and prospective analysis while also staying attuned to the present moment through existential time for instant adjustments to the unfolding situation (Boje, 2014). Finally, we show the importance of holding the tension of individual responsibility in the sense of the collective to allow individual contributions and perspectives toward the common good (Gram-Hanssen, 2021). By embracing tensions inherent in RL’s sensemaking, we can envision paths toward sustainable futures (Smith and Lewis, 2011), addressing a key tension between leadership and leaderlessness in climate social movements voiced by previous scholars (Fotaki and Foroughi, 2022) and recognising emergent RL practices.

This paper broadens RL research in two ways. First, we extend the empirical scope of RL beyond business organisations to political, institutional, and community leadership. Second, we broaden the disciplinary bandwidth of RL by introducing a discursive sensemaking perspective (Fairhurst, 2008; Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2020), and shifting the focus from unitary notions of leadership to a processual understanding where leadership emerges through communicative interactions among multiple actors. We show that RL research can benefit from considering not only what happens in the ‘foreground’ (the leadership qualities and behaviours) but also the ‘background’ (the language) that shape alternative understandings of RL.

Our findings have implications for future COPs, climate activism and other environmental forums. Formats that move beyond conventional speechmaking toward more dialogical and participatory engagements that bring together leadership actors from diverse spheres, who operate at multiple levels, can bridge representational and involved forms of sensemaking. Structured debates requiring leadership actors to engage with opposing perspectives can promote reflection on different senses of responsibility. At COP26, we saw how incorporating storytelling and lived experiences into policy-driven discussions highlighted RL’s complexity. Encouraging such spaces for dialogue that fleshes out analytically climate crisis and responsibility towards it through representational sensemaking and, at the same time, considers the urgency of involved sensemaking could help create a more holistic sense of RL. Leadership actors who deliberately engage with multiple sensemaking approaches can transcend entrenched rhetorical divides, enhancing the legitimacy and effectiveness of RL.

We acknowledge the limitations of our study. Discourses of RL do not necessarily indicate whether leaders act responsibly. Our focus on discourse helps understand how the ways in which issues are framed at a given time can inform subsequent actions (Watson, 2001). Whilst this makes sensemaking a crucial micro-foundation of RL, future research is needed to investigate whether RL rhetoric translates into concrete social and environmental impact. Furthermore, given the evolving nature of GSCs, exploring how RL discourse shifts over time and across social, institutional and organisational contexts is a promising avenue for further study.

We also recognise that the structure of COP26, with its monological speeches and fragmented fringe events, reinforced the division of discourses and hindered mutual sensemaking. Future RL research could explore the role of multi-way communication in leadership processes. By embracing different senses of responsibility, we can develop a new paradigm of RL that is equitable and sensitive to diverse ways of knowing and being in the world.