Sustainability Leadership Principles©
Our view of Sustainability Leadership is grounded in these fundamental principles, based on extensive research and experience. We continue to “bring these principles to life,” in addition to the capabilities and actions that emerge from them, as we learn with sustainability leaders in the field who face a wide array of challenges on behalf of their organizations, businesses and communities.
Sustainability Leaders. . .
- Empower themselves to take responsibility, and step into a leadership role. A “sustainable leader” is any one of us who cares enough to engage in the process of creating transformative change with others—aimed toward a sustainable future. Sustainability leadership is conscious, individual and collective actions that lead to outcomes intended to nurture, support, and sustain healthy economic, environmental and social systems. Related Capabilities
- Convene authentic conversations with others which is needed to generate broader understanding and workable solutions.
Meaning—and purposeful actions—are co-created in ongoing conversations and interactions with others. Each individual contributes to the meaning-making process from a unique perspective informed by his or her unique experiences of the past and unique anticipation of the future as it unfolds moment to moment. Related Capabilities - Understand that the creative tension emerging from paradox and diverse perspectives holds potential for breakthrough thinking. Sustainability requires acknowledging the paradoxes and diversity inherent in all complex living networks, certainly among human beings in any context. This tension is the fodder for the emergence of dramatic shifts in thinking and the co-creation of innovative solutions. Leaders become adept holding a big enough space, first in their own minds and then with others, for dealing with seemingly contradictory or competing “truths” that must be understood and addressed openly to support a creative and productive social environment for change. Related Capabilities
- Look for interrelationships among people, organizations and the actions they take, noticing the impact they have on one another in addition to society, the economy and the environment as a whole. Effective sustainability action requires holistic thinking: being adept at connecting the dots needed to maximize the impact of actions taken in one area; while, simultaneously noticing, and minimizing, the potential for unintended negative outcomes in another area. Related Capabilities
- Understand that outcomes unfold in the context of interactions with others in ever-changing circumstances in the absence of a predetermined plan. Sustainability leadership is not prescriptive; leadership actions and the outcomes they produce emerge in context of continually changing dynamics. This is not to say that sustainability leaders don’t establish goals and agreements, and hold themselves and others (as appropriate) accountable for what they say they will do. They help make things happen while paying attention to what is going on in each particular situation and then figuring out what to do next. Related Capabilities
- Notice and attend to complex human dynamics of transformative change—whether in one individual, a group of people or a community. Human beings learn and grow through the natural processes of change. They choose to engage in change through their own work of discovery and experimentation, instead of accepting beliefs that are imposed upon them by others. Effective leaders become catalysts for change by exploring human development capacity, learning to work with it, and being open to what happens next. Related Capabilities
- Continually experiment, reflect, learn, adjust and share their emerging findings with others. Sustainability leadership depends on informed participation. Active learning as a way of being is a fundamental component of leading the way to a sustainable future. Because we can’t possibly know the answers as we move into uncharted waters, we have to literally learn our way into the future by experimenting with possibilities. Experimenting and learning are adaptive, creative processes of leading. Related Capabilities
- Ground themselves in their own personal ethic, maintaining conscious awareness of their actions in relation to others. Human beings have a central core that yearns for meaningful connection with other human beings and with the earth. We long for a world in which there is a sense of meaning behind all things, a world in which our respect for each other and the earth governs our sense of purpose from which we choose purposeful action. Related Capabilities