Developing leaders for sustainable business

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore how organisations can develop leaders who have the competences necessary to ensure the sustainability of the company. It considers how the understanding and practice of responsible leadership can be enhanced by defining the competencies for integrating social and environmental considerations into business decision-making processes.Design/methodology/approach -The research comprised two phases. An initial questionnaire surveyed a sample of managers operating in the public and private sectors in Europe (n ¼ 108). A second stage of the research used in-depth interviews with 11 leading European-based multinational companies.Findings -Results indicate that, whilst the qualities and skills of responsible leadership can be identified, a further mediating concept deemed to be ''reflexive abilitites'' is posited as required to explain their translation into individual managerial behaviours. The paper describes the nature of these reflexive abilities.Research limitations/implications -A key limitation of the research is the small sample size, both for the survey and for the interviews. Further research is needed to develop a clearer understanding of the nature and functioning of the ''reflexive abilities'' and to establish the robustness of these concepts.Practical implications -The results of the research support the current awareness amongst management educators that the development of successful business leadership requires more than training in ''hard'' business functions. Although the importance of experientially learned ''soft skills'' has been acknowledged, the paper suggests that the development of responsible leadership needs a third dimension to be incorporated into management education.Originality/value -The paper suggests that ''reflexive abilities'' should be developed as core competencies in management development. For the development of responsible leadership it is necessary to foster the intellectual capacities to reflect upon, synthesise and integrate local and global business information in a way that leads to a new interpretation of both factual and emotional data. These abilities may enable leaders to develop new ways of thinking and new business models which will ensure the sustainability of their businesses. The paper explores the implications for those responsible for designing and delivering management development programmes.

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“…This is neither a temporary phase that will diminish in a few years, nor a tendency that will be limited to smaller firms or nonprofit entities. The call for soft skills in leaders is a global one, which has been proven in studies such as the one from Hind, Wilson and Lenssen (2009), who surveyed workforce members of 11 large European Multinational Corporations and found that these employees considered soft skills imperative to good leadership. Robles (2012) underscored these findings with the results from a study among 57 business executives, who also agreed that integrity and communication were some of the most critical soft skills needed in today's workplaces.…”

Conceptualizing the Limiting Issues Inhibiting Sustainability Embeddedness

“…The shift to embeddedness appears impeded by practitioners not seeing their jobs as interdependent and interconnected with sustainability, which limits embeddedness [20,87]. Practitioners saw the responsibility of sustainability as belonging to those in higher levels of authority (top management) and the tasks belonging to the Sustainability department.…”

Online Communication and Sustainability Reporting: The Managerial Issues

“…As well as without effective leadership, it is difficult to uphold any reporting initiatives and it would also be difficult for any sustainability efforts to take place (Rahim, 2016). Other than that, resource shortages, lack of communication and inappropriate skill base, inappropriate tools of IT capabilities or mismatching of core values between the stated strategy and operational management may also contribute to the success of sustainability efforts (Hind et al, 2009). The respondents stated as follows:…”

“…Businesses worldwide are embracing the concept of sustainability by reporting on their social and environmental engagements as well as their economic activities (Hind et al, 2009). This is particularly important when stakeholders especially investors and financial communities constantly review organization's sustainability reporting for potential investments.…”