Written submission from Institute of One World Leadership (IOWL) (PRO0162)

 

Written evidence submitted by IOWL - Institute of One World Leadership® - The World’s Leadership Institute®

 

5th December 2025

 

Priorities of the Business and Trade Committee for 2026

 

1. Introduction and Background

IOWL is a UK-based, not-for-profit leadership institute focused on Positive Value Leadership™ (PVL), Perpetual Calibre Development™, and the development of Calibre Credits™ as a third pillar of human capital, alongside capability and competency.

Instrumental in our work are the faculties of:

We work with universities, employers, public-sector bodies and international organisations, including engagements with and contributions to the OECD Global Forum on the Future of Education and Skills 2040, reinforcing the role of “attitudes and values” in future-ready systems; and the OECD Global Forum on Productivity (GFP).

Our research exposed a systemic gap in policy, skills and capability provision and asked deeper questions:

The answers revealed a stark and simple truth:

Capability and Competency without Calibre leads to Chaos and Catastrophe.

Put simply: you can keep spending billions on skills and infrastructure, but if the people in charge lack integrity and judgement, productivity will stay stuck.

We define Calibre as the Positive values, integrity, judgement and personal grounding that determine how knowledge and skills are used. The Capacity Conundrum™ describes the recurring challenge of trying to build national or organisational capacity without first ensuring individuals possess all three foundations:

When societies mass-produce leaders, employees and professionals who are credentialled but lack inner integrity, they create skill with misdirected will: productivity is undermined, trust erodes, and systems become fragile under shocks.

 

 

Conventional policy treats productivity as:

(Health + Education + Knowledge) × (Capability + Competency) = Productivity

 

 

Yet government’s own analysis (DfE Skills and UK Productivity, 2023) finds that only around one-third of UK productivity growth since 2001 is attributable to skills, leaving two-thirds unexplained in current strategies. Calibre sits in that missing space: the human decision-making quality that turns skills and capital into trustworthy, sustainable performance.

 

 

The evidence we submit aims to correct this equation to

((Health + Education + Knowledge) × (Capability + Competency)) × Calibre = Productivity

 

 

In other words, Calibre multiplies whatever skills and investment are already there.


2. Executive Summary

2.1. The UK’s productivity problem is not solely a skills deficit but a Calibre deficit.

Government evidence shows skills explain roughly one-third of productivity growth; the remaining two-thirds are where positive values, leadership integrity and organisational culture live. Policy must explicitly recognise Calibre (attitudes and positive values in action) as a core driver of productivity, not a “soft” add-on.

2.2. Growth reforms must integrate Calibre into planning, infrastructure, regulation and skills.

Without Calibre, growth strategies risk amplifying misaligned incentives, producing more output but also more instability, misconduct and low-trust workplaces. Pro-growth investments should require evidence of Positive Values-based leadership and governance, not just technical capacity.

2.3. The UK should adopt a three-pillar human capital model: Calibre, Capability, Competency.

We recommend updating productivity and human-capital frameworks so that leadership Calibre is treated as a measurable, investable intangible asset, akin to management quality and organisational capital in total factor productivity.

2.4. Introduce Calibre Credits as a complementary metric to qualifications and skills.

Calibre Credits provide a practical mechanism for recognising and tracking positive values-based leadership behaviours across sectors. They can strengthen recruitment, promotion and procurement decisions by moving beyond “certificates only” to “credibility and character”.

2.5. Embed Positive Value Leadership (PVL) into priority sectors and public leadership pipelines.

The Industrial Strategy’s growth-driving sectors will only reach frontier productivity if the leaders who deploy technology and skills consistently embody integrity, probity, inclusion and stewardship. PVL offers a structured, codified positive values framework to achieve this.

2.6. Position the UK globally as a hub of ‘trusted productivity’.

In a world of subsidy races and regulatory arbitrage, the UK cannot and should not compete on cost alone. Instead, it can lead on trust: combining rule of law with calibrated leadership standards (Calibre, PVL and Calibre Credits) to give investors, partners and citizens higher confidence in UK-based decisions.

2.7. Create cross-government coordination for Calibre and productivity.

Current structures separate skills, industrial strategy, business regulation and public-sector integrity. A dedicated cross-Whitehall mechanism should align these around a shared Calibre-and-productivity agenda, with participation from business, unions and independent expertise (including IOWL).


3. Pro-growth reforms and investment

Questions: Which reforms (planning, infrastructure, regulation, skills) are most urgent for unlocking growth, and how can growth be translated into higher productivity and rising living standards across the UK?

 

3.1. From “more bricks” to “stronger mortar”

The UK has rightly invested in bricks – infrastructure, higher education, skills programmes. Human capital is crucial: knowledge, skills and experience directly affect productivity and growth. But our work and government’s own research show that bricks alone are not enough.

These findings are consistent with the Capacity Conundrum: we have expanded capacity (infrastructure, skills, funding) without proportionate investment in Calibre. When a “seismic shock” occurs, financial crisis, pandemic, geopolitical disruption, structures built on skills but lacking positive values-based leadership crack quickly.

 

3.2. Planning & infrastructure: require leadership Calibre

To unlock growth and resilience, planning and infrastructure regimes should:

 

3.3. Regulation: shift from “compliance only” to “trusted capability”

Current regulatory approaches often respond to failures by layering additional rules. Our research on the “5 Whys of Failing Productivity” suggests that as long as positive values and internal regulation (Calibre) are weak, external regulation multiplies without solving the root cause.

Regulators could:

 

3.4. Skills: from skills-only to skills-plus-Calibre

Skills remain essential but insufficient. To convert growth into lasting productivity and improved living standards, the skills system must:

 

 


4. Productivity growth

Questions: What drives the UK’s productivity challenge? How can government and business align to improve productivity, especially in the Industrial Strategy’s growth sectors? What role for technology, skills and innovation, and how can gains be shared fairly?

 

4.1. The 5 Whys of failing productivity

Drawing on IOWL’s research and the government’s own data, we apply a “5 Whys” diagnostic:

The current policy debate, including the framing of this Inquiry, tends to remain at the “what skills do employers need to be successful?” question. That is necessary, but not sufficient. We also need the prior systemic question: “what conditions and behaviours must change so that skills, values and leadership reliably convert into productivity and trust?”.

We describe this as a Flag–Lag–Drag dynamic – employers flag needs, the system lags, and the whole economy experiences drag.

Employers and sectors FLAG new skill needs; education and training systems inevitably LAG as curricula and pathways are redesigned and rolled out; during this period the economy experiences DRAG in the form of skills gaps, misalignment and lost productivity. Even when the pipeline eventually delivers the flagged skills, a persistent Calibre deficit - weak values, poor leadership norms and misaligned incentives - continues to generate drag through ethical failures, low trust and under-utilised capability. Positive Value Leadership and Calibre Credits are designed to address this deeper drag by building the systemic Calibre that allows skills investments to “stick”.

 

  1. Why is productivity failing?
    Because the workforce and leadership lack the adaptability and Calibre to sustain performance under complex, changing conditions.
  2. Why do they lack adaptability and Calibre?
    Because policy and corporate investment overwhelmingly target capability and competency (skills, training, knowledge) which decay over time, while under-investing in values and judgement.
  3. Why is policy fixated on capability and competency?
    Because productivity is modelled in narrow quantitative terms (skills + hours + capital), treating behaviour as exogenous, and ignoring the qualitative foundation of decision-making.
  4. Why is behaviour (values and Calibre) ignored?
    Because values are considered “soft” and hard to measure, leading policymakers to rely on external rules and compliance to govern behaviour.
  5. Why does regulation and compliance fail to fix productivity?
    Because external regulation cannot replace internal regulation. Without Calibre embedded in leaders and systems, trust collapses, misconduct increases, and productivity improvements are either short-lived or captured by a narrow elite.


4.2. Aligning government and business around Calibre

To improve productivity in the Industrial Strategy’s growth-driving sectors, government and business must work from a shared understanding that Calibre is the missing multiplier: without positive values-based leadership, even substantial investments in skills, technology and capital will underperform.

Many employers already act on this logic in practice. For example, Pret A Manger’s recruitment philosophy is often summarised as “we recruit for attitude and train for skills”. The company prioritises attributes such as enthusiasm, humility, emotional intelligence and willingness to learn over prior technical experience.

This is on the basis that attitude and values are harder to change than technical skills; that new hires most often fail because of poor attitude or low coachability rather than lack of technical ability; and that the right attitude improves cultural fit, team morale, retention and the effectiveness of subsequent training.

In essence, this is a practical recognition that Calibre (attitudes and positive values) is decisive, with skills layered on afterwards. Our work on Positive Value Leadership and Calibre Credits systematises this insight so it can be measured, developed and scaled beyond individual firms.

To improve productivity in a way that is both sustainable and trusted, government and business should therefore:

 

4.3. Technology, skills and innovation: tools, not ends

Technology and innovation policy often assumes that digital adoption and R&D will automatically translate into productivity. Yet OECD evidence highlights that the benefits of digitalisation and new technologies are heavily mediated by management quality, soft skills and organisational practices.

We therefore propose:

4.4. Sharing productivity gains fairly

Productivity gains that accrue only to a small group undermine legitimacy and weaken long-term investment in reform. Positive Values-based leadership is central to fair distribution because it shapes:

Calibre-rich organisations are more likely to adopt fairer practices, reducing the need for heavy-handed regulation and litigation. Measuring Calibre (e.g. through Calibre Credits and PVL-aligned organisational indicators) can support transparent reporting on how productivity gains are shared.

 


5. Risks and international context

Question: How should the UK position itself in relation to international competition, including the US, EU and emerging economies?

 

5.1. Competing on trusted productivity, not just scale

The UK cannot out-subsidise the US or EU, nor match the sheer scale of some emerging economies. But it can compete very effectively on trust, quality and integrity of decision-making.

International evidence (including OECD work on human capital, management and diversity) shows:

By embedding Calibre into its economic model, the UK can position itself as:

5.2. Turning a UK weakness into a differentiator

The UK’s documented productivity puzzle and trust deficits in institutions can be reframed as an opportunity:

 


6. Government Strategy and Coordination

Question: How coherent and effective are current government structures for coordinating pro-growth policy?

 

6.1. Fragmentation of responsibility

At present:

This fragmentation means no single locus is responsible for the quality of leadership and values that connect these agendas. The system responds to crises with piecemeal regulation rather than upstream Calibre development.

 

6.2. The case for a Calibre-and-Productivity coordination function

We recommend:

 

6.3. Embedding Calibre in the machinery of government

Practical steps could include:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acknowledgments

This response has been prepared by the Institute of One World Leadership (IOWL) with contributions from:

We would be pleased to provide oral evidence or further written material.
 

 

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