It is almost impossible to miss the fact that around the world, at every level and in every sphere – political, religious, business and organisational - leaders are being called to account in unprecedented numbers, and outmoded forms of leadership challenged. It is also apparent that we struggle at this moment to find even a short list of world leaders, or leadership groups, whom we recognise instinctively as great and whose leadership qualities we are inspired by.

In its 1995 report, the UN Commission on Global Governance registered its grave concern at “the lack of leadership over a wide spectrum of human affairs.” It pointed out that the world needs “credible and sustained leadership ……. leadership that is proactive and not simply reactive, that is inspired, not simply functional, that looks to the longer term and future generations for whom the present is held in trust. It needs leaders made strong by vision, sustained by ethics, and revealed by political courage that looks beyond the next election.” (1)

Such leadership must be concerned not only with the welfare of its own citizens, but must reach out internationally in ways which recognise the interdependence of all life and which seek to take necessary responsibility for the welfare of both humans and the planet itself. Along with that, says the report, it is critical that leadership demonstrates “political courage in articulating the way the world has changed and why a new spirit of global neighbourhood must replace old notions of adversarial states in eternal confrontation.” (2)