The Satisfactions, Contributions, and Opportunities of Women Academics in the Framework of Sustainable Leadership: A Case Study

Abstract

Women’s empowerment is one of the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 5, gender equality. However, little research has highlighted the contributions of sustainable female leadership in academic governance. In order to fill this gap, this study identifies and analyses the satisfactions, opportunities, and contributions of women academics to university governance and their perceptions of the potential impact of gender in this process. Forty-eight women leaders participated in the study. A purposive sampling technique was used because the research involved leaders who had held a management position in the university. The research methodology was qualitative, the instrument used for the collection of information was a semi-structured interview, and the analysis of the narratives was carried out with Aquad v. 7 software (Günter Huber, Tübingen, Alemania). The study revealed that the leadership style of the female academics is framed within the sustainable leadership approach. Beyond personal satisfactions, the main reward derived from the performance of the position lies in becoming transformative and catalysing agents of the institution, who try to find a balance between the economic and social interests of the organisation. The functions these female academics perform, within the framework of sustainable development, have a technical and, at the same time, humanised vision, as they focus on people and on personal and social values. Gender issues have not been a determinant in the satisfactions, opportunities, and contributions that the leaders make to the institution; however, participants emphasise that this was a strength for leadership.

How Does Sustainable Leadership Affect Environmental Innovation Strategy Adoption? The Mediating Role of Environmental Identity

“…ward sustainable development instead of financial performance [13]. For example, a sustainable leader will employ the values of social responsibility, environmental responsibility, and ethical responsibility to guide his/her subordinates to realize company sustainability.…”

“…That is to say, the present paper borrows from social identity theory [12] in order to propose a new concept of environment identity "-including environment categorization, environment commitment, and environment esteem", and describes how sustainable leadership can positively influence environment identity, which consequently positively influences EIS adoption. Sustainable leadership refers to when a leader guides his or her subordinates' behaviors toward sustainable development instead of financial performance [13]. For example, a sustainable leader will employ the values of social responsibility, environmental responsibility, and ethical responsibility to guide his/her subordinates to realize company sustainability.…”

Leadership styles and sustainable performance

“…Responsible leadership involves the acknowledgment of environmental concerns and the integration of sustainable practices into decision-making processes to foster ecologically responsible actions within organizations. In addition, servant leadership (Abbas et al, 2021;Alafeshat & Tanova, 2019), entrepreneurial leadership (Alsharif et al, 2021;Pauceanu et al, 2021), digital leadership (Khaw et al, 2022), change leadership (Bashir et al, 2022), sustainable leadership (Merma-Molina et al, 2022), authentic leadership (Daskou & Tzokas, 2023), environmental leadership (Boeske, 2023), transformational leadership (Hanif et al, 2023), and ambidextrous leadership (Katou et al, 2023) play pivotal roles in driving sustainable performance to create value not only for organizations but also for society and the environment. According to these studies, there is a lack of consensus regarding the specific leadership styles that play the most significant role in driving sustainable performance.…”

Leadership, capability and performance: A study among private higher education institutions in Indonesia

“…Apart from being a crucial factor to produce a professional workforce that can effectively eradicate poverty and boost economic progress in developing countries, the role of organisational leadership capability within the higher education domain is critical [ 7 ]. In addition, improving organisational leadership capability is necessary to obtain specific opportunities and adopt appropriate strategies for sustainable performance [ 8 ]. The majority of HEIs have not applied organisational leadership capability to achieve higher performance [ 9 ].…”