Responsible Leadership in India: Insights for Global Leadership Research

We adopt an indigenous perspective on the emerging economy of India to identify and assess antecedents of responsible leadership (RL) across the micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis. This setting is rich in cultural, linguistic, and social diversity, resulting in high levels of complexity for global leaders. Based on a content analysis and a sample of 13 Indian business leaders systematically selected from a larger pool of leaders, we find that RL in India is predominantly associated with social goals, reflecting major societal challenges. It is characterized by antecedents reflective of both RL drivers previously discussed from a Western point of view and Indian idiosyncrasies. Our holistic perspective on RL antecedents aims to complement extant research by emphasizing the importance of macro-level drivers that acknowledge the uniqueness of a given context. Equally, it informs discussions in global leadership research about the field's global contextual orientation. We derive implications for both RL and global leadership scholarship.