Ilka Gleibs

Ilka Gleibs is an academic based in London. She was educated in Germany and received degrees from the Freie Universität, Berlin and Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena. Ilka has held positions at the University of Exeter, University of Surrey and a Visiting Position at Royal Holloway University of London. Ilka currently co-directs the MSc degree in Organisational and Social Psychology at The London School of Economics and  Political Science, where she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. She has been Deputy Head of Department and the Deputy Head of the LSE Research Ethics Committee. In addition, she currently is an Associate Editor at the British Journal of Social Psychology.  

In her scholarship, she has explored the themes of social identity dynamics, leadership, wellbeing and change. In her most recent work, she explores how effective leadership must look like in crisis. For example, she examined how President Zelenskyy modulates his leadership rhetoric to garner international support. She further asked: What is effective governmental leadership during crisis? How can we co-create better leadership when dealing with climate change? In addition, she is also interested in understanding how structural issues, rather than individual responsibilization, can be used to increase well-being, especially for women, or religious minorities, in the workplace. She’s also interested in questions around Ethics, especially around Online Ethics, and has served on the Ethics board of What Works for Children’s Social Work.

Her academic writings have been published in top international journals and Ilka has lectured widely in Europe, the USA and Australia. Ilka has spoken at the House of Parliament, the Luxemburg Institute for Socio Economics Research, Waterloo Research Institute for Ageing (Canada), and North London Collegiate School and NHS Employer. She was invited to speak to the Royal Air Force, Facebook and Unilever. She has been on advisory boards of several startups and taught members of the Ministry of Defence and worked with the London Fire Brigade. She has appeared for example, in BBC’s World News, Sky News, The Science of the Young One’s (BBC documentary). Her research has been reported in many media outlets including the Time Magazine/Aspen Institute of Best Ideas of the Day, USA Today, O Globo (Brazil). She has been a guest on several podcasts.