Where Art, Leadership, Psychology and Biology Meet
The Shibboleth Experiment
Can artistic experiences change how managers exercise power and responsibility? And can such a change reach those who never took part themselves?
The Shibboleth Experiment examined these questions at Karolinska Institutet, in collaboration with the Swedish Defence University.
A Comparison Between Two Paths
Around fifty managers were randomly assigned to one of two programmes, each lasting approximately one year.
One group encountered Shibboleth: theatrical performances in which literary fragments, music and human testimony were carried by two voices, followed by individual writing, reflection and conversation.
The other group took part in an established leadership programme run by the Swedish Armed Forces, structured around leadership theories, tools, group processes and feedback.
Around 200 of their co-workers were followed in parallel, without themselves taking part in either programme. This enabled the study to examine not only what happened to the managers, but also whether their development had consequences for those who worked most closely with them.
The effects were followed up after twelve and eighteen months. This made it possible to examine not only whether change occurred, but whether it endured and how the development of the two groups differed over time.
Beyond the Managers’ Own Assessments
The changes were examined from several perspectives: through the managers’ own assessments, through their co-workers’ evaluations of their leadership, and through psychological, relational and biological measures.
What the Results Showed
The two groups developed in different directions. The differences between them did not diminish over time. On the contrary, they were most pronounced at the final follow-up, eighteen months after the study began.
The managers in the Shibboleth group assessed themselves as less self-assured. Their co-workers, however, saw them as taking greater responsibility — as more courageous and more prepared to take a stand in stressful situations rather than rely on ready-made solutions. Their readiness to act with others’ best interests in mind, their psychological resilience and their ability to handle stress also increased.
In the comparison group, the corresponding measures deteriorated. Passive and avoidant laissez-faire leadership increased — a form of leadership described in research as the most destructive and characterised by a reluctance to make necessary decisions. The managers’ self-knowledge weakened, and their ability to handle stress deteriorated. Yet the managers themselves evaluated the programme as positive and rewarding.
In the Shibboleth group, the gap between how the managers saw themselves and how they were assessed by their co-workers narrowed. This points to a more realistic self-image and deepened self-knowledge. In the comparison group, however, the gap widened: the managers’ confidence in their own leadership grew while their co-workers’ assessments became more negative.
The change did not stop with the managers. The co-workers in the Shibboleth group had never themselves taken part in Shibboleth, yet their psychological well-being improved, as did their ability to cope with stressful and unjust situations.
The blood samples pointed in the same direction. At the long-term follow-up, levels of DHEA-S — an anabolic hormone associated with the body’s recovery and resilience under stress — were higher among both managers and co-workers in the Shibboleth group than in the comparison group.
What the Experiment Shows
The Shibboleth Experiment shows that an artistically composed and indirect form of leadership development can change how power and responsibility are exercised. The comparison also shows that participation in an established leadership programme does not automatically lead to positive development.
The experiment further shows that change can extend beyond those who take part themselves. Change in one who holds power can have consequences in the lives and bodies of others. What matters is what actually takes place in the relationship between the leader and those affected by the exercise of leadership.
The psychological, relational and biological results pointed in the same direction, thereby strengthening the overall pattern.
The study examined neither productivity nor profitability. Other research — including work by Jim Collins and Fred Kiel — has approached the relationship between leadership, responsibility and long-term success from another direction: What characterises leaders whose organisations remain successful over time?
Such leaders do not avert their gaze from reality, but dare to see it as it is. They create an environment in which uncomfortable truths can also be heard, take responsibility for their decisions and for their failures, and are marked by humility, compassion and a willingness to be corrected.
These ways of relating closely resemble several of the changes observed among the managers in the Shibboleth group.
Responsibility, concern for others and long-term success therefore do not emerge as opposites. On the contrary, they may be closely connected.
A Study That Stands Apart
In a systematic review published in 2024, Berit Sandberg at HTW Berlin Business School in Germany analysed 31 empirical studies of art-based leadership development.
The Shibboleth Experiment was the only study included in the review to consider both leaders' and co-workers' perspectives, and the only one to draw on literature and poetry. Other studies used, among other forms, painting, dance, theatre and film. It was also the only study to combine biological measures — through blood samples — with psychological and relational measures.
According to Sandberg, Romanowska et al. were also likely the first to introduce the term art-based leadership development into the scientific literature.
Taken together, the three scientific publications from the Shibboleth Experiment received the strongest quality assessments in the entire review.
The article on health effects among managers and co-workers was published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics — a journal whose scientific impact places it among the world's leading journals in both psychiatry and psychology.
It was also highlighted by H1 Connect, an international expert platform where leading researchers identify the latest breakthroughs in medicine and life sciences. There, the article was selected as New Findings and received the ratings Must Read and Very Good.
The Doctoral Thesis and Further Reading
The Shibboleth Experiment formed the basis of Julia Romanowska’s doctoral thesis, Improving Leadership through the Power of Words and Music, defended at the Department of Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet in 2014.
The results have been published in scientific journals. The research has also been developed further in Swedish and international book chapters, as well as in the books Schibboleteffekten: ledarskap, konsten och människans ansvar, published in 2021, and Leadership, Art, and Responsibility: The Shibboleth Effect, forthcoming from Edward Elgar in August 2026.
Aristotle claimed that watching tragedy in the theatre made us better human beings. That art could heal was a very beautiful thought. A little too beautiful to be true. No one, surely, ever believed it could be proven — least of all by means of blood tests on managers and their employees. Julia Romanowska’s ingenious experiment ought to be studied by everyone who works with human beings.
Maciej Zaremba
Author & journalist
Julia Romanowska’s research into the significance of art for leaders has given me, as a theatre director, not only the joy of recognition but also the conviction that we — artists and citizens alike — must raise our voices in support of every form of education that increases our capacity for empathy. The work behind the Shibboleth Effect is profoundly unsettling basic research: What responsibility do we bear for one another? Our conscience needs help.
Suzanne Osten
Director & Professor
The term Shibboleth effect
/ʃɪˈboʊlət ɛˈfɛktən/
The shibboleth effect has been entered as a concept in the Natur & Kultur Psychology Dictionary.
