Leadership For Sustainability

Solving today’s environmental and sustainability challenges requires more than expertise and technology. Effective solutions will require that we engage with other people, wrestle with difficult questions, and learn how to adapt and make confident decisions despite uncertainty. We need new approaches to leadership that empower professionals at all levels to tackle wicked problems and work towards sustainability. Leadership for Sustainability gives readers perspective and skills for promoting creative and collaborative solutions. Blending systems thinking approaches with leadership techniques, it offers dozens of strategies and specific practices that build on the foundation of three main skills: connecting, collaborating, and adapting. Inspiring case studies show how the book’s strategies and principles can be applied to diverse situations: Coordinating the activities of widely dispersed individuals and groups who may not even know they are connected, illustrated by the work of urban planners, local businesses, citizens, and other stakeholders advancing ambitious climate action goals via a Community Energy Plan in Arlington County, Virginia Collaborating with diverse stakeholders to span boundaries despite their differences of opinion, expertise, and culture, as illustrated by the bold actions of a social entrepreneur who transformed the global food service industry with the “plant-forward” movement Adapting to continuous change and confounding uncertainty, as a small nonprofit organization mobilizes partners to tackle poverty, water scarcity, sanitation, and climate change in rural India Readers will come away with a holistic understanding of how to lead from where they are by applying leadership principles and practices to a wide range of wicked situations. While the challenges we face are daunting, the authors argue that these situations present opportunities for creating a more just, healthy, and prosperous world.

Those who advocate moving towards sustainability debate how change can be achieved. This book focuses on what it means to take up leadership for sustainability, from a variety of organizational and social positions, and considers the consequences of different strategies and practices for influencing change.

This book is the first to explore the application of system leadership to promote sustainable solutions for contemporary and future environmental and social problems. The combination of synthesized research summaries and case studies of individuals and organizations contribute considerably to the field by expanding system leadership concepts from theory to practical application. System leadership has been identified as a method by which complex societal problems can be addressed, but it has as yet not been applied to sustainability. The first chapters introduce the background and fundamentals of system leadership and its relevance to sustainability. The chapters that propose methods of developing system leadership, examples of system leaders, and practical application of system leadership in industry, academic, government, nonprofit, and NGO settings. Each chapter includes a chapter case, interview, and/or reflection questions in order to stimulate critical thinking and provide instructional tools for academic use and practical application. The book is particularly relevant to researchers and students internationally in the fields of social development and sustainability. It is also relevant to public, private, and nonprofit/NGO management practitioners who are curious about the leadership styles and skills necessary to develop a sustainable future.

As the first book in the field of leadership studies to approach sustainability as a multi-faceted leadership challenge, Leadership for Environmental Sustainability will help to set the terms of the discussion on this topic among students, scholars, and practitioners of leadership for years to come. It explores the connection between leadership and sustainability from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including sociology, history, psychology, business, literature, communication, and the arts. With short chapters edited for readability, the book is aimed at scholars, practitioners, students, and educated lay readers interested in cutting-edge research and thinking on this topic.

As CEOs and business leaders navigate a world of complex global challenges, sustainability is no longer optional but a business imperative. In this book, two sustainability leaders with decades of experience – Henrik Henriksson, CEO of Scania and Elaine Weidman Grunewald, Co-founder of the AI Sustainability Center, and former Chief Sustainability & Public Affairs Officer at Ericsson – offer a simple but powerful three-step model for leading an organization on a sustainability transformation journey that aims at big, audacious, world-changing goals. Honest about the dilemmas but bullish on the opportunities, the authors advise leaders on how to accelerate sustainability in their organizations told through a Swedish lens, where the country’s values and culture permeate the boardroom and the C-suite, bringing a unique clarity and conviction to leading with integrity. In practical insights gleaned from the authors’ own experience, the book takes leaders through the three phases of sustainability leadership: from establishing a solid foundation rooted in purpose, culture, values, principles and consistent, credible leadership, to integrating sustainability into the core business, and then to executing a vision that not only shifts the direction of the company but can change an entire industry, and even the world. Throughout the book, more than 25 interviews with other leading CEOs of Swedish companies as well as successful start-ups, investors, economists, and other experts illuminate the path to sustainability leadership from different perspectives. These are complemented by case studies describing how companies got it right – or turned themselves around after getting it very, very wrong. With this hands-on insiders’ guide, CEOs and C-suite leaders can take sustainability to the next level. This is the encouragement and inspiration business leaders need to move past incremental improvement at a time when exponential, world-changing action is more urgent than ever.

'Leadership & Sustainability' examines how the opportunity for new leadership can be leveraged to focus on sustainability of reform, & will identify barriers & strategies for moving in new directions. Fullan defines the meaning of 'sustainability' & the important part it plays in contemporary reform.

Leadership and sustainability have separately been the subject of numerous studies in a built environment context over the years, but they have yet to be addressed together. The real impact of legislation and guidelines designed to promote sustainability within the construction industry is closely linked to the leadership behind it, as this book explores in a variety of ways. Featuring research from 5 different continents, the international scope of this book allows a comparison of experiences in different types of economies and cultures. The interdisciplinarity of this subject is also reflected in the backgrounds of the contributors, with a significant number of perspectives derived from business and management research. The issues examined in this book are essential reading for all researchers, decision-makers and graduate students in the built environment.

Leadership for Green Schools provides aspiring and practicing leaders with the tools they need to facilitate the design, leadership, and management of greener, more sustainable schools. Framed by theory and research, this text draws from the fields of sustainability science, built learning environment, and educational leadership to explain what green schools look like, what role school buildings play in advancing sustainable organizational and instructional practices, and why school leaders are "greening" their leadership. Sustainability can often seem like an unreachable, utopian set of goals, but this important resource uses illustrative examples of successful schools and leaders to show how establishing and managing green schools aligns with the work they are already doing to restore engaged learning within their schools and communities. Leadership for Green Schools is a unique and important resource to help leaders reduce the environmental impact of school buildings and immerse students in purposeful, meaningful learning for a sustainable, just future. Special Features: Examples from award-winning schools and leaders—best-practices and illustrative examples throughout make whole school sustainability come to life and show how green leadership is a real possibility for the reader. Aligned with Professional Standards for Educational Leadership—provides the tools necessary for leaders to advance sustainability goals while at the same time fulfilling the core purposes of their job. End-of-chapter discussion questions—valuable pedagogical tools invite personal reflection and conversation.