How dare you? Principled leadership and moral courage

Kate Gilmore is a Professor-in-Practice at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Honorary Professor at the University of Essex and Chair of the Board of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Vice Chair of the Interpeace Board and member of the World Health Organization Human Reproduction Programme Gender and Rights Advisory Panel. After working as the Executive Deputy Secretary General of Amnesty International she was United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights and Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of the UN Population Fund.

When addressing the 2019 UN Climate Conference, Greta Thunberg demanded of world leaders failing to address the climate crisis decisively, simply: ‘How dare you!’: ‘… People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!’ I ‘How dare you!’ stands out. An exclamation of acute frustration, the phrase can also be more interrogative, meaning something akin to: ‘How do you dare do what you do?’ It’s a leading question and a question for all leaders