Responsible Leadership Types: Understanding the Variety and Implications of Different Forms of Leading Responsibly

Responsible leadership can be manifested in a variety of ways but we lack understanding of what drives this variation and what the implications are of different approaches. In this conceptual article, we develop a novel typology of responsible leadership approaches based on leaders' different perceived obligations as experts, facilitators, and citizens, giving rise to seven distinct responsible leadership types. We build our arguments on role theory and ground responsible leadership in a psychological perspective. We show what happens when leaders focus on some of these obligations and neglect others, outlining tensions and mutually reinforcing effects of enacting responsibility in these different ways. Our analysis provides new insight on the drivers and challenges of different responsible leadership types and offers scholars and practitioners a new lens through which to study and approach responsible leadership.