What are the Attributes of Sustainable Leadership?
| Autor | Armani, Ananda Borgert |
1 Introduction
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be understood on different levels, such as the institutional, organizational, and individual levels (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012). On the individual level, the role of leadership is an important factor for the development of CSR actions in organizations, acting as agents of change and levers to create a new vision (Huang, 2013; Nambiar & Chitty, 2014; Paille, Chen, Boiral, & Jin, 2014; Renwick, Redman & Maguire, 2013). A sustainable organization involves the support and commitment of their leaders, who must implement initiatives to advance towards improving environmental performance (Boiral, Baron, & Gunnlaugson, 2014). Wiek, Withycombe, and Redman (2011) defend the need to have specific human competencies for sustainability, which can be differentiated from other, more common ones in the organization. In this context, sustainable leaders are professionals who value human development and the environment without neglecting economic aspects. More than that, they reinforce the internal resources of the organization to solve social and environmental challenges, generating value for the business and being responsible for the development of the communities of which they are a part (Voltolini, 2011).
Research has pointed out that personal and organizational values, as well as the personal interest of managers in the subject, contribute considerably to the development of a sustainable leadership profile in organizations (Akrivou & Bradbury-Huang, 2011; Gardner, Avolio, Luthans, May, & Walumbwa, 2005). However, dealing with challenges related to sustainability requires specific competencies that can be developed by the individuals inside the organization. The knowledge, skills, and attitudes are related to the (1) individual characteristics from each of the organization's collaborators who engage in sustainable performance (Lans, Blok, & Wesselink, 2014) and to the (2) business characteristics, such as organizational alignment and the search for sustainability in the strategy (Casserley & Critchley, 2010; Voltolini, 2012). The development of sustainable competencies runs through fundamental aspects of how the manager views the world and how he/she attributes value to certain organizational behaviors, involving ethical and moral issues (Hind, Wilson, & Lenssen, 2009; McCann & Sweet, 2014). The development of awareness among managers can foster their sustainable leadership (Boiral, Baron, & Gunnlaugson, 2014; Boiral, Cayer, & Baron, 2009). Although sustainable leadership is a subject of growing interest in academia, the understanding of it still lacks boundaries and a guiding thread. There is a lack of consensus regarding the nomenclature used to define the "requirements" for sustainable leadership. Characteristics, behaviors, competencies, skills, attitudes, and roles are some of these nomenclatures. On the one hand, there is a set of research on the topic which presents a broader view, investigating the organization and presenting sustainable leadership as just another element that leads to corporate sustainability (Hansen, Dunford, Alge, & Jackson, 2016; Kemp, Nijhoff-Savvaki, Ruitenburg, Trienekens, & Omta, 2014; Lozano, 2015; Petrini & Pozzebon, 2010; Ramirez, 2013; Saha, 2014). On the other hand, the research on the topic which presents the characteristics of the sustainable leader (Dentoni, Blok, Lans, & Wesselink, 2012; Egri & Herman, 2000; Lans, Blok, & Wesselink, 2014; Renwick, Redman, & Maguire, 2013; Saha, 2014; Shrivastava, 1994; Williams & Turnbull, 2015) is carried out in parts, focusing more on only a few characteristics. There is no research that presents it under a comprehensive view. Therefore, this research aims to answer the question: What are the attributes of sustainable leadership? Our main objective is to extend the literature by providing a more holistic perspective on sustainable leadership, understanding what attributes of sustainable leadership enable changes to more sustainable-oriented organizations and how they are connected. Therefore, the specific objective is to identify the attributes that describe sustainable leaderships.
To address this question, we begin with an examination of the literature, looking at different nomenclatures used to characterize sustainable leadership and compiling them under the same label. We adopted the term "attribute" to refer to the description of the elements that characterize sustainable leadership. Then, through an in-depth case study of four organizations, we analyzed the attributes that characterize the sustainable leadership in these firms. The qualitative data was collected from multiple case studies. The data collection included primary data, collected through semi-structured interviews with company managers, and secondary data (documentary research and observation). In each organization, three different groups of managers were interviewed: (1) CSR manager, (2) HR manager, and (3) business managers (support areas or core areas of the organization). The material was analyzed using content analysis. Our contribution through this research is to extend the understanding of the profile of sustainable leadership by presenting a framework that combines attributes from both a personal and from an organizational perspective. The organizational perspective is relevant due to its ability to change discourses about sustainability, discouraging its practice. By joining attributes from an organizational perspective with attributes from a personal one, sustainability can be incorporated into the dynamics of the organization more fluidly. In addition, the comparison between organizations at different levels of maturity regarding sustainability practices sheds new light on the attributes of their sustainable leaders. Some attributes clearly have more or less importance due to the maturity of the organization in its adoption of sustainability. Our contribution to practice lies in the use of the framework as a guide to lead change in order to bring about a shift toward sustainable leadership in organizations, whether by developing sustainable leadership programs, or as guidance in the processes of recruiting new leaders.
The article is structured as follows. First, in section 2, we review the concepts of corporate social responsibility and sustainable leadership. Following this, we consolidate the attributes of sustainable leadership identified in the literature. In section 3 we present the research method and in the section 4 we present the results. In the Discussion section, we propose our attributes of sustainable leadership and, finally, we summarize the article's contributions and suggest possible areas for further research.
2 Theoretical Background
2.1 Corporate social responsibility and sustainable leadership
CSR can be seen as the response of organizations to the challenge of sustainable development, from a perspective that goes beyond short-term profit, focusing on the survival and growth of the business in the long term (McCann & Sweet, 2014). It therefore concerns a wider view of the organization that goes beyond its financial results or legal obligations, such as ethical and social responsibility, for example (Kramar, 2014). Through the adoption of CSR, companies aim to achieve a balance between economic, social, and environmental aspects of their business practices (Osagie, Wesselink, Blok, Lans, & Mulder, 2016). Since the first initiatives associated with CSR, its practices have evolved consistently, from a combination of voluntary and disjointed actions to becoming an agenda with different deadlines (Maon, Lindgreen, & Swaen, 2009). Organizations have increasingly recognized the importance of their own role in sustainable development by adopting CSR practices. In this context, leaderships play a key role as drivers and motivators of the adoption of sustainability practices in organizations (Kemp et al., 2014; Lozano, 2015; Petrini & Pozzebon, 2010; Ramirez, 2013; Saha, 2014). The organization's leaders are pivotal for the creation of a culture that promotes shared values, influences the ethical behavior of employees, and enhances the organization's relationship with its stakeholders (McCann & Sweet, 2014). Therefore, the strategy linked to leadership is a factor that strongly affects the success of organizations' sustainable initiatives (Koednok, 2011). As such, the development of leaders in sustainability is a demand of the environment that organizations are a part of (Brunstein & Rodrigues, 2014). Hansen et al. (2016) reinforce the importance of the role of sustainable leadership by stating that perceptions of CSR influence employees' opinions about organizational leaders. The review conducted by Hallinger and Suriyankietkaew (2018) analyzed 952 Scopus-indexed documents explicitly concerned with sustainable leadership and pointed out that the subject is emerging as a new domain of study within the field of business administration. These opinions, in turn, affect the perception of an ethical organizational environment. The constant concern about sustainable leadership in sustainable development studies shows the direct responsibility of management within organizations to meet the expectations and values of society (Boiral et al., 2009).
According to Egri and Herman (2000), specific characteristics related to sustainable matters (such as long-term perception, complexity, and multi-disciplinarity) require sustainable leaderships to differ from traditional leaderships. The definition of leadership from a sustainable perspective is based on the idea that organizations are part of an environment in which it is possible to generate sustainable value and revenue for the business. This started along with the definition of sustainability in organizations, but gained space over time (McCann & Sweet, 2014). Sustainable leaders are professionals who value human development and the environment...
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