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Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1947221
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
Sustainability Leadership: Linking Theory and Practice
Dr Wayne Visser, Senior Associate, University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability
Leadership
Polly Courtice, Director, University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership
Abstract
The paper aims to create a clearer understanding of the nature of sustainability leadership and
how it can contribute to transformational change. It does this by locating sustainability within
the leadership literature, defining the concept of sustainability leadership, and presenting a
model of sustainability leadership in practice. The model was tested with a sample of senior
business leaders and refined in line with their feedback. The model presents insights on
sustainability leadership in three areas: context, individual characteristics, and actions. The
model is illustrated using quotes from senior business leaders that are focused on sustainability
in their organizations.
Introduction
This paper is based on research conducted by the University of Cambridge Programme for
Sustainability Leadership (CPSL), which works with business, government and civil society to
build the capacity of leaders, both to meet the needs of their stakeholders and to address critical
global challenges. The paper is an attempt to create a clearer understanding of the nature of
sustainability leadership and how it can contribute to transformational change.1
The Model of Sustainability Leadership that we have developed was corroborated by interviews
with the following business leaders, conducted by Polly Courtice in 2010: Neil Carson, CEO of
Johnson Matthey; Ian Cheshire, CEO of Kingfisher; Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric;
Philippe Maso, CEO of AXA; Jan Muehlfeit, Chairman of Microsoft Europe; Truett Tate, Group
Executive Director: Wholesale, for Lloyds Banking Group; José Lopez, Executive Vice
President: Operations and GLOBE of Nestle; and Sandy Ogg, Chief Human Resources Officer
for Unilever. The paper and the model are illustrated by extensive quotations from these
interviews.
Definitions and Theories of Leadership
De Vries (2001) reminds us that the Anglo-Saxon etymological root of the words lead, leader
and leadership is laed, which means path or road. The verb means to travel. Thus a leader is one
who shows fellow travellers the way by walking ahead. He also suggests that leadership – which
focuses on the effectiveness of strategy – is different to management – which deals with the
efficiency of operations.
1 Our research on sustainability leadership is also presented in the CPSL (2011) report, entitled A Journey of a
Thousand Miles: The State of Sustainability Leadership 2011, available on www.cpsl.cam.ac.uk
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1947221
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
Ian Cheshire (2010), CEO of Kingfisher, says “leadership is about getting people to go where
they wouldn‟t have gone on their own”. Rather more flamboyantly, management guru Tom
Peters (1989) suggests leadership is about “discovering the passion, persistence and imagination
to get results, to be able to find the Wow factor and to be able to think the weird thoughts
necessary to learn and thrive in a disruptive age”.
The element of transformational change in Peters‟ definition makes it particularly relevant to
sustainability. We have a working definition of leadership, as follows:
“A leader is someone who can craft a vision and inspire people to act collectively to
make it happen, responding to whatever changes and challenges arise along the way.”
In addition to definitions, there are also various theories on leadership and while it is not our
intention to provide an exhaustive review of these, they do set a frame for sustainability
leadership. Hence, we can distinguish three main approaches to understanding leadership:
1. The Trait/Style school, which focuses on the characteristics or approaches of individual
leaders (McCall & Lombardo, 1983; Tannenbaum & Schmidt, 1973);
2. The Situational/Context school, which focuses on how the external environment shapes
leadership action (Hersey & Blanchard, 1999; Vroom & Yetton, 1973); and
3. The Contingency/Interactionist school, which is about the interaction between the individual
leader and his/her framing context (Fiedler, 1971; De Vries, 2001).
To these can be added the rather more practical tenets of leadership as described by Goffee and
Jones (2009):
1. Leadership is relational. It is something you do with people, not to people. Put simply, you
cannot be a leader without followers. Like all relationships, it needs to be monitored and
cultivated.
2. Leadership is non-hierarchical. Formal authority or a title doesn‟t make you a leader.
Leaders can be found at all levels.
3. Leadership is contextual. You need to size up and tap into what exists around you and then
bring more to the party.
Defining Sustainability Leadership
These definitions and theories provide the background for understanding sustainability
leadership, which has emerged as a topic in its own right in recent years. According to a survey
of 766 United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) member CEOs (Accenture & UNGC, 2010),
93% of CEOs see sustainability as important to their company‟s future success. But this begs the
question: what do we mean by sustainability leadership? We offer the following simple
definition:
“A sustainability leader is someone who inspires and supports action towards a better
world.”
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
The Sustainability Leadership Institute (2011) offers another definition, suggesting that
sustainability leaders as “individuals who are compelled to make a difference by deepening their
awareness of themselves in relation to the world around them. In doing so, they adopt new ways
of seeing, thinking and interacting that result in innovative, sustainable solutions.”
Based on a review of the leadership literature and our experience in working with senior leaders
on sustainability, we take the view that sustainability leadership – or more precisely, leadership
for sustainability – is not a separate school of leadership, but a particular blend of leadership
characteristics applied within a definitive context. If it is to be aligned with a mainstream school
of leadership at all, the Contingency/Interactionist school is probably most relevant, as the
context – comprising the sustainability challenges facing the world and our aspirations for a
more sustainable future – calls for particular types of leadership and is manifested in key areas of
action.
Sandy Ogg (2010), Chief Human Resources Officer for Unilever, explains this contingency
approach when he says, “I don‟t think there‟s any difference between character or timeless
elements [of leadership], whether you‟re leading sustainability or whether you‟re leading for
profit. But when it comes to the differentiators, why is it that Paul Polman [CEO of Uniliver]
stands out? It‟s because he understands the context and he understands leading with empathy in a
multi stakeholder environment.”
Interestingly, a number of business leaders felt that the need to differentiate sustainability
leadership from leadership in general may be a necessary, but temporary phenomenon. For
instance, Ian Cheshire (2010) believes that “sustaining the [sustainability] agenda and really
embedding it in the organisation is the unique current set of challenges on a 10 year view.
Beyond that, hopefully it becomes much more business as usual.” Similarly, Neil Carson (2010),
CEO of Johnson Matthey, says: “This is like the quality revolution that we had in the eighties.
What happened was companies either died or they got quality. One day this is going to be the
same for sustainability. But there‟s an interim period where that‟s only true for some companies.
So you‟ve probably got ten years or maybe longer of there being a need for it to be pointed out
that there is sustainability leadership and that it‟s important.”
Drawing on both the theory of leadership and the practice of sustainability by leaders, we
designed and tested a Sustainability Leadership Model – depicted and described below – which
has three components: the external and internal context for leadership; the traits, styles, skills and
knowledge of the individual leader; and leadership actions. None of these elements is unique to
sustainability leaders, but collectively they encapsulate a distinctive set of characteristics and
actions in response to sustainability challenges.
The sustainability leadership that we observe in practice and describe below is geared towards
bringing about profound change, whether in our political and economic systems, our business
models and practices, or in the broad social contract with stakeholders and society. Hence, the
leadership model we have developed is implicitly about creating change.
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
A Model of Sustainability Leadership
Figure 1: Cambridge Sustainability Leadership Model
Context
In our model, context refers to the conditions or environment in which leaders operate, which
have a direct or indirect bearing on their institutions and on their decision making. This context
is broadly divided into the context that is external to their institution and over which they may
have a lesser degree of influence (e.g. ecological, economic, political, cultural and community
contexts), and internal to their institution or sector, over which they are generally assumed to
have higher levels of influence (e.g. the organizational culture, governance structure or role of
leadership).
Many business leaders are conscious of the role of context. For example, Jeff Immelt (2007),
CEO of General Electric says, “The most important thing I've learned since becoming CEO is
context. It‟s how your company fits in with the world and how you respond to it.”
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
Similarly, José Lopez (2010), Executive Vice President Operations and GLOBE of Nestle,
explained that “the context is that sustainability processes in place today are not trending in the
right direction. As a matter of fact, poverty is going up, the world is not moving on essential
things like waste, like emissions and utilisation of resources. So with that realisation companies
incorporate in their vision and mission what they are in business for, and then that gets enacted
by continuous improvement processes that they carry out. What is important is the context.
When you look at the creating shared value approach you don‟t have any more, in the case of
Nestlé, just a „making money‟ kind of context.”
Individual Characteristics
Understanding the sustainability leader requires that we appreciate their traits, styles, skills and
knowledge. It is a combination of these that make the individual leader unique. For example,
when asked, “How would people in Unilever describe you as a leader?” Paul Polman (2009),
CEO of Unilever, said: “I hope that the word integrity comes into that. I hope the word long term
comes into that. I hope the word caring comes into that, but demanding as well.”
Individual sustainability leaders are unlikely to embody all of the traits, styles, skills and
knowledge in our model. Rather, they need to draw on what is appropriate or fitting to their own
personality and circumstances, so as to be most effective in addressing sustainability challenges.
Furthermore they will seek to develop these qualities in others, building teams that bring as many
of the required elements to bear, and in effect enabling a form of distributed leadership (Center
for Excellence in Leadership et. al, 2007) to exist within the organisation.
Doppelt (2010) cites the case of Interface, which focuses more on team structure than on
individual leaders. He writes, “some are entrepreneurs, some are team builders, some are
competitors, some are commanders, some are safety orientated and some are creators. Few
people excel in all these areas. The entrepreneur is the antithesis of those who are safety
orientated. The commander is the antithesis of the team builder. While no single person may
have all these attributes, they are all needed for Interface to achieve its potential.”
Traits
There are any number of lists of ideal leadership traits. For example, Kouzes and Posner (2007)
argue that good leaders are honest, forward looking, competent, inspiring and intelligent. In a
globalising world, Morrison (2000) emphasises the importance of leaders developing
competencies tailored to their company.
We believe the sustainability leader typically embodies a number of traits, by which we mean
distinguishing attributes, qualities or personal characteristics which are generally seen as being
enduring. The following summarises those that are included in our Model as strongly correlated
with leadership for sustainability.
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
Table 1: Typical Traits of Sustainability Leaders
Trait
Definition
Illustrative quote
Caring /
morally-driven
Care for the well-being
of humanity and all
other forms of life, as
well as being guided by
a moral compass.
We‟re at the crossroads. Adam Smith spoke in his „Wealth
of the Nations‟ about profit and care, saying that the first
thing we do is take care of ourselves, but the second thing
we do is take care of others. By care, I don‟t only mean
care about other people, but also care about society and
care about nature.
– Jan Muehlfeit, Chairman of Microsoft Europe
Systemic /
holistic thinker
The ability to
appreciate the
interconnectedness and
interdependency of the
whole system, at all
levels, and to recognise
how changes to parts of
the system affect the
whole
In time periods of relative stability, you don‟t need to be a
systems thinker [but] we‟re in a period now of great
volatility. So the type of people that ultimately are going to
lead at sustainability (and one of the reasons why it‟s so
tough) is that it really requires a new generation of systems
thinkers to make it work. That‟s why some of these issues
are so hard to solve because they really require forward
systems thinking, solutions orientation.
– Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric
Enquiring /
open-minded
Actively seeking new
knowledge and diverse
opinions, questioning
received wisdom,
including being willing
to have one‟s own
opinions challenged
It is about looking outside [and staying] permanently
engaged. There is a community activity which brings you a
lot of information, but it‟s also about talking and making
sure you get enough challenge on what you do. Our
children are looking at the world differently. If we are
going to be in power in the next 10 or 20 years, we need to
make sure we can respond to this demand properly.
– Philippe Maso, CEO of AXA
Self-aware /
empathetic
High levels of
emotional intelligence,
(the ability to
understand their own
emotions and those of
others), sincerity,
personal humility and
reflexiveness (the
ability to see their own
place in and influence
on a situation)
Real leadership is about greater and greater self-awareness
and being more and more authentically yourself. Then you
can use that knowledge or that mastery to put together and
drive better teams – because you‟re more clear about who
you are, what your impact is, what you have to offer and
what you don‟t have and therefore you need. And by
association that implies the humility to listen and be aware
as opposed to being on broadcast and an egomaniac, which
I think is the traditional model of CEOs.
– Ian Cheshire, CEO of Kingfisher
Visionary /
courageous
Bringing inspiration,
creativity, optimism
and courage to bear in
the role, driven to
produce results and
possessing the ability to
balance passion and
idealism with ambition
and pragmatism
Do we have the courage to put up a magnetic north out
there for our company in an environment where everything
changes every day? It‟s absolutely necessary. You have to
have the courage to say, „You know what, I don‟t
necessarily know the end destination, but I know it‟s gonna
look something like this and we‟re going that way. That‟s
one thing I love about Paul Polman. He says, „Listen, I
may be wrong, but I‟m not confused‟.
– Sandy Ogg, Former Chief Human Resources Officer for
Unilever
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
Styles
We make a clear distinction between traits of individual leaders and the style, or the the manner
and approach which they use to provide direction, to motivate people and to implement
plans. Lewin, Llippit and White (1939) carried out leadership decision experiments and
identified three different styles of leadership: autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire2. One
particularly influential model was Blake and Mouton's (1968) Managerial Grid, which concluded
that leadership styles were all essentially varying combinations of concern for people and
concern for tasks. Similarly, the sustainability leader typically draws on a combination of
number of styles, as illustrated below.
Table 2: Typical Styles of Sustainability Leaders
Style
Definition
Illustrative quote
Inclusive
Collaborative and
participative, building
commitment through
dialogue and
consensus, democratic
approaches, coaching,
and a culture and
structure that provides
peer support,
encouragement and
recognises achievement
Leaders actually lead through teams. The idea that you
have a superstar leader is just nonsense. The whole aspect
of selecting, developing and managing teams as the core
challenge of leadership is something I feel particularly
strongly about. A great definition of leadership, is about
getting people to go where they wouldn‟t have gone on
their own. If they can get there on their own then they
don‟t really need a leader. Equally, you can‟t always be
dragging them in the opposite direction to where they want
to go. It‟s about the leader and the followers working
together to get to certain outcomes.
– Ian Cheshire, CEO of Kingfisher
Visionary
Brings passion and
charisma into the mix,
focusing on challenging
and transforming
people‟s perceptions
and expectations, and
motivating them to
transcend narrower
forms of self-interest
There‟s so much going on now in the world that if you
don‟t have amplification and time compression, then it
doesn‟t rumble. So I call that „leading big‟. If you‟ve got
something meaningful and important that you want to do,
have the courage to lead big. You can‟t let it drool or
dribble out into an organisation like ours and expect to
have any impact. People are just too busy, there‟s too
much going on. I think that the thunder is important too
because people have to feel a message that is linked to
emotion.
– Sandy Ogg, Former Chief Human Resources Officer for
Unilever
Creative
Playing the role of
designer, architect,
innovator, game-
changer and
transformer of the
system
There is an inquisitiveness and a problem solving, or just a
curiosity and a willingness to see things through other
people‟s point of view. When I hear that Bill Gates is
working on malaria, I get the sense that maybe it can be
solved. That gives me great hope because he‟s going to
apply tremendous resources and a headset for solutions
that allow some of these big problems to be solved.
2 Other popular styles of leadership that have been identified and studied include: charismatic (Musser, 1987), participative (Coch &
French, 1948; Vroom & Yetton, 1973), situational (Hersey & Blanchard, 1999), transactional (Burns, 1978; Adair, 1984; Drucker,
1993), transformational (Bass, 1990), quiet (Collins, 2001) and servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1977).
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
– Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric
Altruistic
Transcending self
interest and focusing on
the collective or the
good of the whole,
which is often
characterised as servant
leadership
Bill Gates is absolutely the model for people in Microsoft
– especially with what he is doing with Africa in terms of
the education, what he is doing in India. It is a very good
example of a leader because he is basically saying, „I will
spend my money on the big issues that this planet is
having.‟ For me personally – I‟ve been with the company
for 17 years – it‟s a huge role model for what to do to
change the world for the better.
– Jan Muehlfeit, Chairman of Microsoft Europe
Radical
Highly visible
leadership,
characterised by taking
risks, acting like a
revolutionary,
campaigner, crusader or
activist and challenging
of the status quo; often
referred to as
missionary leadership
Be daring, be first, be different, be just. If you think you're
too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a
mosquito.
– Anita Roddick, Founder & former CEO of The Body
Shop International
Skills
A survey of business and sustainability leaders in the UK (Isos MORI, 2010) found that 99%
recognise that developing the skills that will be needed for a sustainable economy is important to
the future success of the UK economy, while 70% believe that the gap in skills for a sustainable
economy will become one of the most pressing challenges facing UK businesses in the next 5
years. At the same time, only 15% think that developing the skills needed for a sustainable
economy is well-established or partly established in UK businesses in general (as compared with
48% for their own organisation).
The skills for sustainability leadership, as per our Model, are introduced below.
Table 3: Typical Skills of Sustainability Leaders
Skill
Definition
Illustrative quote
Manage
complexity
Analysing,
synthesising, and
translating complex
issues, responding to
risk, uncertainty and
dilemmas, recognising
and seizing
opportunities and
resolving problems or
conflicts
Sustainability is a complex thing to conceive and everyone
who comes with too simplistic views [is] not effective,
because reality would prevail at some point in time. You
have to accept that there is a huge complexity of
knowledge and the way we frame it. You need to be quite
sure you are pushing in the right direction. There is a
quantum of uncertainty that needs to be not too high, so
you can really have positive actions.
– Philippe Maso, CEO of AXA
Communicate
vision
Sharing a vision and
facilitating dialogue
that inspires action and
The key thing for leadership agendas is the ability to
genuinely communicate – which is actually a two way
process of genuinely listening well and communicating
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
creates shared meaning
(active listening,
emotional intelligence,
reflection) and creating
conditions that
encourage learning
from experience
well. Because in some pure sense we don‟t actually build
anything with our hands; all we do as leaders is
communicate. We basically get things to happen through
communication. I do think that A-grade leadership is very
hard to do without good communication skills. You can go
so far if you‟re technically gifted but not terribly good at
communication. Communications is most critical and most
difficult in increasingly complex organizations.
– Ian Cheshire, CEO of Kingfisher
Exercise
judgment
Making good and
decisive decisions in a
timely fashion,
including prioritising,
making difficult
choices and handling
dilemmas
How do you solve any big problem? You break it down.
Let‟s go to Indonesia. Let‟s get specific. Let‟s talk about
the supply chain and what is it that you can do there?
That‟s probably something that we can solve. If you think
it all the way through, you can have a plan in Indonesia of
two or three things which, if we focus on it and pay
attention to it, we can have a business that‟s 3 billion.
– Sandy Ogg, Former Chief Human Resources Officer for
Unilever
Challenge and
innovate
Imagining possible
solutions/futures or
alternatives, thinking
outside the box, and
bringing creativity into
thinking and practice
Until everybody on the whole planet gets sustainability
there‟s a real competitive advantage in moving in this
direction aggressively. The more competitive the
individual leader is in terms of natural inclinations then the
more quickly they‟ll latch on to sustainability.
– Neil Carson, CEO of Johnson Matthey
Think long term
Envisioning and using
strategic, long thinking
and planning, seeing
the whole, while not
discounting the future
To be credible in the sustainability space there needs to be
a clear demonstration of a vision of 50 to 100 years from
now. Sustainability must have a longer term vision and
must be able to articulate that.
– Truett Tate, Group Executive Director: Wholesale, for
Lloyds Banking Group
Knowledge
The Ipsos MORI (2010) survey on the skills required for sustainability leadership in the UK
found that middle managers and function heads especially need sufficient knowledge about
sustainability to translate it into successful business strategies, as well as effective and persuasive
communication using clear and accessible language.
The most important areas of knowledge for sustainability leaders are introduced below.
Table 4: Typical Knowledge of Sustainability Leaders
Knowledge
Description
Illustrative quote
Global
challenges and
dilemmas
Social and ecological
system pressures and
the connections
between these systems
and political and
economic forces
The first challenge is inclusive globalisation. The other
global issue is the gap between the rich and poor, the
inequality gap. The other one has to do with the emerging
markets, because 20 years ago we had one billion people in
the western style of capitalism, today it‟s probably 3 to 4
billion. That‟s where I think leadership needs to go, to be
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
much more aware of those global issues. What the business
leaders need to do is to create a bigger picture and also to
be much more connected to the big global challenges.
– Jan Muehlfeit, Chairman of Microsoft Europe
Interdisciplinary
connectedness
The relevance and
interconnectedness of
the physical sciences,
social sciences,
technology, business
and other disciplines
How do you develop leaders for this time period of
volatility we live in today? One of the things that we are
quite keen on is what we call systems thinking. It‟s people
that can integrate between technology, market needs,
public policy and so on. You have to integrate many things
all at the same time.
– Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric
Change
dynamics and
options
How complex systems
work and the range of
options for promoting
beneficial change in
them, e.g. financial
markets, policy options
and trends, technology
options, consumer
behaviour and attitudes,
organisational
dynamics, change
models and metrics
What could easily happen is that when taking small steps
to start with, they become large bounds later. Intuitively,
I‟m a practical being and I think that there‟s no other way
of doing it, you can‟t go from 0 to 60 miles an hour in one
bound. My instinct is that we‟ve probably got 10 or 20
years, but also that things can accelerate once you get
started. Businesses will lead consumers along this path,
they‟ll start to get engaged and then governments will
follow in the end.
– Neil Carson, CEO of Johnson Matthey
Organisational
influences and
impacts
An organisation's full
impact (footprint),
finding and developing
opportunities for value
creation and new
markets
Why did Greenpeace to drop their campaign against
Nestle? It‟s been achieved by putting on the table a very
technical view of the issues we are talking about. We‟ve
demonstrated that we have a logic, a path and a process
that drives continuous improvement into topics of high
concern, which in this case is deforestation. What matters
is not that we agree on how the world should look at the
end of all that and who should be in charge and how
should people behave and so on, but that we agree that
what we are doing truly delivers improvement and
betterment of the sustainability of nature.
– José Lopez, Executive Vice President: Operations and
GLOBE of Nestle
Diverse
stakeholder
views
Different world views
and belief systems, both
within communities and
across geographic,
cultural and political
divides, and how to
incorporate these
appropriately
Through technology and the evolution of our mentality, we
ask leaders to be much more capable of engaging in a web
of relationships. We know the difference between being an
influencer versus being a commander or controller. The
stakeholder-orientation is seen in a new breed of people
which is emerging everywhere who have been trained in
doing things differently and can carry messages that are
very difficult to get across and require a very specific
attitude, which is a rare but increasingly recognised skill.
Leadership Actions
According to the Accenture & UNGC (2010) survey, CEOs believe that execution is now the
real challenge to bringing about the new era of sustainability. Leadership action is particularly
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
important, because the gap between sustainability aspirations or imperatives and actual
performance remains wide. For example, IBM‟s (2009) sustainable enterprise survey of more
than 220 senior executives worldwide shows that 60% believed CSR had increased in
importance over the past year.
Yet, there continues to be a significant gap between the business and sustainability goals
companies are setting for themselves and what they are actually doing to attain them. Hence,
„walking the talk‟ is the real test. As Polman (2009) says, “you cannot talk yourself out of things
you‟ve behaved yourself into”.
The individual leaders and the actions they take have a self-evidently reciprocal relationship,
each having the potential to impact and change the other. Typical internal actions include:
Making informed decisions;
Providing strategic direction;
Crafting management incentives;
Ensuring performance accountability;
Empowering people; and
Embedding learning and innovation.
In addition, sustainability leaders typically respond to the challenges and opportunities of
sustainability through the following external (stakeholder-related) actions:
Fostering cross sector partnerships;
Creating sustainable products and services;
Promoting sustainability awareness;
Context transformation; and
Ensuring transparency.
Conclusion
Although we have presented sustainability leadership as a simple model, one of our most
compelling and persistent findings was that sustainability leadership is fraught with paradoxes.
As the competitive landscape shifts and global challenges evolve, companies that were lauded in
the past as sustainability leaders may be discredited in the present. Similarly, today‟s targeted
villains may end up being tomorrow‟s sustainability heroes and vice versa.
The paradoxes of sustainability leadership are explored in more detail in the CPSL (2011) report,
entitled A Journey of a Thousand Miles: The State of Sustainability Leadership 2011. In this
report, we also present a simplified and synthesized version of the model presented in this paper,
in which we propose seven key characteristics of sustainability leadership, including:
1. systemic understanding
2. emotional intelligence
SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BY WAYNE VISSER & POLLY COURTICE
3. values orientation
4. compelling vision
5. inclusive style
6. innovative approach; and
7. long term perspective.
In the final analysis, sustainability leaders realise that their task is, ultimately, about survival.
Ogg (2010) says “This is what Paul Polman has been very, very clear about. This is not some
aspirational dream to help us to try to recruit the best people in the world. At the end of the day
this is a survival issue. We will not get the right to grow, and even worse, will not have the right
to be in business, if we create a big environmental disaster. The world won‟t put up with it.
There‟s too much awareness and amplification. You think about the impact a blogger can have
when they choose to amplify their message”.
References
Accenture & UN Global Compact, 2010. A new era in sustainability [CEO survey].
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