Communities globally acknowledge that climate change has directly or indirectly impacted their lives. However, significant responses to climate change issues can be enhanced by effective transformational leadership. The Global Commission on Adaptation comprising 20 countries from all over the globe urgently advocated for strong climate change leadership and pledged to support the galvanisation of leadership for resilience at the local, national, global and private sectors (The Global Commission on Adaptation 2019). Climate change and its impacts are more than a scientific phenomenon; it is a complex interaction of pervasive processes, which include vulnerabilities from a human rights perspective (Abbass et al. 2022; Alam, Bhatia & Mawby 2015). Johnson and Flückiger (2022) reported in a study within a social context of indigenous communities that agency and leadership development have the potential to successfully address community issues. There has been a shift in university climate change education from limited inclusion in curricula to a range of broader approaches (Filho et al. 2021). Hence, we argue that higher education students have a valuable responsibility and need to be developed as potential environmental leaders with agency to address the complexities of climate change. The concept of agency has been applied across social, economic, environmental and other fields. Human agency can be conceptualised as the capacity of collectives and individuals to bring about change and is achieved through some action or intentionality (Chen-Levi, Buskila & Schechter 2022; Wang & Stokhof 2022). Hence, agency is manifested when leaders take action (Chen-Levi et al. 2022). However, self-efficacy, reflection and perception of control and ability are contributors to agency (Donald et al. 2017). Agents need to have self-belief of their attributes and level of competence to take action (Nunes et al. 2022).

The dominance of conventional party-political leadership over the past decades is inadequate to respond to the impacts of climate change on regional and local levels; the overshadowed transformational environmental leadership needs to gain momentum. We advance this momentum to address the urgency of climate change action through the contributions of this study. The two foci of this article are students’ self-beliefs and approaches to implementing climate change action within environmental leadership contexts. The two guiding research questions for this article are (1) What are students’ responses to self-belief attributes on leadership? (2) How do students perceive environmental leadership within the context of climate change? Higher education institutions are uniquely positioned to nurture this agency in students by providing opportunities to develop transformational leadership competencies. Yet, there remains a gap in research exploring how students perceive their own leadership potential in relation to environmental issues. This baseline study is therefore important not only to understand students’ self-beliefs and leadership perspectives but also to inform future climate change education frameworks that intentionally gravitate towards the development of environmental leaders.

Climate change is widely conceptualised, although not unanimously, as a scientific phenomenon greatly exacerbated by anthropogenic activities (Santos, Ferreira & Pedersen 2022; Schäpers et al. 2024; Sun et al. 2024). The impact of climate change has catapulted the need for awareness and action to transform nations and not just mitigate negative anthropogenic environmental manifestations (Molthan-Hill & Blaj-Ward 2022). There is no doubt that dynamic environmental leadership has the potential to bring about internal change within individuals and motivate masses to bring about meaningful environmental change. The late 2004 Nobel Laureate, Professor Wangari Maathai, is an outstanding example of the impact of environmental leadership. Professor Wangari Maathai from humble rural beginnings was a leader, educator and advocate of environmental issues who working with the Green Belt Movement, successfully mobilised communities, overwhelmingly women, to plant more than 30 million trees in Kenya (Florence 2017). In a study on sustainability leadership, respondents expressed that future generations need to continue efforts on sustainability issues, which should include their own innovativeness (Horn & Wehrmeyer 2020). An example is Greta Thunberg and the youth protests for climate action outside the Swedish Parliament in August 2018, which was considered inspirational and motivational and subsequently sparked protests in other parts of the world (Horn & Wehrmeyer 2020; Maslin, Lang & Harvey 2023).

Given that climate change action does have a history (Maslin et al. 2023), proactive climate change responses require understanding, preparedness, planning and action, although epiphanic moments of leaders are also valuable responses. For example, climate change impact includes increased coastal flooding; therefore an understanding of risk tools and risk management to mitigate social disruption needs planning and preparedness (Govender, Reddy & Pillay 2025). There is increased awareness in higher education of the responsibility to adequately prepare students to participate in mitigation and adaptation to climate change (Filho et al. 2021). A study conducted in Vietnam reported that extra-curricular activities provided opportunities to develop environmental leadership competencies in university students; however, participation in these activities was inconsistent (Uong 2025). A study in the United States identified undergraduate students perceived lack of agency as a barrier to environmental leadership development, especially where colossal environmental issues are presented without adequate solutions (Davis et al. 2025). The students also alluded to the importance of collective agency, rather than just individual accountability to environmental issues. A study in Mogadishu, Somalia highlighted environmental leadership programmes as critical to develop student’s capacity to translate theoretical knowledge into action (Mohamed, Omar & Jama 2025). The studies mentioned have raised important issues such as the role of extra-curricular activities to develop leadership capacity, perception of agency and the need for leadership training to enable agency. However, a significant point is that each context is different and that both leadership processes and attributes are important in understanding student environmental leadership potential.

The future of climate action therefore hinges not only on the influence of iconic leaders but also on the strategic cultivation of leadership capacities across broader societal segments especially within higher education, where student agency can be enabled and competencies developed for appropriate responses. Given the urgent calls for response to climate change impacts, and for leadership competencies to be developed or strengthened, our baseline study to explore higher education students’ beliefs and perspectives of environmental leadership is significant.

Multiple leadership theories, models and styles can be identified in the literature. Among them are viz. environmental leadership, sustainability leadership (Muff, Liechti & Dyllick 2020), authentic leadership, ethical leadership, servant leadership, transactional leadership and transformational leadership (Siangchokyoo, Klinger & Campion 2020). However, there are common attributes consistent across the different conceptions of leadership. Key attributes of responsible leadership, for example, also apply to environmental leadership. These key attributes as expressed by Muff et al. (2020) include fostering and managing good relationships with stakeholders, ethical behaviour, self-awareness, understanding of interdependent systems and the competency to lead action towards addressing sustainability issues. Transformational leadership among the plethora of models has been identified as the most researched with impressive empirical predictive validity (Deng et al. 2023; Siangchokyoo et al. 2020). Overlaps in transformational leadership and environmental leadership symbolic actions, such as their persuasion as role models, have been acknowledged (Wang et al. 2020) and are often used interchangeably. In this analysis the authors use transformational leadership interchangeably with environmental leadership.

Transformational leadership theory (TLT) underpinned this study. Transformational leadership theory, initially conceptualised by James MacGregor Burns in the late seventies (1978) and expanded by Bass in 1985, has since been widely used, evolved, refined, criticised and adapted (Siangchokyoo et al. 2020; Thompson et al. 2021). The theory is integrative and extends beyond verbal and non-verbal behavioural attributes but includes dyadic relations and encompasses processes, which underpin transformational influence on followers (Schäpers et al. 2024; Siangchokyoo et al. 2020). Transformational leadership theory has been applied to various fields, environmental sustainability included, to raise awareness, encourage pro-environmental behaviours, implement action and influence outcomes (Li et al. 2020). Siangchokyoo et al. (2020) aver that TLT has the potential to evolve but raise concern that there is lack of empirical evidence to substantiate follower transformation. In contrast, using meta-analytical evidence based on review studies, Deng et al. (2023) point out that there is sufficient basis to resolve that transformational leadership is effective to achieve individual, team and organisational objectives.

Commonly, TLT encompasses key tenets such as idealised influence and inspirational motivation (Ratinet et al. 2025; Schäpers et al. 2024; Siangchokyoo et al. 2020). These tenets of TLT focus on the attributes and behaviours of the leader, which are likely to influence followers (Li et al. 2020; Siangchokyoo et al. 2020). However, given that TLT is evolving, in a review analysis of TLT it was suggested that leadership processes involved in transforming followers should also be taken into account in application of the theory (Siangchokyoo et al. 2020). Hence, conceptually two aspects of transformational leadership formed the basis for the analysis of the responses in this study, namely intrapersonal attributes and behaviours of leaders (Li et al. 2020) and interpersonal transformation leadership processes (i.e. processes to transform followers) (Schäpers et al. 2024).

Two focal points of intrapersonal transformational leader attributes and behaviours are idealised influence and inspirational motivation (Deng et al. 2023; Li et al. 2020; Ratinet et al. 2025; Schäpers et al. 2024; Siangchokyoo et al. 2020). Idealised influence refers to self-belief attributes and behaviours, which exhibit leading as a role model (Siangchokyoo et al. 2020). Self-belief attributes include influence and collaboration, understanding emotions, resilience and perseverance. Inspirational motivation includes ardour of belief and communication. Transformational leadership processes involve interpersonal tenets of how leaders promote the transformation in followers (Siangchokyoo et al. 2020). Interpersonal transformational leadership processes encompass communication processes, social interplay, stimulation of innovativeness and mediation of followers’ ‘voices’ (Lin 2023). ‘Voices’ refer to tendencies such as expression of views and suggestion of ideas among others (Lin 2023).

In applying TLT to the study, the authors do not disentangle the intrapersonal (attributes of self-belief) and interpersonal (social interplay processes) of transformational leadership from human agency. As previously mentioned, human agency (capacity) is partly underpinned by self-belief and levels of competence (Donald et al. 2017; Nunes et al. 2022). Hence, human agency encompasses the actor’s perception and realisation of their own ‘power’, which includes intrapersonal attributes and interpersonal processes, i.e. in processes involving the ‘power’ of others as well in the social interplay (Chen-Levi et al. 2022).

The TLT has been applied as a theoretical framework to studies related to higher education students. For example, a study was conducted in China on students’ perception of transformational leadership, learning outcomes and self-belief (self-efficacy) (Liu & Huang 2023). The researchers in that study applied tenets of TLT such as idealised influence and inspirational motivation. In this study, tenets of TLT idealised influence and inspirational motivation were translated into leadership attribute statements as presented in the Results section in Table 1.

Integrating both intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions of leadership, TLT provides a holistic framework for understanding how leadership attributes (self-belief) and processes (social interplay) can be nurtured in students to enable agency to address climate change. This theoretical lens is particularly relevant for a baseline study of higher education students, as it explores the developmental potential of emerging leaders and their capacity to shape environmental futures. Hence, TLT makes a robust and purposeful foundation for this study. The literature on TLT enhances the reimagining of environmental transformational leadership with emphasis on attributes of leaders and leadership processes as fundamental consideration.

The study adopted a descriptive case study design to collect baseline information. Elicitation of numerical and textual data was underpinned by a convergent parallel mixed methods approach (Ivankova, Creswell & Clark 2016). An electronic questionnaire and digitally recorded interviews were used to elicit the perspectives of the students. The foci for discussion extracted from the electronic questionnaire and interviews for this article are beliefs and perceptions about environmental leadership, climate change and response to a scenario question (If you were tasked to address climate change in your community, explain how you go about doing this task?). The closed questions in the electronic questionnaire were itemised statements adapted and compiled from self-awareness tests commonly used on different websites. Response options for the itemised statements were exactly me, much like me and not me at all. The questionnaire was validated independently within academia. The itemised statements were quantitatively analysed and expressed as descriptive statistics (percentages). The open questions in the questionnaire and interview transcriptions were analysed using predetermined categories in the form of phrases. For example, environmental leadership actions coding words and phrases included: field action, providing knowledge and campaigning. The coding words were influenced by general community engagement actions. The three researchers accounted for trustworthiness by independently analysing the open questions. Deviations from each independent analysis, which were very few, were communicated among the researchers, and the category code for that response was agreed upon. The electronic interview transcriptions were reviewed for accuracy through relistening to the recordings.

Sampling was purposeful and convenient. Besides being accessible, the participants were pursuing a course within the science faculty, which integrated environmental issues and community engagement. The participants were students (year levels one, two and three) at a selected university in South Africa within a department in the Faculty of Science. Participation in the study was voluntary, with a 47.1% response to the electronic questionnaire (n = 48 out of 102 students), and six individual interviews from the 48 were conducted. Although in total 48 students participated, some did not respond to all questions (hence, only those who responded were used in the analysis, such as in Table 3, n = 40).

This study involved human participants and was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards set by the university research directorate under the protocol Ref: RD1/07/2020. Prior to participation, all respondents were informed about the purpose of the study and voluntarily provided their informed consent. No student was coerced as participation was entirely voluntary, and anonymity and confidentiality of all participants were strictly maintained throughout the research process, including the name of the institution in which the research was conducted and is not disclosed in this article for ethical reasons. In the administration of the electronic questionnaire no identification details including student numbers were requested. The interview responses were transcribed using numerical codes and are quoted anonymously in the reporting.

This study aimed to understand students’ self-belief attributes on leadership and how students perceive environmental leadership within the context of climate change. Human impacts on the state of planet Earth are increasing and action to climate change is imperative (Glavovic, Smith & White 2022; IPCC 2023; Santos et al. 2022); agency in leadership is likely to be effective climate change action. With failures in previous mitigation, evident by the increasing temperatures, fundamental transformative changes across societal, economic and technological dimensions are needed to break the status quo of impact (Gabric 2023).

Transformational environmental leadership actions have a significant role in systemic transformation. A challenge to environmental leadership is the lack of categoric consensus in the academic, scientific and political world about the causes of climate change – natural, human or a combination of these. Nevertheless, while there are some uncertainties, climate science has identified anthropogenic influences as one of the drivers of climate change (Gabric 2023; Glavovic et al. 2022; Maslin et al. 2023). However, there are also lay theories of climate change based on people’s experiences and to some knowledge exposure (Sun et al. 2024). There were students, although a minority who perceived climate change to be a wholly natural phenomenon. In a study in China, it was found that individuals aligning to the anthropogenic acceleration theory (human-made acceleration) of climate change had higher problem-solving and coping scores than those aligning to the natural-cycle theory (Sun et al. 2024). The belief of climate change as a natural phenomenon is likely to impact on commitment to and prioritising of climate change as advocated by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A case in point is the deprioritising of climate change action in the West because of change of political leadership having a natural-cycle theory stance. However, beliefs about climate change cannot be easily overruled as beliefs could be based on not only scientific evidence but be also influenced by worldviews, values and political loyalties (Hornsey et al. 2016).

Transformational environmental leaders as role models should be examples of transformation advocacy by demonstrating environmental behaviours in action (Huynh et al. 2024; Li et al. 2020; Su et al. 2020). One of the tenets of the TLT is idealised influence, which includes leading by example, developing followers’ trust as well as displaying appropriate and ethical behaviour (Deng et al. 2023; Mashinini & Sethibe 2025). However, in this study gaining trust and setting the example had the lowest frequency (1) (2.5%) of environmental actions mentioned by students. Any reason for the lowest frequency to gaining trust will be highly speculative and there could be a range of such speculations. One such speculation could be the erosion of a culture of trust. Dwindling of trust in political leadership and among citizens within the South African context because of unethical practices is a reality (Grobler & Koen 2024). Due consideration of idealised influence (with an emphasis on role modelling and the development of trust with followers) is therefore needed in leadership programmes for higher education students within the South African context. Greta Thunberg, climate change activist in Sweden, placed herself at the forefront of protest action (Maslin et al. 2023), Professor Wangari Maathai actively planted trees with women in Kenya (Florence 2017) and Ms. Vandana Shiva, advocator and activist in India of interconnecting climate change, hunger and poverty issues was famous for conducting agricultural research at her farm for over decades (Marchessault 2025). The role modelling of the mentioned leaders, and many more among them, inspired and motivated masses all over the globe demonstrating the value of role modelling in transformational leadership processes.

Transformational environmental leaders have an influential role (Lin 2023; Ratinet et al. 2025). However, transformational leadership does not embrace autocracy and manipulation. The tenet of inspirational motivation of transformational leadership involves communication and consideration of followers (Huynh et al. 2024; Su et al. 2020). Students suggested effective communication as one of the important aspects of environmental leadership to mediate the issue of climate change to communities. Communicating in ways that are understandable (S5Q), enhancing communication through visuals (S28Q) and the means of communication such as the use of posters with concise information (S37Q) were some of the aspects focused on. Transformational leadership theory does account for communication in the tenet of inspirational motivation (Deng et al. 2023; Ratinet et al. 2025).

In transformation leadership there is a social interplay between the leader and followers inclusive of individuals, communities and nations. Transformational leaders who exhibit concern, value of dignity and contribution are likely to receive reciprocal behaviour from followers (Thompson et al. 2021). In this study, in the questionnaire the majority of responses suggested that leadership environmental actions for climate change embraced the value of social interplay as exemplified in the categories of working with stakeholders (authorities, communities, business, effective communication, get perspectives, seek solutions). Inclusive approaches to decision-making, which consider different viewpoints are more likely to nurture trust and contribute to finding sustainable and equitable strategies to address issues (Grobler & Koen 2024). However, the suggestion of the top-down approach, although of a low frequency, negates inspirational motivation and positive social interplay.

In the questionnaire there was a high percentage of student responses of 83.33% (exactly like me) to the belief statement, ‘I believe that nothing is more important than accomplishing a goal or task’. The responses demonstrated downplaying of positive social interplay. While overall the students seem to suggest positive social interplay in environmental leadership actions suggested for climate change strategies, strong individual perceptions (exactly like me) to extreme priority on task orientation could be a hindrance to inspirational motivation and positive social interplay. In leadership processes, leadership influence should take into account the well-being of others. Deng et al. (2023) in a meta-analytical study reported transformational leadership contributes to follower well-being.

A large percentage of the students seem to be of the belief that leadership is about being right and getting results (exactly like me, 58.33% and much like me, 31.25%). This belief reflects an autocratic rather than a collaborative approach to influence followers. Autocracy and manipulation are unlikely to positively impact followers and to meaningfully respond to the issue of climate change conceptually and in reality. For effectiveness in working with communities, there needs to be synergy of leadership self-belief attributes with social processes of transformational leadership. A balance between social interplay and task orientation is more likely to contribute to effective transformational leadership within the context of climate change, as both the issue of climate change and human involvement are critical for success and sustainability of actions. Therefore, in this study, according to the students’ belief in leadership as expressed in the questionnaire, most of them are likely to adopt autocratic rather than inclusive approaches in their enactment of agency. However, the interview responses demonstrated thoughts of social interplay in their enactment of agency.

The value of perseverance and resilience is beyond leadership attributes; it is integral to the transformational leadership process and influence on followers. In response to the questionnaire, the majority of students showed potential for demotivation and the lack of perseverance in leadership contexts in selecting options of exactly like me and much like me in response to the statement: I am greatly saddened when things don’t work out, I feel like quitting. It is acknowledged that these could be momentary feelings; however, these feelings could be detrimental to idealised influence and leadership processes in the enactment of agency. Responses to address climate change are not definitive; it is ongoing, as evident by the decades of debate and strategies conceptualised and which are evolving internationally. The Paris Agreement of 2015 could be threatened as past mitigations have failed to deliver but is still possible (Santos et al. 2022). Much resilience and perseverance are needed by leaders and followers if climate responses are to be effective and evaluated. For example, managed retreat of communities (relocation of communities) from flooded or areas vulnerable to potential flooding have repercussions such as disruption of socio-economic life and could increase social injustices in disadvantaged or oppressed communities (Andrews et al. 2023; Govender et al. 2025). Politically, for example, in the United States, presidents prior to 2024 provided much policy hope for climate change responses. Furthermore, new strategies for climate change response continue to emerge globally; however, the situation is still adverse with broad temperature increases (Glavovic et al. 2022). Any lack of perseverance to the adversity of climate change is likely to plunge the planet and humanity into further climate tragedy.

There is a need to educate the next generation of leaders with holistic, systemic and integrated mindsets towards an equitable future; inspirational transformation is key (Tavanti, Sfeir-Younis & Wilp 2022). A study conducted in the Philippines concluded that there is a need for leadership development programmes to enhance the capacities of individuals to adequately respond to the multifaceted and interconnected environmental issues (Horn & Wehrmeyer 2020). In higher education institutions environmental leadership skills can be developed through multiple strategies. These strategies include learning experiences related to climate change education which can be integrated and shared across multiple disciplines (Molthan-Hill & Blaj-Ward 2022). Another strategy is to include a module on transformational environmental (sustainability) leadership in the curriculum. A viable option is to integrate leadership competency development through the design of a course assignment to focus, for example, on community development and engagement (Perkins 2020). Killion et al. (2018) suggest integrated research opportunities and transdisciplinary research skills development. The Make a Difference (MAD) programme, which was implemented in New Zealand, is an example of a participatory approach used to develop transformational and action competencies in the next generation (Blythe & Harré 2020).

Climate change is a currently topical and integrated environmental issue. Higher education students are an important cohort of the future generation of leaders to garner the wider masses for urgent behavioural transformation. This study explored student perceptions of climate change as an issue, beliefs on environmental leadership and suggested environmental leadership actions to address climate change. The findings revealed that there are variations in perceptions of the causes of climate change, different personal beliefs about leadership, which include the majority feeling demotivated when leadership efforts seem to fail and greater emphasis on objective achievement which disadvantages the value of social interplay in the transformational leadership process. However, the study highlights that social interplay within the transformational leadership tenets of inspiration and motivation has been considered by students in climate change leadership actions. The findings of this study are valuable as a baseline for transformational leadership efforts, firstly, for lecturers and programme leaders to consider different aspects of agency development in students and secondly, to use the different foci of the study as a means to facilitate student self-reflection on their transformational environmental leadership potential. These insights highlight the importance of fostering a holistic leadership approach that balances goal achievement with relational dynamics. Transformational leadership theory emphasises attributes and processes. By embedding transformational leadership principles into educational practice, institutions can cultivate resilient, motivated student leaders equipped to drive meaningful climate action beyond the classroom.