Developing a sustainability leadership mindset that you apply in your business management practices can aid in reviewing, re-assessing and promoting sustainability initiatives as well as how you make risk and opportunity-based decisions across the whole spectrum of business. Once in place, a sustainability mindset will help your leadership skills no matter which sector your career takes you into.
I use the expression a sustainability leadership mindset far too often in my practice as it encompasses one of my primary aims in executive coaching and training. Although definitions of what a ‘leadership mindset’ is can vary amongst academics, for me a sustainability leadership mindset is defined by visible leadership components that clearly prove:
A Psychology Today article (1) describes the mindset of leadership as: “the attitudes, beliefs, and expectations you hold that function as the foundation of who you are, how you lead, and the ways in which you interact with your team.” To this, I clearly expand the definition to consider people outside your organisation or team, i.e., stakeholders and wider society, as well as adopting an altruistic worldview that considers the wider health and resilience of the environment and the ability of future generations to access those resources.
In other words, having a sustainability leadership mindset means that in formulating your style, skills and traits as a leader of people and business contains within its elements that seek to uphold natural balance, social justice and consideration of people and their environments. Effective sustainability leaders in business continually look to think outside the corporate mindset by always updating their knowledge of the world and by challenging their existing mindset.
It is a tough ask for any leader!
You do not become a leader, and then decide to adopt a pro-sustainability mindset. Hopefully, your worldview and mindset towards sustainability leadership will have already started within your adolescence, your academic training and have been a guide in your choice of employment. We are all influenced by what we hear, see, observe and reflect upon around you. If you are given a position of leadership, it allows you to visibly practice such beliefs and to inspire others to follow your example.
In developing a sustainability mindset, your leadership will be able to consider a wider range of alternate options, be more receptive to new ways of working, and position you as an active listener to new concepts, rather than as a transactional leader in what you regard as safe, power keeping or just my idea.
Leaders having both transformational skills and a sustainability mindset are a powerful force in business, only about 5% of business leaders naturally have these skills making them a desirable commodity in business, but an increased sustainability mindset can be encouraged within those with the desire to learn and adapt their default styles to better deliver business outcomes.
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Once you start to apply this mindset in your business behaviours and culture, you will be more open to finding ways to improve efficiency, reduce waste, engage with employees and stakeholders to develop new ways of working, and to strategize towards long-term planning cycles.
The remaining sections give tips on how to develop this skill.
The sustainability movement as it enters business practice is starting to leave a trail of case studies, technical information and metrics towards more sustainable performance within the business. Take self-development time to absorb this evidence, particularly where it applies to your market sector. As you grow more confident don’t remain blind to the activities and initiatives in other sectors as some of these may be transboundary initiatives that you can adapt or even form the basis of disruptive technologies that your organisation can take advantage of!
If your attention is caught by a product, technology or service that is attracting attention for its pro-sustainability advantages, ask yourself ‘What is it about this issue that makes it of interest for sustainability in a business, and can it be transplanted into my business?’.
Start looking across sectors for indications of sustainability value. Do you sense market shifts? Are new organisations entering the markets with a focus on elements of increased business sustainability and why? ‘What reception are they receiving from consumers or by other B2B leaders with their sustainability tag?
Retain a critical eye on what not only the leading market competitors are doing, but also those smaller organisations entering, and looking to disrupt the status quo. What are they doing in respect of sustainability, are they using its force to separate themselves from the competition? Are they buying more sustainable technology in advance of future legislation or material scarcity? If they are talking about the greater recyclability of their goods or efficiencies made in waste management, what actions are they taking and why?
Leading Green as part of its ‘Thinking outside the Boss’ in house services, offers a workshop training programme based on the principles of ‘Kill the company’ in which we encourage managers and functions to function as your competitors and look at how they would disrupt or displace your profits through an aggressive sustainability strategy! Contact us for more details.
Discover what your competitors and new market entrants are doing to see if you can implement similar change management responses, to challenge your existing business strategies (have they become complacent?) and to encourage you to make positive changes that keep organisational growth and development.
This places you firmly in the sustainability leadership mindset as you scan around you, and into the future to figure out new trends and alterations in business plans, encouraging you to constantly consider what you would do – not what others would do if forced into change!
I have always enjoyed the comic lines in Tom Lehrer’s songs particularly ‘Lobachevsky’ which is about how to get ahead in mathematics:
Plagiarize, Plagiarize, let no one else’s work evade your eyes
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes
So don’t shade your eyes, but plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize
Only be sure always to call it please ‘research’
Whilst not wishing to endorse plagiarism or industrial espionage, the doggerel verse makes the important point that others have information that can be of great use to you in your career. This is particularly so in a relatively new profession such as sustainability.
So, be open to being coached, mentored or taught by others who have information that can progress or develop your sustainability leadership mindset. Interested in Climate Change because of its heavy press coverage, but unsure how it will change in your sector or marketplace, simply go out and find someone to aid you. I repeatedly use my links on Linked in to point me towards information sources or people actively working within the sustainability field. Identifying an upcoming area of interest and discovering more about its risks and opportunities can help broaden your sustainability leadership mindset. If all else fails, Google it!
Beware the fear of asking. I have met and coached several business leaders who have been too embarrassed to admit their lack of knowledge about a key part of the organisation’s business. It can be hard to admit ‘I don’t understand this and find a junior colleague to explain it to you. But stop, think about it with a leadership mindset, the junior colleague is probably delighted that you are asking them questions about their knowledge, that you are listening and formulating questions with a leading edge. You are also educating them, and this cross-silo mentoring can be valuable to both parties – the senior leader mentoring a junior, whilst at the same time being mentored and informed by the mentee. It is a valuable pathway don’t let your pride get in the way of necessary sustainability knowledge!
The ultimate purpose in developing a sustainability leadership mindset is to relate what you have learnt back to business strategy or problems. Reducing the burden of waste production, having re-usable or reformattable products, or even just using sustainable materials that are easier to source incrementally helps your business, whilst supplying a service or product that is more attractive to customers and the staff employed in its manufacture.
Consider your own home of community life, what are the trends that you see appearing within them and what are the attitudes associated with them. I spent many years developing wind farms, and I was always fascinated by the difference of opinion about them between parents and their kids. The older generation was suspicious about their impact on landscape, noise or birdlife, whilst the younger generation saw them as the way forward, a cleaner form of energy and could see a direct linkage between energy use in their own homes and individual wind turbines. These attitudes and trends influence our future consumer and sustainability lifestyles, listen out for these vies and relate them to your forward-facing strategies.
Transformative and sustainability leadership both are heavily reliant on authentic leadership communication styles. Talking, and active listening to others at all levels, can be a valuable exercise. If you have been struggling to develop an understanding or insight into sustainability leadership mindsets, or still need aid of its role and importance in future business development, consider unearthing a sustainability leadership coach, a sustainability forum or a professional institute within which you can discuss these matters.
In the case of one executive, I worked with, it was only when he stood up in a conversation and outlined a point in favour of sustainability, a factor he would have argued against 12 months earlier, did the penny drop that he had achieved his goal. He knew the issue, the pros and cons for the business, and ultimately why as a leader he would choose the pro-sustainability decision. Sustainability leadership does not ask you to pretend or be unauthentic to yourself, but a sustainability leadership mindset requires your attention to being adaptable and accountable to more sustainable business models and being a coach and communicator about sustainability factors within the circles you work within. In fact, being true to yourself as a human and a leader. That isn’t a bad stance to have in life.
If you would like more aid in developing your sustainability leadership mindset? Contact us to learn more.
What Is the Mindset of Leadership? – Coach Stump Mitchell, https://stumpmitchell.com/what-is-the-mindset-of-leadership/.