Much of what we know about leadership is based on normal, everyday situations. However, leadership is arguably most important during a crisis, something we have much less knowledge about. New research (Stajkovic et al., 2026) studied leadership during an extreme crisis event: war. The authors considered ethics of care leadership (ECL), or the extent to which leaders expressed a care-based moral perspective by considering how their decisions impact others.
CARING LEADERSHIP AND WAR DECISIONS
The authors analyzed over 5.2 million words from 152 legislators across sessions of Israel’s national legislature during the Israel-Hamas war. From these transcripts, they identified more than 4,000 policy suggestions. Using text analysis and machine learning, they measured how much leaders expressed care in their language and classified each suggestion as either constructive (focused on cooperation and long-term solutions) or combative (focused on blame, punishment, and escalation).
Leaders who expressed more care in their language were more likely to make constructive rather than combative policy suggestions. Women consistently expressed higher levels of care-based language than men, and this difference helped explain why women were more likely to put forward constructive policy suggestions. Care-based language also increased during the most intense periods of the war, with some narrowing of gender differences, though women remained higher overall.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
Demonstrating care during a crisis may help leaders move discussions toward more constructive decisions. Although war is an extreme context, the authors argue that the findings may extend to other high-strength situations such as disaster response, humanitarian work, and public policymaking. They argue for developing care-based leadership through scenario-based exercises, feedback, and guided moral reflection. When training time is limited, organizations can select crisis-ready leaders by considering their history of caring for vulnerable groups alongside more traditional indicators of competence.
Stajkovic, A.D., Stajkovic, K, Hoobler, J, Morgeson, F. (in press). Ethics of care leadership expressions during a high strength event: A gendered analysis of combative versus constructive policy suggestions During the Israel-Hamas War. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication.
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