ANALYSING THE LEVEL OF SUSTAINABLE LEADERSHIP AMONG SUSTAINABILITY MANAGERS IN SPAIN
Abstract
The concept of sustainable leadership has been researched with respect to different contexts at the sectoral or organizational level, such as in the insurance sector in Turkey, as well as the marketing, and logistics sectors in Spain. Sustainable leadership is defined as a type of leadership that is carried out over and for the long term and that is based on acting in a fair and ethical manner with an organization´s internal and external stakeholders. The main aim of this study was to identify the degree to which sustainable leadership is commonly practiced among managers in different economic sectors in Spain. Avery and Bergsteiner’s (2011) framework was used as the basis for the development of this study. This models organizations into two main categories, referred to as displaying (1) “locust leadership” or (2) “bee leadership”. The locust leadership philosophy is based on making and maximizing profits, while the honeybee leadership philosophy generates value to stakeholders and, besides and beyond economic considerations, also takes account of other factors such as the environmental and societal elements. The results of our study demonstrated that managers in companies in Spain are more inclined towards the bee sustainable leadership philosophy. All managers interviewed admitted that they placed a high value on emotionally committed staff and over 90% of respondents considered that doing the right thing" in the business was more important than profit. Likewise, over 90% of interviewees declared that they always emphasized the protection of the environment when setting up business objectives. Finally, our study is innovative in the sense that it is the first time that sustainable leadership is studied among sustainability managers across a diverse range of economic sectors in Spain
Keyword : corporate sustainability; sustainability managers; social corporate responsibility
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