Introduction

Rapidly eliminating greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate climate change requires wide-reaching shifts to low-carbon behaviour in wealthy societies (Masson-Delmotte et al. 2018; Creutzig et al. 2022; Shukla et al. 2022). Extensive social science research has both revealed the factors underlying consumptive behaviours and offered potential interventions, but voluntary behaviour change at scale has proved elusive (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002; Whitmarsh and O’Neill 2010; Capstick et al. 2014; Steg et al. 2014; Demski et al. 2015; Mols et al. 2015; Whitmarsh et al. 2020). At the same time, governments have avoided introducing policies to limit high-carbon behaviours for fear of unpopularity and impinging on freedoms, instead preferring technical solutions (Willis 2020; Nelson and Allwood 2021; Newell et al. 2021). This stalemate has been described as a governance trap, whereby “governments and the public attribute responsibility for action to one another,” with neither taking the necessary steps to reduce behaviour-driven emissions (Pidgeon 2012; Newell et al. 2015). Novel approaches are therefore required to stimulate behaviour change (Levin et al. 2012; Capstick et al. 2014).

One such novel and untested approach is that leaders could lead by example by visibly adopting high-impact low-carbon behaviours with a view to shifting social norms (Tankard and Paluck 2016; Otto et al. 2019; Nielsen et al. 2021). Nations or blocs of nations often assert the importance of leading by example as they set climate targets and reduce territorial emissions (Oberthür and Roche Kelly 2008; Skjærseth 2016; UK Govt. 2021; Benulic et al. 2022; Diez and von Lucke 2023), but leading by example at an individual level is rarely discussed or encouraged, despite established knowledge about leader influence (Haslam et al. 2020; Northouse 2021) and the need for society-wide behaviour change.

We focus on the behaviour of leaders for three reasons: their status gives them heightened power to shift societal discourse and social norms (Tankard and Paluck 2016; Otto et al. 2019; Nielsen et al. 2021); they are likely to have considerably greater lifestyle emissions than most citizens, raising issues of equity and fairness (Capstick et al. 2020; Gore 2020; Akenji et al. 2021; Khalfan et al. 2023; Kukowski and Garnett 2023; Sultana 2023); and arguably they have more responsibility and power to guide society’s response to climate change (Bateman and Mann 2016; Haslam et al. 2020). Importantly for this study, the signals sent by a leader’s personal actions, in addition to their words, can convey meaning and contribute to the leader’s influence (Henrich 2009, 2015; Holzmer 2013). Using a survey experiment, our study explores the potential effects of high-profile leaders “walking the talk” with high-impact low-carbon behaviours, such as flying less, eating less meat, driving an electric car, improving home efficiency, and choosing active travel. These behaviours have been shown to make some of the biggest reductions to a person’s carbon footprint (Wynes and Nicholas 2017; Whitmarsh et al. 2021). Limited research in this area suggests that such action from leaders increases their credibility and can encourage others to adopt similar behaviour (Attari et al. 2016, 2019; Kraft-Todd et al. 2018; Sparkman and Attari 2020).

To define a “leader” we adopt a slight modification of Northouse’s (2015, p 6) definition of leadership as: “a process whereby an individual intentionally influences a group to achieve a common goal”. We consider two types of leader with different societal roles, politicians and celebrities, who advocate for the “common goal” of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to prevent climate change. Politicians are responsible for steering society’s response to climate change in terms of governance, discourse, and legislation. Celebrities such as musicians, sports stars or TV personalities are cultural figures that can influence people’s attitudes and behaviour in relation to environmental issues and have used their “intimate stranger” relationship with followers to highlight the moral dimensions of climate change (Boykoff and Goodman 2009; Alexander 2013; Doyle et al. 2017; Olmedo et al. 2020). Importantly, many celebrities and politicians have very large carbon footprints and correspondingly large potential to reduce their environmental impact through their behavioural choices (Gössling 2019a, 2019b; Otto et al. 2019; Nielsen et al. 2021).

Why focus on individual behaviour?

The extent to which individual behaviour change should be prioritised is a contentious issue. Tackling climate change requires leadership from international organisations, states, local governments, NGOs, businesses and communities (Schunz 2019; Skjærseth et al. 2021). Resistance comes from powerful vested interests that have for decades sought to sow doubt about the threats of climate change and to delay action (Stoddard et al. 2021). Indeed there is evidence that the fossil fuel industry has tried to load responsibility for climate mitigation onto individuals as a deliberate strategy to prevent systemic change and regulation (Supran and Oreskes 2021). Others assert that challenging people’s high-carbon behaviour is inherently “shaming” and divisive, and therefore should be avoided (Mann 2021; Hayhoe 2022). Counter arguments say that systemic, social and legislative changes are stimulated by the action of individuals, especially those with high status (Otto et al. 2019; Nielsen et al. 2021; Thunberg et al. 2022). Furthermore, continual media attention is paid to the behaviour of leaders that, it is said, undermines the credibility of their climate change message. Advocates of climate mitigation such as Bill Gates, Al Gore, Barack Obama, former US climate envoy John Kerry and many more have had their very high-carbon lifestyle choices criticised (Gössling 2019a; Scarborough 2023). In the UK, the choice of helicopters and private jets over lower-carbon travel options by Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Kier Starmer, and the intercontinental flights taken by actress Emma Thompson to attend and promote an Extinction Rebellion climate protest, have been similarly critiqued (Cole 2019; Clark 2021; Sommerlad 2021; Calder 2022; Smith 2023). High-carbon choices like this often lead to passionate and unresolved arguments over whether such behaviour represents “hypocrisy” (Goodwin 2020). What seems clear is that the behaviour of leaders who are involved in the political, institutional and cultural response to climate change carries social and cultural meaning, and is of widespread interest (ibid). Less clear is the effect behaviour change from leaders may have on others’ behaviour and public attitudes towards such behaviour. This is the focus of our study.

Judging the behaviour of others

The way people judge the actions of others is complex and there is no guarantee that a leader’s low-carbon behaviour will be approved of or emulated. Raihani and Power (2021) describe how pro-social behaviour can be interpreted negatively because observers of the behaviour may suspect it is motivated by selfish or strategic reasons (e.g. image improvement), or because observers feel the behaviour may harm them in some way. In the case of low-carbon behaviour, such harm could result from an observer’s sense that their own behaviour will look bad in comparison to the leader’s, resulting in a drop in social status and/or moral standing. Another harm could be the fear that a valued behaviour, such as flying or meat eating, may become less acceptable in future due to a change in social norms signalled by the leader’s behaviour. Such negative reactions can lead to “do-gooder derogation”, where someone’s pro-social behaviour is derided as pointless or selfishly motivated in order to maintain the observer’s positive moral self-image (Minson and Monin 2012). For instance, if someone’s actions are broadcast to others or appear self-aggrandising, observers may infer selfish motives (Raihani and Power 2021). Relatedly, stereotypes and stigmas surrounding vegan diets can cause non-vegans to distance themselves socially and behaviourally from such diets (Markowski and Roxburgh 2019). These stigmas have also been shown to deter vegans and vegetarians from expressing their meat-free preferences for fear of negative judgements (Bolderdijk and Cornelissen 2022). More broadly, stereotypes about activists and their motivations can limit their ability to bring about social change (Bashir et al. 2013).

However, pro-social behaviour is often viewed positively and can lead to emulation. Evidence suggests ordinary people (as opposed to activists) who engage in pro-environmental behaviours are perceived as more warm and competent, a key metric of interpersonal judgement that we also use in our current study (Li et al. 2023). Other research has shown that people perceive consumers of organic food as primarily driven by altruistic motives, but also by impression-management motives (van de Grint et al. 2021). More generally, there is evidence that trusted opinion leaders or “block leaders” within social networks may prompt pro-environmental behaviour in others (Abrahamse and Steg 2013; Geiger et al. 2019). Tankard and Paluck (2016) describe how the changing of social norms can hinge on “social referents” who have particular influence or social power within a group. For example, Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future movement have been shown to increase motivation to adopt pro-environmental behaviour in 30% of people in a Swiss sample (Fritz et al. 2023). Furthermore, the behaviour of people in a social network can do more than simply signal a social norm, but also convey information, influence attitudes, and increase perceived behavioural control (Westlake 2017; Severijns et al. 2023). These different forms of influence align closely with established functions of leadership such as showing the way, setting an example of appropriate behaviour, and maintaining a direction of travel (Gill 2011; Northouse 2021). It is these physical, embodied dimensions of leadership that are the focus of our study.

Theoretical framework

We position the research within the theory of “embodied leadership”, which considers bodily actions as central to cognition, communication, understanding and meaning (Sinclair 2005; Glenberg 2010; Lord and Shondrick 2011; Holzmer 2013; Bonaccio et al. 2016; Knights 2021; Parra Vargas et al. 2023). Our extension of embodied leadership theory posits that a leader’s low- or high-carbon behaviours represent an embodiment of their approach to climate change that carries meaning for observers of the behaviours (and perhaps for the leaders themselves). We explore hypotheses that a leader’s embodied response to climate change can influence others’ behaviour, their perceptions of the leader, and their perspectives on climate change. We contrast embodied leadership with existing manifestations of climate leadership that focus almost entirely on technical, technocratic, and economic solutions to climate change, while ignoring the actions of leaders themselves (Willis 2020; Nelson and Allwood 2021; Newell et al. 2021). We also highlight a related tendency in climate discourse to apply a “disembodied” framing in relation to low-carbon behaviour change. This framing, supported by those who argue against a focus on individual behaviour, deters paying attention to the behaviours of specific people or groups, especially those with high status and high personal emissions (Mann 2021), and rather considers consumer behaviour in an abstracted, impersonal way. The disembodied framing is based on a “flat” view of society where the very large disparities of consumption and agency between individuals are shrouded behind a general idea that “everyone will need to change their behaviour at some point”. We explore whether embodied leadership has the potential to counteract this disembodied perspective by making behaviour change personal, overt and connected to everyday life.

With embodied leadership as an overarching theory, we also apply the theory of credibility enhancing displays (CREDs) to explore how leading by example may change people’s perceptions of leaders. CREDs consist of behaviours that involve effort or sacrifice and thereby convey a level of commitment and belief that cannot be communicated by words alone (Henrich 2009, 2015). There is some evidence that CREDs can work in the context of pro-environmental behaviour: specifically, people were more likely to buy solar panels if ambassadors of the product had themselves paid to fit the panels on their own homes (Kraft-Todd et al. 2018). By incurring the cost of fitting the panels, the ambassadors signified their genuine belief that it was a beneficial and correct thing to do. In other studies, climate scientists and other advocates have been perceived as more credible by the public if they have lower-carbon lifestyles (Attari et al. 2016, 2019; Sparkman and Attari 2020). Such mechanisms of social signalling and feedback are beginning to be included in climate modelling for behaviour-related emissions reductions (Moore et al. 2022). Definitions of credibility vary, but it commonly consists of perceived commitment, trustworthiness, honesty, competence, reliability, knowledge and skill (Kouzes and Posner 2004; Gill 2011; Williams et al. 2022). Our study measures perceptions of several of these constituents of leader credibility.

To operationalise the theories of embodiment and CREDs, we explore the effect of leaders adopting a suite of high-impact behaviours that lower substantially their total carbon footprint, rather than adopting individual low-carbon behaviours that might be undermined in the eyes of observers by a leader’s other high-carbon behaviours, or might appear relatively easy rather than “credibility enhancing”.

Research question and hypotheses

We pre-registered on OSF a survey and a plan for analysis involving 12 hypotheses relating to a three-part research question: does leading by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour affect observers’ (1) willingness to act, (2) their perceptions of leaders, and (3) their perspectives on climate change? A simple logic model is shown in Fig. 1 (OSF pre-registration: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/83UXA. Deviations from the pre-registration are shown in Tables SM1 and SM2 in the Supplementary Material). Next, we explain each hypothesis.

Fig. 1: Logic model.
figure 1

The model shows leading by example influencing the dependent variables willingness to act, perceptions of the leader, and perspectives on climate change, with political orientation moderating willingness to act. Hypotheses apply to some but not all dependent variables, with directions indicated by ±. Credibility enhancing displays (CREDs) and embodied leadership provide the theoretical basis for the influence of leading by example.

Full size image

Willingness To Act

Hypothesis 1a: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour stimulate greater willingness to adopt such behaviour, compared to leaders who do not lead by example.

Hypothesis 1b: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour stimulate greater willingness to adopt such behaviour, compared to “disembodied” statements about the need for lifestyle change.

We focus on willingness to act because it is an established measure of an individual’s propensity to adopt low-carbon behaviour (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002; Ferguson and Branscombe 2010; Bilandzic et al. 2017; Steentjes et al. 2017; Whitmarsh et al. 2020). Although willingness does not represent actual behaviour change, it has advantages for this study because it captures someone’s openness to taking actions that may not yet be feasible due to financial or practical constraints, for example, taking more expensive rail journeys instead of flying, or installing expensive home efficiency measures. As such, willingness can indicate a level of increased enthusiasm for low-carbon actions in response to leader behaviour that would be missed by measures of intention to act or actual behaviour change. Because we are interested in respondents’ enthusiasm to act in response to a leader’s action, and for brevity, we did not ask whether respondents already partook of the low-carbon behaviours. This may add some noise to our measurement items. Hypothesis 1b allows us to explore whether embodied leadership has different effects to a disembodied framing of behaviour change, as discussed above.

We measure willingness with seven survey questions asking respondents the extent to which they agree or disagree with statements relating to the adoption of generic and specific low-carbon behaviours, such as “I would be willing to make significant changes to my lifestyle to help tackle climate change” and “I would be willing to fly less to help tackle climate change”. Other behaviours were eating less meat, changing to an electric car, using public transport more often, improving home energy efficiency, and making some sacrifices. Table SM3 in the Supplementary Material shows all the measures in the survey.

Perceptions of leaders

The low- or high-carbon behaviour of leaders may influence how credible they are perceived to be and the motivations people attribute to them. This is important in the context of climate change because leaders who are viewed favourably generally have greater influence and ability to effect change (Haslam et al. 2020); for instance, credible politicians are likely to maintain more support for climate legislation, and credible celebrities are likely to be more successful as climate advocates. We therefore measure five types of perception of the leaders: their climate commitment; effectiveness; warmth and competence; reactance (against the leader); and increased approval. These are described next.

Leader’s Climate Commitment

The leader’s climate commitment encompasses the extent to which respondents think the leader believes climate change is a serious issue, to what extent the leader is perceived to care about climate change, how knowledgeable the leader is perceived to be on the issue, and perceptions of how committed they are to addressing climate change. These factors contribute to a leader’s credibility. We measure this by asking respondents the extent to which they agree or disagree with statements such as “The politician/celebrityFootnote 1 cares about climate change”. We also explore whether respondents think the leader is exaggerating the issue of climate change.

Hypothesis 2a: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour influence perceptions of the Leader’s Climate Commitment.

We did not specify a direction for this hypothesis due to the variety of items measured. Principle component analysis on the measurement items identified three separate components that we use in our analysis: perceptions that the leader cares about climate change and believes it is a serious issue (Cares/Believes); perceptions that the leader is knowledgeable about climate change and potential solutions (Knowledgeable); and perceptions that the leader exaggerates climate change (Exaggerates).

Effectiveness

Perceptions of a leader’s effectiveness are a common measure of credibility in leadership research, including such factors as persuasiveness, dedication, and effort (Cremer and Knippenberg 2004; Johnson et al. 2008; Lowe et al. 1996). We designed our measures of effectiveness to suit a climate change context, for instance by asking respondents the extent to which they agree or disagree with statements such as “The politician/celebrity is good at persuading other people that climate change is an important issue.”

Hypothesis 2b: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour stimulate greater perceptions of leader Effectiveness.

Warmth and Competence

Perceptions of warmth and competence are established measures of interpersonal judgement that can affect a leader’s credibility (Choi and Mai-Dalton 1998; Laustsen and Bor 2017; Fiske 2018). To measure this, we asked respondents the extent to which they agree or disagree with statements such as “The politician/celebrity is competent and capable.” Within this scale we also measured how respondents perceived the leader’s trustworthiness, honesty and morality (Kouzes and Posner 2004).

Hypothesis 2c: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour stimulate greater perceptions of leader Warmth and competence.

Reactance

It is possible that overt low-carbon behaviour from a leader may be viewed negatively if it is perceived as an unwelcome demand that others change their behaviour too (Raihani and Power 2021). For instance, a feeling of being morally judged in response to a leader’s low-carbon behaviour may backfire and lead to negative “reactance” (Monin et al. 2008; Minson and Monin 2012; Sparkman and Attari 2020). We tested this by asking respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with statements such as: “The politician/celebrity was trying to tell people what to do.” We also tested reactance in response to the disembodied information about the need for low-carbon behaviour change.

Hypothesis 2d: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour stimulate greater Reactance to the leader.

Increased Approval

As leaders generally seek approval to maintain influence and/or popularity, we measured the extent to which leading by example increased each respondents’ approval of the leaders. We asked a single question about each leader: “…would you be more likely or less likely to vote for them?” (politician) or “…do you like and admire them more, or less?” (celebrity). There was no pre-registered hypothesis attached to this measure.

Perspectives on climate change

We explored various ways in which a leader’s visible low-carbon actions might influence other people’s perceptions of climate change as an issue, as follows.

Leaders efficacy

Self-efficacy and collective efficacy are established measures of the extent to which people think they are able contribute to tackling climate change, either individually or collectively (Doherty and Webler 2016). We adapted these concepts to measure “leaders efficacy”, which encapsulates respondents’ perceptions that leaders will act on climate change and how effective this action may be, with questions such as: “How confident or doubtful are you that politicians [celebrities/business leaders] will take the necessary steps to tackle climate change?” and “How confident or doubtful are you that climate change will be kept within safe limits?”.

Hypothesis 3a: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour stimulate higher levels of perceived Leaders efficacy.

Others’ Willingness To Act

It is increasingly understood that many peoples’ motivations to act pro-environmentally may be contingent on the perception that they are not acting alone (Jugert et al. 2016; Fritsche et al. 2018). Therefore we were interested in whether leading by example affects respondents’ perceptions of other citizens’ willingness to act. For this we used the same behaviours as in the Willingness To Act scale above, but in reference to other people. For example, we asked respondents the extent to which they agree or disagree with statements such as “I think other people would be willing to fly less to help tackle climate change.” There was no pre-registered hypothesis attached to this measure.

Moral salience of climate change and personal responsibility

The extent to which climate change is viewed as a moral issue may influence people’s sense of responsibility to take action. Leaders have a role in linking issues to ideas of morality (Van Zant and Moore 2015) and can increase the moral salience of climate change (Schuldt 2017). We asked respondents the extent to which they agree or disagree with statements such as “Climate change is a moral and ethical issue” and “I have some personal responsibility for contributing to the causes of climate change”.

Hypothesis 3b: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour stimulate higher levels of Moral salience of climate change and personal responsibility.

Pro-environmental identity

Leaders have the capacity to influence the self-identity and social-identity of followers (Haslam et al. 2020), while people’s sense of pro-environmental identity is a well-established predictor of willingness to adopt pro-environmental behaviour (Vesely et al. 2021). If a leader exemplifies low-carbon lifestyle choices, therefore, climate action may become more salient for followers. We measured agreement with items such as “Being environmentally-friendly is an important part of who I am” (Whitmarsh and O’Neill 2010; Capstick et al. 2015).

Hypothesis 3c: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour stimulate higher levels of Pro-environmental identity.

Political orientation

Someone’s political orientation can be a strong predictor of their concern about climate change, with those on the right of politics tending to express less concern (Hornsey et al. 2016; Poortinga et al. 2019; Newman et al. 2020). This is deemed potentially problematic if support for climate action becomes politically polarised, which has happened in the United States (Lee et al. 2015) and to a lesser extent in the EU and the UK (McCright et al. 2016). We sought, therefore, to explore whether political orientation affects how people respond to leading by example. For instance, certain right-wing priorities such as individual liberty and freedom to consume may clash with the idea of adopting lower-carbon behaviours such as flying less. Alternatively, other right-wing principles such as self-regulation and personal discipline (Lakoff 1995) might lead to positive responses to leading by example. We sought to explore this latter proposition. A single question asked respondents to place themselves on an 11-point left/right scale (Whitmarsh and Corner 2017).

Hypothesis 3d: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour have more influence on those on the political right in terms of willingness to act.

Support for climate action

Leaders can signal which issues deserve attention and what action is appropriate. We explored whether leaders’ personal actions influence people’s support for action on climate change. We tested this by asking respondents: “How much do you support or oppose the following actions to tackle climate change? (1) Government investment in new technologies; (2) strong international agreements that rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” These are climate measures mentioned in the experimental vignettes (see “Methods” section).

Hypothesis 3e: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour stimulate higher levels of Support for climate action.

Concern, risk perception

Leaders have a role in framing social issues and guiding responses, including how crises are perceived and tackled (Grint 2005, 2010; Boin et al. 2017), so a leader adopting low-carbon behaviour may signal to others the seriousness of climate change. We asked respondents how concerned they are about climate change and the threat they perceive to themselves, their family, their country, other countries, and wildlife and ecosystems.

Hypothesis 3f: Leaders who lead by example with high-impact low-carbon behaviour stimulate higher levels of Climate concern & risk perception.

Appetite for leadership

Previous research has revealed a widespread desire among the public for governments to take the lead on climate change (Bickerstaff et al. 2008; Bedford et al. 2010; Demski et al. 2015; UK Climate Assembly 2020). This can even include a desire for regulation of behaviours that people may feel less able to regulate themselves, such as eating meat (Kukowski et al. 2023). However, less attention has been paid to any public desire for individual leadership by way of low-carbon behaviour change from leaders. In view of this, we asked respondents the extent to which they agree or disagree with six statements such as “Politicians, business leaders and celebrities should set an example by making lifestyle changes first” and “If politicians, business leaders and celebrities went first, I would be more willing to change my lifestyle to tackle climate change”. While differences between the experimental conditions were of some interest, this measure was predominantly seeking to explore overall attitudes about whether leaders should lead by example and what effect it might have. There was no pre-registered hypothesis attached to this measure.

Generalised Trust

The extent to which people believe in the good intentions and trustworthiness of others (known as “generalised trust”) has been shown to increase their willingness to make sacrifices for the environment (Macias 2015). We therefore explored the idea that leading by example may increase “generalised trust”. There was no pre-registered hypothesis attached to this measure.

Gender of leader, subject of survey, and demographics

Respondents were asked about the gender of the leader, what they thought the survey was about, and asked to give their age, education, income, and gender. There were no hypotheses associated with these measures.

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