What is the first thing that comes to your mind when someone says - sustainable leadership? You will be surprised to know that most people get the concept wrong. Their definition is incomplete and limiting.

Simply put, conventional leadership is about caring for business goals only, sustainable leadership is additionally about caring for business impact - business impact on the community spread over a long period of time.

Why are we talking about it today and how do we inculcate a sustainable mindset in ourselves? How do we prepare future leaders to treat sustainability like the linchpin of success and growth?

I am not going to get into numbers but let me give you a quick picture -

• Yesterday - Sustainability was an optional subject for many

• Today - Sustainability is a crucial strategy if we are to witness tomorrow

• Tomorrow – Besides Sustainability, Regeneration, i.e. the build-up of natural sources which we have already consumed will be even more important.

Before I get into details, let me bust a couple of myths

1. Sustainable leadership is about taking huge steps and making instant big differences. Sustainability isn’t about immediate big changes, it’s about changes that matter and that will stay for a long time. Food for thought - little steps on a massive scale can create a bigger dent than standalone big changes.

2. The sustainable mindset needs to come from the top. As I keep iterating in most of my posts that leadership is not a designation but an attitude, sustainable leadership is an evolved attitude, it’s a mindset. That said, people with considerable clout need to be frontrunning this mindset

Many leaders that I speak to insinuate that they have been doing their bit through CSR activities or that they are strategizing over how to maximize their ESG Environmental, Social and Governance) returns through product innovation. In addition to harnessing new technologies to create a formula, it’s also about looking back and applying new insights to fix what we have unknowingly been doing wrong in the past.

A very recent example is a drive taken up by the Delhi (capital of India) Government towards saving energy. They are replacing traditional electric light sources with LED lights all over the city’s metro stations across 155 locations, including parking. And even though it's a slightly more expensive affair in the beginning, given the exhaustive nature of the activity, the cost is expected to be covered in the next 2 years by the lower costs through energy-saving!

I really like this initiative because it covers the points that I am trying to make here -

• Review the processes and products and think about every little change that can enable energy saving - from changing lights to changing packaging to changing the no. of calls you make (yeah it all contributes)

• There will be resistance to any/all actions that suggest overhauling old processes/systems/products. That’s why it’s important to align cultural objectives with sustainability goals. Proper change management will help overcome resistance from people across the value chain

• Identify sustainability priorities in phases – the ones that matter the most now and the ones that can be picked up as a follow up in the next stage and so on. Create groups and allocate responsibilities towards identified priorities to each of these groups. This will ensure that everybody is responsible for something and not for everything at once, making the process cleaner, better and more productive. Leaders play a huge role in defining priorities and allocating them.

Now the most important question - What can we do as sustainable leaders to nudge people against short term convenience and focus on long term benefits?

That requires careful study of many elements, including existing organizational processes and cultural practices, the chain of authority, the individual and collective mindset of the organization and will be different for each organisation.

If you are interested in exploring this topic and its impact on your leadership style further, get in touch. Email me @ antje.bauer@strengthminer.com.