Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
occurs, people become increasingly willing to engage with different or opposing ideas
and values without fearing they will be accused of being inconsistent. This nurturing
frequently means applying an ethic of care or raising followers' awareness and
understanding to a higher level, which may emphasize values such as liberty, justice,
equality and now certainly sustainability (Cuilla, 2003). Ladkin (2006) suggests that
leaders need to be attentive both to their own values and responses to a given
situation, and to those of others. They need to be able to influence others and in
turn be influenced. They need to be able to apply what the German philosopher
Heidegger termed a sense of 'dwelling' - a staying or being with a problem, particularly
when ethical issues dominate. To dwell means to open up to possibilities by letting
go of preconceived assumptions, interpretations, analyses and judgements. Others
are then more likely to open up themselves, because they perceive leadership to be
caring and sensitive to complexities, rather than enacting a stereotypical leadership
role that rushes to judgement with speedy prefabricated actions. All this takes time,
but the potential benefits may be immense. This slower, more meditative approach
to leading, according to Ladkin, requires three specific adjustments to the conventional
wisdom on leadership.
In practicing 'staying with', the leader attends to the present and the factors
which have shaped that present rather than focusing his or her energies solely
on the future. This noticing of the present enables new contours of the given
situation to be revealed and, through that, new understanding to be gleaned.
The leader is influenced as well as influencing, and actively seeks out
information which will help him or her to understand the situation more
fully. Through their comportment, they suggest to others that they are willing
to be moved and influenced by others' ways of being in the world and their
understanding of a given situation.
The leader is not required to have a clear vision of the 'right' course of
action or decision, but instead, through a process of engagement, enables a
space to be created wherein a resolution which 'fits' the situation emerges.
(2006: 96)
Authenticity and sustainability leadership
Authenticity is often seen as a guarantor of genuine leadership, more so in the field
of sustainability than possibly any other given the growing distrust of national
political leaders and justified scepticism of many of the claims emerging from the
major corporations. Even those organizations whose business is the production and
selling of lethal products often promote their good citizenship and sustainability
credentials, and those corporations that are collectively known as 'Big Oil' invariably
pay a great deal of attention to publicly promoting their questionable commitments
to sustainability (Beder, 2006). Additionally, as Boltanski and Chiapello (1999, 2005)
have shown through their exhaustive study of management texts published (mainly
in France) in the 1980s and 1990s, business leaders seem to have co-opted many of
the values, or perhaps rather expressions of value, of its radical critics instituting
what they term a 'new spirit of capitalism'. This, essentially, ideological justification
of capitalist accumulation and appropriation is aimed to foster commitment and
make it culturally attractive to wage earners and others. Thus ideas of fairness,
