Globally responsible leadership: The courageous case of Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel has stood out as a global leader during her 16-years tenure as Chancellor of Germany. Her chancellorship included navigating dynamics of human rights issues (support for migrants - particularly Syrian refugees), environmental protections, citizens’ wellbeing, and economic development. This paper examines the nature of her complex leadership journey, successes, and challenges through the lens of responsible leadership theory and serves three purposes. Firstly, it is an effort to provide a window into Merkel’s leadership and the lessons it offers for leading in a world amidst crises, polarization, and complexity. Major insights in this regard include acting with courage, navigating crises with persistence, pursing multilateral collaborations, and building a nonconforming leadership profile. Secondly, it critically examines the relevance of responsible leadership theory as a framework for globally responsible leadership, especially outside the realm of business organizations. In doing so, the paper particularly explores the role of ethical grounding, relational competence, and adaptive and systems capability as key dimensions of responsible leadership. Finally, it identifies some gaps in and blind spots of responsible leadership conceptualizations and offers considerations to expand the field.