Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Transformational leaders are needed to effect transformations in the way
humankind relates to the natural environment. The importance of human agency
in this endeavour cannot be overstated. Just as human agency has contributed
to ecological degradation, human agency will play an essential role in advancing
long term environmental sustainability. Although this role may seem daunting
to many, modern society will need more people like this leader of a for-profit
environmental retail organization to take on the challenge.
(2000: 60)
The most appealing part is being able to take a group of people, an organization,
a concept, an idea or a mission from one place to another. You can dream and then
make it happen. Nothing is more exciting to a leader than to hear 'You can't do
it'. Perfect! That's just what I want to hear. So now we are going to do it. I think
that's what I enjoy the most. Trying to get to places that we didn't think we could
go.
Leadership is perhaps above all an
intervention
primarily rooted in the imagination.
This involves having a
vision
of when, why, where and how something will be
achieved, invariably leading to self- and organizational transformation. The former
CEO of Interface, the late Ray Anderson, may be perceived as a transformational
leader, a man who changed himself through serious reflection and through a series
of motivating, inspirational, pragmatic, learning and empowering actions that altered
the nature and purpose of his company and his employees. Interface is frequently
cited as a commercial organization that has come closest to realizing the goals of
sustainability. In his autobiography, Anderson (1998) wrote that the new sustainability
thinking now permeates everything Interface does, particularly product design and
development. He says that one person can make a difference but leadership is not
a solitary activity - transformation cannot be dependent on one person as it takes
place in social, community and organizational settings involving many others:
I believe one person can make a difference. You can. I can. People coming
together in organizations like yours and mine can make a big difference.
Companies coming together, for example customers and suppliers uniting in
recycling efforts, can make a vast difference. Harnessing wind, current solar
income and hydrogen can make a monumental difference. . . . 'The power of
one' has become a recurring theme in our company, as many of our customers,
as well as our people, recognize.
(Anderson, 1998: 140-1)
Anderson recognizes that Interface, and indeed society, has a long way to travel
before anything approximating sustainability can be realized. He sees the journey
as taking place on three levels:
•
the level of
understanding
- learning the what and where of sustainability,
including the methods, approaches, technologies, practices and attitudes required;
•
the level of
achieving
sustainability - bridging the resource, technical, ingenuity
and knowledge gaps between envisioning and doing; and
•
the level of
influence
- extending sustainability beyond the point of doing no
harm to being positively restorative ecologically and socially.
