Dialogue on the Intersection of Leadership and Sustainability

In mid March, my former colleagues at Interaction Associates will be teaming up with several other key players in the fields of leadership development and sustainability to host a unique dialogue at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for C-suite executives (see Event Invitation). The purpose of this breakthrough dialogue session is to create a forum for discussing the intentional intersection between sustainability and leadership development.

In my tenure at Interaction Associates, I had the privilege to research and co-design a leadership immersion program for global executives. We traveled to the Amazon basin to expose leaders to how their  influence and reach  stretches to the farthest corners of the earth, and their corresponding responsibilities to steward the planet.

This upcoming dialogue is another step on that path, an experimental journey across the globe, without ever leaving the ground. The event will begin in the visually dazzling GeoDome environment – a portable planetarium - where together the participants will take an immersive tour of the universe. The journey will then hone in on some of the more earthly environmental and social trends affecting our sustainability as individuals, businesses and communities such as water scarcity, population explosion, etc.

The intention is to look at how this type of environment, combined with best-in-class learning services and knowledge, can catalyze more systemic thinking, greater reflection, and deeper knowledge about our collective issues, and thus transform leader development within organizations to build more resilient, innovative, globally-aware future business executives. This is a critical dimension in the battle to outrun climate change.

Challenges Driving a New Kind of Leadership

Organizational leaders in the 21st century face challenges unparalleled in scale and scope. These arise not only from the rapid spread of the global industrial complex over the latter part of the 20th century, but also from the growing realization that social, economic and environmental macro-systems are indelibly intertwined. As global sustainability is increasingly threatened, executives and directors in every sector are called to meet these challenges with a new form of leadership – one not only skilled in the traditional nuts and bolts management of an enterprise, but able to adapt to the demands that these new socio-cultural contexts and worldwide scope impose. Especially in the corporate arena, transformational, adaptive leadership is sorely needed if we are to rewire the infrastructures that brought us here in the first place. Stuart L. Hart, in his book Capitalism at the Crossroads, asserts that corporations –and their leaders – are uniquely qualified to take on these challenges. They have the resources, the reach, the infrastructures and the capital that often outweigh those of national governments or civil society. “Properly focused, the profit motive can accelerate (not inhibit) the transformation toward global sustainability, with nonprofits, governments, and multilateral agencies all playing crucial roles as collaborators and watchdogs.”* But it is a precarious balance – or rebalance – we seek. And those that lead must have abundant creativity, courage and imagination.

The Intersection of Leadership and Sustainability

This kind of transformational leadership lies at the intersection of executive development and sustainability. Here we characterize sustainability as the balance of economic, social, and environmental well-being over time – each required to maintain a viable global business system and equitable opportunities for all peoples of the world. It is central to the opportunities and challenges we face as a world community. Emerging global dynamics have moved us beyond philanthropic and regulatory compliance efforts of past decades, pushing corporations to develop deeper strategies for dealing with issues of sustainability. These conditions, such as threatened natural resources, volatility in energy markets, or upstream disruptions in supply and distribution chains directly affect an organization’s ability to operate. And their license to operate on foreign soil can be equally constrained by the ethics of their business practices and the erratic nature of geopolitical events.

Thus to survive in today’s global environment, leaders need to abandon what Stuart Hart calls “The Great Trade-Off Illusion” – a blind adherence to the idea that firms must sacrifice financial performance to meet social obligations.2 Instead, they would benefit from cultivating a global mindset and an evolved set of leadership skills – ones that move from being reactive and ethnocentric, to more world-centric and proactive – so as to embrace the opportunities being created by these evolving conditions shaping the future business environment. This transformational leadership is further characterized by an adeptness at integral and rapid-cycle learning – dropping the mode of business-as-usual in order to respond to ongoing change and crises; and by seeking systemic, inclusive, and values-based solutions rather than decisions governed exclusively by short-sighted profit metrics. By developing these leadership competencies, global executives and managers can position their organizations for improved operations, competitive positioning and positive brand, while taking their place as drivers on the leading edge of change.

Susan's Blog

_____________________

* Stuart L. Hart, Capitalism at the Crossroads:  Aligning Business, Earth and Humanity. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School Publishing, 2008).