Leadership and the ethics of hope: Václav Havel and the Charter 77 human rights movement in Czechoslovakia.

This article examines the concept of hope in leadership through the case of Václav Havel and the Charter 77 human rights movement in totalitarian Czechoslovakia, using French existentialist Gabriel Marcel’s ethics of hope as a philosophical framework. It critiques contemporary spiritual and authentic leadership theories for reducing hope to an overly positive, goal-oriented, and instrumental concept, arguing instead that hope involves vulnerability, responsibility, and relationality amid despair and oppression. The study highlights five elements of Marcel’s ethics—hope as the “arm of the disarmed,” embracing despair, active presence, creative fidelity, and hope rooted in love—and illustrates how these manifested in Havel’s leadership and the Charter 77 community’s resistance. The article suggests that this richer, ethically grounded understanding of hope offers valuable insights for leadership ethics and theory, especially in contexts of repression and uncertainty, and remains relevant for addressing contemporary global challenges.