Leadership and Environmental Sustainability: An Integrative Conceptual Model of Multilevel Antecedents and Consequences of Leader Green Behavior

Abstract

Environmental sustainability is a strategic and ethical imperative for organizations, and numerous studies have investigated associations between leadership and employee pro-environmental or “green” behavior. However, these studies have typically focused on leadership styles that conflate leader behavior with its assumed antecedents or consequences. Moreover, the literature on relations between leadership and environmental sustainability constructs is fragmented and in need of systematic integration to effectively guide future research and practice. Accordingly, we pursue three goals in this conceptual paper. First, after a brief review of key insights from extant theoretical and empirical research, we define leadership in the context of environmental sustainability and leader green behavior based on established theoretical frameworks. Second, based on a systematic integration and extension of the literature, we present an integrative conceptual model of multilevel antecedents and consequences of leader green behavior. We further develop eight propositions on multiple known and novel pathways toward leader and follower green behaviors, as well as multiple known and novel pathways toward consequences related to environmental sustainability at the leader, follower, and organizational levels. Finally, based on our integrative conceptual model and propositions, we outline several recommendations for future research on leadership and environmental sustainability, including theoretical and methodological considerations.

Shaping organizations sustainably: Insights and perspectives

“…In this special issue, it is noteworthy to observe that 50% of the papers constitute conceptual explorations (cf., Hilbert et al 2024;Ritter et al 2024;Veit et al 2024;Wihler et al 2024), underscoring the significant theoretical advancements within the field of sustainability in the organizational context. Presently, there exists a prevailing tendency within this research field towards the dissemination of comprehensive articles, including reviews, meta-analyses, and conceptual papers (e.g., García-Arca et al 2024;Zacher et al 2024Zacher et al , 2023, even if the topic per se is not new (cf. Osbaldiston and Schott 2012;Wiernik et al 2013), it again gained momentum.…”

“…Increasingly, research is addressing topics such as green HRM (Dumont et al 2017), leader green behavior (Zacher et al 2024), green employee behavior (Endrejat et al 2015;Katz et al 2022;Norton et al 2015;Zacher et al 2023), and factors that contribute to moving this behavior in the desired direction (Kim et al 2017;Norton et al 2015Norton et al , 2014. Schultes et al (2019) highlight the central importance of psychology in contributing to achieving the SDGs.…”

“…Empower central stakeholders, such as leaders and managers to influence teams accordingly and form voluntary working groups dedicated to sustainability Understand sustainability as a leadership task Understand sustainability as an important leadership task. Promote environmentally friendly behaviors among leaders, such as leader green behavior (Wihler et al 2024;Zacher et al 2024), as they are role models Individuals Highlight the role of employees Promote and reward sustainable behavior, such as environmentally friendly behaviors among employees, such as employee green behavior (cf. Veit et al 2024;Zacher et al 2023, Supplemental Material Fig.…”