The Art of Leadership in the United Nations: Our duty to find new forms

About the report

The ‘Art of Leadership in the United Nations’ is explored against a global context, demanding in scope and scale rarely seen before. This publication aims to contribute to reflection and dialogue on United Nations leadership at an institutional and an individual level.

The UN is at the centre of a fragmented and ever-evolving multilateral system and faces the overwhelming constant presence of parallel crises, resource uncertainty and decreasing trust in its capacity and credibility. These challenges can no longer be met just by tweaking existing practices and policies and leaning on the experiences of yesterday. There is a growing awareness of the need for fundamental shifts in the leadership mindset, to ‘flip the orthodoxy’ and ‘do business as unusual.’

In this edition we make an enquiry into leadership across three dimensions of acute relevance to the UN today: leadership against a backdrop of normative erosion, leadership in fragile settings, and leadership marked by urgency and polycrisis. Our intended audience is everyone with an interest in enabling the most efficient and principled UN leadership. As Dag Hammarskjöld put it during the Cold War:

‘Even in the political sphere we are likely to look to the creations of the past with nostalgia. But we know that those creations can never be brought back to life, that ours is the duty to find new forms, starting often from nothing. And we know that these forms will not be found without the courage of that deep sincerity which is shown in the search of the great artists of our time, or without the firmness and perseverance which they have demonstrated in their relentless efforts to reach mastery.’

Dag Hammarskjöld, Address on occasion of the opening ceremonies of the 25th Anniversary of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1954.

Foreword

By Per Knutsson

Introduction

A reader’s guide

Normative Erosion

Fragile settings

Urgency and polycrisis