Bukola Ogunyemi.

Ideas

Ideas help us understand the world — and imagine how it might be different

I write and conduct research at the intersection of storytelling, leadership, technology, institutions, and human development. What kind of leadership does an age of complexity require? How do stories shape what societies remember and value? What happens when technological capability advances faster than institutional wisdom?

Themes

What role does storytelling play in preserving human dignity?

Storytelling and human flourishing

Narrative as social infrastructure — how stories shape democracy, development, identity, and belonging, and what is lost when people are left out of the stories societies tell about themselves.

What kind of leader does our era require?

Leadership in an age of complexity

Leadership beyond strategy and management — emotional intelligence, moral courage, judgment, and the capacity to help people make meaning amid uncertainty and declining trust.

Can a society grow more capable while becoming less wise?

The civilization of competence

Modern institutions reward expertise, efficiency, and performance. Those matter — and they cannot substitute for character, responsibility, or moral imagination.

Essays

Follow on Medium ↗
Mar 2026 The Country Inside the Mouth On language, and the country you carry in how you speak. Read ↗ Feb 2026 On Seeds, Scarcity, and the People Who Receive What We Have to Give Giving, and what it does to the person on the receiving end. Read ↗ Feb 2026 The Politics of Morality What happens when moral language becomes a political instrument. Read ↗ Dec 2025 The Name That Remains On legacy, and what actually survives a person. Read ↗ Dec 2025 What Are the Odds? How prediction markets erode the foundations of collective action. Read ↗ Oct 2025 Joy as Resistance in Social Change Joy as working strategy in a movement, not a reward at the end of one. Read ↗

Research

Leadership, institutions, and the human dimensions of change

My doctoral study examined emotional intelligence and effective leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic among managers at multilateral development institutions. It explored how leaders used self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills while navigating uncertainty, remote work, organizational disruption, and competing stakeholder demands.

The findings reinforced my conviction that leadership effectiveness depends not only on technical competence or authority, but on how leaders understand themselves, relate to others, exercise judgment, and build trust. My wider interests span crisis leadership, organizational resilience, institutional legitimacy, organizational culture and change, strategic communication, digital transformation, the future of work, and practitioner-scholarship.

EdD dissertation · 2025 · University of Massachusetts Global Emotional Intelligence and Effective Leadership in Times of Global Crisis: A Mixed-Methods Study of Managers at Multilateral Development Institutions During the COVID-19 Pandemic ↗ Book chapter · IGI Global A Framework for Socio-Emotional AI Literacy in Early Education ↗

Books & creative work

My creative work examines how people encounter technology in their ordinary lives — in work, relationships, identities, ambitions, disappointments, and decisions. Alongside the books, I'm developing civic simulations: interactive projects that put participants inside the trade-offs of governance, economic policy, and public decision-making, where competing priorities and imperfect information stop being abstractions.

Forthcoming

Terms & Conditions

Short stories exploring Africans’ experiences with digital technologies.

Forthcoming

i write to you

A memoir about places, people, positions, and power.

Dr. Bukola Ogunyemi speaking at the World Bank Group Youth Summit

World Bank Group Youth Summit  ·  Washington, DC

Talks and public engagement

Drawing on professional practice, academic research, nonprofit leadership, and creative inquiry — making complex ideas accessible without making them simplistic.

01

Communicating development so people act on it

Why institutional messaging fails the people it is written for, and what to do instead.

02

AI, the algorithm, and who arbitrates truth

Who decides what is true once recommendation systems became the editors.

03

Emotional intelligence and leadership in a crisis

From doctoral research on managers at multilateral development institutions through the pandemic.

04

Education access as economic infrastructure

Lessons from mobilizing $5 million in scholarships and grants across Nigeria and the United States.