**3.1 Tripod ontology of leadership and sustainability**

Drath et al. [25] assert that a tripod ontology of leadership is about the social interactions between leaders, followers and shared goals. To elaborate on this tripod ontology of leadership, Drath et al. [25] summarise that:

*'In its simplest form, [leadership] is a tripod-leader or leaders, followers and a common goal they want to achieve' [26]. This is not a definition of leadership but something much more fundamental: It is an expression of commitment to the entities (leaders, followers and common goals) essential and indispensable to leadership and about which any theory of leadership must, therefore, speak.*

The tripod ontology of leadership is insightful to any scholar trying to situate the phenomenon of leadership in the context of sustainability. Generally, leadership is social influence—not a mere personality trait. The micro-view of leadership focuses exclusively on the individual characteristics of a leader.

The tripod ontology may help understand hierarchical, individual and micro-level aspects of the influence and relationship in the leader-follower interactions. The direct, dyadic interactions of leader-follower are important as sustainability starts with an individual leader mobilising other people. Uhl-Bien et al. [27] are explicit that a full understanding of leadership requires an examination of the contribution of followers and followership to the leadership process. Thus, the tripod is not about leader-centric views but rather a leadership process, which recognises the importance of follower roles, following behaviours, and followership styles.

However, the mainstream literature on leadership has some assumptions, which can potentially limit sustainable leadership. Heroic leadership uphold quality that inheres in an individual and attributes responsibility for outcomes disproportionately to an individual. This notion of heroic leadership obscures the importance of other situational and contextual factors (e.g. nature of the interpersonal relationship with followers and resources) that shape leadership outcomes [28].

#### *The Nature of Sustainable Leadership: Pitfalls, Insights and New Model DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108833*

The heroic view of leadership is criticised for minimal efforts toward the bigger society's common good as it often focuses on the self-interests of the hero [28]. Traditional leadership theory supports the salience of special individuals or heroes who can be identified as leaders by role or act. The heroic-leadership approach can potentially undermine the collective dimension of sustainable leadership if it disempowers followership (e.g. followers' destructive practices of treating the leader as an idol, inducing their learned helplessness and passivity). Hargreaves and Fink [29] argue that sustainability is greater than any individual within an organisation, requiring that organisations invest time to develop a network of leaders at all levels.

The tripod ontology of leadership pays much attention to the activities to influence followers towards a common goal rather than the outcomes of leadership in the long term. For example, sustainable leadership premised on the tripod may have a balanced triple bottom line as a common goal. However, the tripod ontology emphasises micro, dyadic and hierarchical influence and relationships that is narrow to support emergent leadership theories such as shared/distributed leadership and sustainable leadership. Distributed and shared leadership theories rely on more than hierarchical influence as there is also the need for lateral influence, exchange and interaction on multiple levels and shared understanding of various stakeholders [30].

Suriyankietkaew and Avery [31] argue that sustainable leadership needs to be researched not from the micro perspective, which focuses on the dyadic relationship, but rather from a macro-level leadership perspective. The macro perspective of leadership focuses on the social process that contains complex relationships and the organisation's strategic and overall leadership system within an organisation and its outcomes. While the tripod uncovers the essence of leadership in general, it is inadequate to truly embrace sustainable leadership, which requires both macro-perspective and multi-level interrelationships and emphasises broader leadership outcomes in the triple bottom line. The following section depicts how sustainable leadership is more aligned with a different ontology of leadership called DAC.
