Developing Climate Change Leadership across individuals, teams and organisations
Developing Climate Change Leadership (CCL) is critical to closing the persistent gap between corporate sustainability intent and environmental impact. Our research has progressively extended the development challenge beyond the capability of the individual leader to include the teams through which leadership is enacted and the organisational systems, culture and governance that ultimately determine its impact.
This reflects a central development in CCL: climate change, biodiversity loss and wider ecological disruption cannot be addressed through leader-centric or compliance-oriented approaches alone. Effective CCL combines development at individual, team and organisational levels and connects that capability to the pursuit of strong sustainability and planetary flourishing.
Learning Matters therefore asks a practical question: how can we develop the individual, collective and organisational capability required to translate climate and nature ambition into meaningful action?
From sustainability knowledge to CCL capability
Our research distinguishes between the inner and outer dimensions of CCL development. Organisations have become increasingly sophisticated at defining external sustainability goals, targets and reporting requirements, but the development of the values, mindsets, judgement and maturity required to achieve them has often lagged behind.
The inner dimension includes values, virtues, sustainability mindsets, ecological worldviews, self-awareness and maturity. The outer dimension includes purpose, team structure, organisational culture, strategy, governance, targets and accountability. Effective development requires both. Inner development without organisational change can leave capable leaders constrained by unsustainable systems. Outer commitments without the necessary human capability risk becoming compliance exercises.
This also means moving beyond the assumption that knowledge alone changes behaviour. CCL development needs to influence how people understand the problem, think about complexity, relate to stakeholders, make decisions and act.
Learning across three levels
A major development in our CCL research has been the shift from a predominantly leader-centric model towards a multi-level approach. Individual capability remains important, but strong sustainability cannot be achieved through individual capability alone. Teams provide the critical bridge between the individual and the organisation, while organisational purpose, strategy, culture and governance create the context in which leadership either flourishes or is constrained.
| Individual | Team | Organisation |
| Self-transcending values | Compelling environmental purpose | Transcendent purpose |
| Sustainability mindsets | Complementary strengths | Humanising sustainability strategy |
| Systems thinking | Environmental interdependencies | Stakeholder inclusion |
| Ethical decision-making | Ecological norms and informal roles | Double materiality |
| Maturity and perspective-taking | Shared, distributed and collective leadership | Ecological reflexivity |
| Ecological literacy and reflexivity | Collective ecological intelligence | Strong sustainability |
1. Developing the individual Climate Change Leader
At the individual level, our work draws on the Foundations, Transitions and Progressions within CCL. Foundations include the values, virtues, mindsets and aspects of character associated with a more responsible and ecocentric orientation. Transitions repurpose established models such as transformational, ethical and responsible leadership for the age of sustainability. Progressions develop the more advanced capabilities required for complex and wicked problems, including systems thinking, maturity, perspective-taking and ecological reflexivity.
A particular emphasis is placed on self-transcending rather than self-enhancing values, and on virtues such as courage, humility, benevolence and stewardship. Development also needs to surface the cognitive biases that can reduce the perceived immediacy and moral intensity of climate and nature risks.
- CCL capability assessment and development planning
- executive coaching focused on real climate, nature and sustainability challenges
- systems thinking and complex decision-making
- ethical and virtue-based reflection
- sustainability mindsets and ecological literacy
- bias awareness and ecological reflexivity
- vertical development, maturity and perspective enlargement
- long-term and intergenerational thinking
Our earlier research on strength-based coaching is particularly relevant here. It suggests that effective development is not simply a matter of identifying and amplifying strengths. Capability needs to be calibrated to context, purpose and impact, supported by deliberate practice and reflection, and balanced with complementary behaviours. Assessment should therefore draw on multiple sources rather than self-report alone.
Coaching for Climate Change Leadership
Coaching offers a particularly useful methodology because it can individualise development to the leader’s current capability, role and organisational context. However, CCL coaching cannot be entirely value-neutral. The ecological limits within which organisations operate provide an explicit context for development.
Our approach uses coaching to make assumptions more visible, challenge anthropocentric and short-term frames, explore tensions between commercial and ecological priorities, strengthen self-other awareness and translate sustainability intentions into leadership behaviour. It can also help leaders work with enduring polarities such as short-term performance and long-term ecological integrity, climate and biodiversity priorities, and impact versus ideological purity.
2. Developing Climate Change Leadership in teams
Teams are the mediating environment between individual capability and organisational effectiveness. Our research therefore treats team development as a core component of CCL rather than an extension of individual leadership development.
Existing high-performing team models can be repurposed for sustainability through three domains: structure, process and leadership. Structurally, teams require a compelling environmental purpose, genuine interdependence and members with complementary strengths and capabilities. Team processes should reinforce ecological norms, stakeholder awareness, cross-boundary learning and informal roles that keep sustainability visible in everyday decisions. Leadership should become less hierarchical and more shared, distributed and collective.
- clarifying a compelling environmental purpose and the team’s contribution to sustainability
- aligning complementary strengths and capabilities to that purpose
- mapping environmental interdependencies across functions and stakeholders
- developing ecological norms, dialogue and constructive challenge
- creating informal ecological roles, such as sustainability champions
- building ecological reflexivity and collective learning
- strengthening shared, distributed and collective leadership
- using team coaching to integrate sustainability into how the team actually works
This is important because collective strengths are not simply the sum of individual strengths. Effective teams need both strength credibility, ensuring capability is relevant to the task, and strength coordination, ensuring complementary capabilities are deployed effectively. Team coaching can then help translate these capabilities into collective ecological intelligence and positive environmental outcomes.
3. Developing organisational CCL capability
At the organisational level, the development question changes. The task is no longer simply to develop more capable leaders, but to create an organisational context in which effective CCL can flourish.
Our research identifies purpose, culture, strategy and governance as critical levers. Sustainability cannot remain siloed if positive long-term impact on planetary health is integral to organisational purpose. It needs to be embedded in leadership development, team structures, organisational culture, strategic decision-making and governance.
- redefining organisational purpose beyond compliance and short-term shareholder value
- diagnosing sustainability maturity and the movement from weak towards strong sustainability
- embedding climate and biodiversity into strategy and capital allocation
- developing cultures characterised by purpose, care, interdependence and adaptability
- building ecological literacy and reflexivity into governance and decision-making
- using double materiality to consider both environmental risk to the organisation and organisational impact on the environment
- aligning reward, recognition and accountability with sustainability objectives
- developing stakeholder inclusion that extends to communities, nature and future generations
The organisational objective is therefore not simply better ESG performance. It is the development of resilient, purpose-driven organisations capable of restoration, regeneration and positive ecological impact.
Assessment and evidence
CCL remains an emerging field and our research has consistently highlighted the need for greater rigour in how development is assessed. There is no single definitive CCL psychometric. Depending on the purpose, assessment can therefore combine psychometric inventories, individual psychological assessment, multi-rater feedback, team diagnostics and organisational sustainability indicators.
Evaluation should also move beyond self-report. A credible CCL development programme should seek evidence of changes in individual behaviour, team effectiveness and organisational systems, and ultimately connect these changes with meaningful climate, biodiversity and sustainability outcomes.
CCL development programmes
Programmes can be designed for senior executives, executive and leadership teams, boards, emerging leaders, sustainability professionals and leadership or organisational development practitioners. They can range from focused executive coaching and team interventions to integrated multi-level organisational programmes.
The content is tailored to context, but may include ecological literacy, sustainability mindsets, systems thinking, ethical decision-making, ecological reflexivity, polarity management, team effectiveness, shared leadership, organisational purpose, strong sustainability and climate and nature governance.
From learning to impact
The purpose of Learning Matters is not to create more knowledgeable leaders in isolation. It is to develop the individual, collective and organisational capability required to move from sustainability intention to sustained action.
Individual capability → collective capability → organisational capability → stronger sustainability outcomes
Our CCL research increasingly points towards the same conclusion: the transition from weak to strong sustainability requires development across all three levels. Leaders need the capability to think and act differently, teams need to mobilise that capability collectively, and organisations need to embed it in purpose, strategy, culture and governance.