By Suze Wilson & Toby Newstead*
The war in Ukraine would test even the most hardened political operator: millions forced to flee their homes, thousands (including many civilians) killed or injured, evidence of Russian war crimes mounting.
Yet Volodomyr Zelenskyy, a relative novice head of state, has not just risen to the challenge, he has been widely praised and admired for his exemplary crisis leadership. So, what explains this prowess?
Zelenskyy’s acting experience has been credited with his ability to connect powerfully with different audiences, using facts and emotions to build support for the Ukrainian cause.
His commitment to serve his people has been called pivotal. He has been described as charismatic – although this alone is no guarantee of success, given charismatic leaders can still lead their nations to destruction.
And it’s Zelenskyy’s repeated displays of courage that seem to really strike a chord with many. This leads us into the territory of character virtues, which we argue hold the key to Zelenskyy’s abilities as a crisis leader.
Ancient wisdom for today’s world
Aristotle is credited with first proposing that virtues play a central role in forging a strength of character that can navigate and weather life’s challenges with moral fortitude and integrity.
Over the past few decades, scholars concerned with preventing unethical leadership have developed Aristotle’s insights further, using modern social scientific methods.
Recently, we drew on this knowledge to examine crisis leadership and how character virtues guided 12 heads of state through that first, tumultuous wave of COVID-19. We’ve used the same approach to analyse Zelenskyy’s leadership.
We closely examined an extended filmed interview with Zelenksyy by The Economist. Being unscripted and more spontaneous than his pre-prepared speeches, it offered a clearer insight into his character.
We found all seven of the key character virtues – humanity, temperance, justice, courage, transcendence, wisdom and prudence – evident in Zelenskyy’s responses to the interviewers’ questions.
Character virtues in action
The virtue of humanity relates to care, compassion, empathy and respect for others. Zelenskyy demonstrates this primarily through his focus on protecting Ukrainians from Russian aggression, but it even extends to his enemy’s suffering.
Zelenskyy expresses concern that Putin is “throwing Russian soldiers like logs into a train’s furnace”, and laments that the Russian dead are neither mourned nor buried by their own side.
This refusal to simply give way to hate and anger when speaking of his enemies also reflects a second virtue, temperance – the ability to exercise emotional control.
Zelenskyy’s modesty also reflects this virtue – in the interview he shrugs off praise for being an inspirational hero, preferring to keep to the main issues. Temperance serves to maintain emotional equilibrium, thus enabling Zelenskyy to make difficult decisions in a level-headed manner.
The virtue of justice means acting responsibly and ensuring people are treated fairly. It involves citizenship, teamwork, loyalty and accountability. Zelenskyy speaks of his “duty to protect” Ukrainians and to “signal” with his own conduct how others should act. By remaining in Ukraine, he becomes a role model of this virtue while simultaneously demonstrating the virtue of courage.
Zelenskyy’s own courage has been widely noted, but we observed that he also repeatedly acknowledges that of his fellow citizens, thereby encouraging them to act with virtue.
A formidable opponent
By expressing the seemingly unshakeable hope that Ukrainians will secure victory because of their courage, Zelenskyy demonstrates the virtue of transcendence – the optimism and faith that a cause is meaningful, noble and will prevail.
Zelenskyy’s views about what motivates other countries display his wisdom. In the interview he demonstrates a broad strategic perspective and insight into the varying interests that shape other nations’ responses to the war. This helps him craft his appeals to allies, and to Russia, which then have a greater chance of resonating.
The final virtue, prudence, complements that wisdom. It involves an ability to gauge what is the right thing to do and is something of a meta-virtue, guiding the choice of which other virtues are needed from moment to moment. We found repeated instances of Zelenskyy demonstrating just that, weaving together multiple virtues in his responses to questions.
Our analysis of his leadership indicates Zelenskyy possesses strength of character and emotional, intellectual and moral clarity about what is at stake. This explains his effective crisis leadership to date. Despite the clear military mismatch between Russia and Ukraine, Putin has taken on a formidable opponent.
*Suze Wilson is a Senior Lecturer, Executive Development/School of Management at Massey University. And Toby Newstead is a Lecturer in Management at the University of Tasmania.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
53 Comments
... you larf , and yet , he displays humanity , temperance , justice , courage , transcendence , wisdom , prudence ... it's as if he's exactly alike what we think of you , Mr X ...
Twins ! ... you're twins ... like that film with Arnold Schwarzenegger & Danny Devito ...
... in my mind's eye I'm picturing which one of those two you most look like ....
Benny Hill would be banned today , wouldn't he .... the humour which we grew up with is so incredibly " politically incorrect " several decades later ... remember the " Black & White Minstrel Show " ? ... so much fun ... and the first James Bond girl , " Pussy Galore " ... teeee heeee ....
I personally think that X marks the spot as to where China LIES in this "interesting" state of affairs.
Just the Type to offset different characters in this saga of International Intrigue.
Breakable China is so apparent when X marks the Spot.....Butt then it takes all sorts to mittigate the Joke that War is not happening as per Putin's PropperGander Machine.
I Spy with my little Eye....that we have a Xenophobic backer of this Mad Mad World....staring us all in the Face.....does it not?????.
"he displays humanity"?? I beg to differ. While he plays the part well for the fawning media, the reality is he could have long ago negotiated a peace deal with Russia and saved the suffering of large portions of his population. Even better, he could have ended the fighting in the separatist regions that has been ongoing since 2014 and abided by the internationally agree Minsk agreement. Maybe, in that case, none of this would have happened.
Yeah super effective at getting his people killed, not so effective at just stating "We will never join NATO" and stop the war before it even started. He is a comedian aright it just goes to show how lethal the wrong people in power can be. Loves grandstanding in front of an international audience and sell out shows in the USA, black humour at its best.
Nope they are dying on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs and being shot in the back of the head. I notice that people are all brave as long as they are not the ones doing the fighting. Classic keyboard warriors comments here. Ukraines only option was diplomatic now they are going to be slaughtered. You have to pick your battles.
Yea, I'm sure that definitely would have been the difference. What about the frankly absurd claims out of Russia trying to justify invading a sovereign nation makes you think they wouldn't have dreamt up some other bullshit to justify rolling in?
The problem with parroting pro-Russian talking points is that you have to keep up with how fast they change them.
"how lethal the wrong people in power can be" and not one word about the nation doing the actual invasion or the bloke pushing different reasons around for doing it, depending on what way the wind is blowing?
Your answer is that in order to avoid being invaded by Russia, Ukraine must effective become a Russian proxy and puppet state with no ability to exercise its own sovereignty. Can you understand why Ukrainians may not feel that is the deal of the century? Maybe they aren't the one with the problem?
The USA is wealthy and those with money have more influence. There are over 200 independent sovereign nations and it is hard to imagine the US is the puppet master for all of them and particularly a state so remote from America. Especially when the US govt seems unable to control even its own constituent states.
The US has made it very clear that they strongly disagree with NZ's nuclear free policy yet a series of NZ govt's has not repealed that policy. If our prime ministers are not front faces of the US why is Ukraine different?
It's called sanctions and invasions. Pretty sure the many nations who tried to take their resource dollars off being pegged to the US dollar could tell you a thing or two about how America controls other sovereign nations. You could start by asking Iraq and Libya how America does it.
I was wondering what happened to the deluge of focus on this one.
Looks like The Ukrainian war bandwagon, is circling back for a victory lap!
For all those people who only started to care about this issue 2 months ago. Don't worry, Putins interest in the Eastern parts will last far long than your short MSM click bait attention span.
Long, long way to go. If the strategy was to secure a land corridor to connect Crimea, Sebastopol then the tactics of a broad front from the north west now look a failure. The Russian military have been exposed as not being the omnipotent force of legend. And if the second stage of the strategy was to push on and link with the insurgents in Transnistria, then the Russian forces are now considerably weaker and cannot achieve that without overcoming Odessa which, by its natural surrounds is already a very difficult target, has had ample time to set in defences greater than than anything the Russians have faced to date. In other words if they couldn’t take Kviv or Kahkiv, unlikely they can take Odessa.
They were never trying to capture Kiev. That was clearly a quick pincer strike aimed at disrupting command control and. Tying up forces. Can't resist in the east with artillery batteries just out of your capital.
The natural resources and ethnics Russians are in the east. So is the extended border with Russia that can be massively reduced buy controlling the area. That's the prize. Smaller border with a future NATO member and resource control.
Much Further to go for a Ukrainian army to somehow push the Russians back. That's not happening.
This will either end in settlement, or another 10 years grind. Putins a Prince playing strategic. Did it in Syria. Did it by annexing crimea. Doing it again here.
Next few weeks will tell. It is possible that the “garrison” in Transnistria will be beefed up and commence some harassing activity eastwards to support a further Russian thrust westwards. My guess though is the prime objective, land connection to Crimea, reconnection of water supply etc has been achieved. This can now be consolidated into defended borders and a victory as such claimed in principle. It won’t settle though like that. Ukraine supported by the West will continue to campaign. The south east of Ukraine will be a battlefield of attrition and insurgency.
There is only 1500 Russian troops in Transnistria. Not enough to do anything. The arms supplied to Ukraine lately are going to cause an even bigger problem for Russia (Flakpanzer Gepard, M177 etc), who will soon be in short supply of Jack in the Box tanks and Infantry Fighting Vehicles. Once the supply of Russian hardware is depleted they will be neutered for years to come. This is the strategy of the West.
The West is bankrupting itself in the process and running out of weapons to share. They can't make any dramatic push to win the territory back, so it will be a civil grind for a while until America tries to pivot to full frontal China attack again. The Western/US economic hegemony is dying and will leave them incredibly vulnerable to the East(which haven't kowtowed to US political force eg Russia, India, China etc) becoming the economic and resource power base of choice for the developing nations to gravitate towards. This is a defining moment in The. Great. Reset.
I was living in Europe at the time and it was a big deal for quite some time.
Nobody gave a rats about house prices and it could have easily been me or friends commuting down to New Zealand on that flight.
There is also his use of polonium soup and novachok to take people out on UK territory (along with innocent bystanders). Not to mention his now going into full war crimes and genocide mode.
Turning a blind eye and appeasement just emboldens him. Carlos67 shall now be known as Neville67 the Putin appeaser.
And most of all, Z needs protection from the swastika-tattooed crew who are the hand jiggling the marionette. The Guardian ran a documentary some years back about who is the power behind the throne. But that's all down the memory hole now, as war fever grips. And the joke is, guess who are the 'protectors'...
Prior to the outbreak of war he wasn't nearly so popular but he has risen to the moment. This next phase of the war will be more taxing though, the Russians have substantially reduced their attrition by reducing the number of axis of attack.
That said the weapons systems that are coming are far more formidable than that recycled Soviet junk Ukraine has been stuck with. For example the PzH 2000 Germany has just donated is a world class artillery system capable of 3 rounds in 9 seconds in burst mode or 10 rounds per minute in normal operation. Comparable Russian systems are only around 1.5 rounds per minute. President Putin is an ambitious gambler but needs to learn when to fold while he has chips on the table.
His military isn't capable of escalating for any period. They can't run the supply logistics for the army they've currently fielded, most of the remainder of his force are conscripts rather than professional soldiers and they're running out of munitions.
Chinese supply? The Chinese would likely rather he lost this war and they could subjugate Russia as a useful vassal state and their relationship with the rest of the world is critical for their ongoing economic development.
Russia has been preparing for this for the better part of a decade. The true extent of the weaponry they have stockpiled is unknown, and fortunately for them they have captured mountains of western weaponry supplied to Ukraine and that mountain keeps growing each day. They also have ensured they have taken out much of the transport infrastructure(rail and bridges) used for heavy weapons supply and are blowing up the fuel and weapons depo's in Ukraine.
I give Zelenskyy credit for sticking in Ukraine I doubt if any of our pollies would have the guts to hang around and lead . Given the odds looked formidable and few people gave him a snowballs chance in hell of pushing back against Russia he has done remarkably well inspiring his people to fight . If you compare his performance with the little man leading Russia there is no comparison, it appears likely Putin has health issues but nothing a little novichok wouldn't fix . May he rot in hell .
The odds were overstated at the start - Ukraine land forces were bigger than the Russian invasion forces - then there was the NATO training, huge military aid and ongoing intelligence transfer. Pound for pound, probably a peer or near-peer war.
I would also note that Zelensky is the one giving Hitleresque fight-to-the-death orders to troops in hopeless situations with no ongoing military benefit (e.g Mariupol).
Perhaps the understating will be looked back upon as being the the brilliant defence. Since 2014 they have set about building their army from one that wasn't much more effective size than NZs to the large effective force that actually knows what it needs to do. All done without many analysts even realising. As with Great Britain there has been a certain need for appeasement to buy time, Russia did not see that and appears stuck in a old time loop while Ukraine made progress.
Zelenskyy strikes me as a man for the moment. History tells us about them. They are the ones who are often martyred for their causes & I have to admire anyone who is prepared to die for their cause, especially honorable ones. I think the Yanks & the Brits & the Ukrainians have probably seen this moment coming for the last 8 years at least. When Crimea was annexed they knew Putin would eventually be back for more. His ego demanded it. And they were right. Here he is once again with his killing machines taking out cities, infrastructure, troops & citizens alike. They don't care who they kill. They just kill. And that is all they do. Their MO is killing. Even inside Russia, if you step out of line you are imprisoned, tortured or killed. That it how they run things. I have been to Russia twice. Once as a young man on a journey to London via Moscow. The other time as a volunteer for a couple of weeks in the south of the country. All I saw was oppression. Guys in uniforms with guns were not hard to find. People with their heads down not looking at anyone in the eye going about their daily needs. Fear. Subjugation. And what you & I would call poverty not very far from anywhere. It's the ordinary people in Russia who are paying, have paid & will continue to pay for the lunacies of their leaders ego. There are many things I could call Putin right now. I just wish they were in the past tense.
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