Sustainable leadership. Research on the development of a guideline for sustainable leadership

摘要

Today, we face the challenge of providing 7 billion people a decent life within the limitations of our planet. This requires many changes in the attitudes of companies, governments and consumers. Therefore, sustainability is one of the most important core values in profit organizations. In the last decade sustainability has become a buzzword, however, its full impact remains complex. Since the corporate world has a large impact on the instrumental function of our economy; professionals and organizations have a responsibility to operate in ways that are repairing to environment and community. For leaders, these complex strategic challenges about sustainability and social innovation are at the order of the day. How can they contribute to the solution of global problems such as climate change, global inequality and water scarcity? How can they deepen the complex policies in relation to the many stakeholders? For these challenges, solutions still need to be found. This thesis has been an attempt to give information about the complexity related to sustainable leadership in profit-organizations, by presenting a guideline for sustainable leadership. Although the indicators of the guideline primarily serve as a framework to explore and support the role of leadership inside organizations, they contain a vision about leader capacities to support and promote sustainability within their organization.