*5.1.4 Systems literacy for sustainable leadership*

The model of the factors of sustainable leadership by Šimanskienė and Župerkienė [40] illustrates the insight of systems literacy as critical for leaders and stakeholders to understand the complex relations and trade-offs necessary in the triple bottom line to achieve sustainable performance. Understanding a system and examining the levels, linkages and interactions between the elements that comprise the whole system is essential to systems literacy and sustainable leadership. The model by Šimanskienė and Župerkienė [40] connects aspects of the individual, organisation and society in a manner that invokes systems thinking. Sustainable leadership with systems literacy view issues holistically and can see non-obvious, unfamiliar connections and conflicts between things while understanding why they behave a certain way.

The competence of systems thinking is critical for sustainable leadership to explore inter-relationships (context and connections), perspectives (each actor has their unique perception of the situation) and boundaries when dealing with problems and implementing solutions (agreeing on scope, scale and what might constitute an improvement) [40].

Avery and Bergsteiner [17] assert that sustainable leadership involves a fourlayered pyramid and unity of elements at all levels (e.g. foundational practice, highlevel, key drivers and performance outcomes), which forms a sustainable leadership system. The system is also when sustainable leadership collectively analyse complex systems across different domains (function, organisation, society, environment, economy, etc.) and different scales (local to global), thereby considering cascading effects, inertia, feedback loops and other systemic features related to sustainability issues and sustainability problem-solving.

### *5.1.5 Ethical competence as foundational of ethical leadership*

The insight is that sustainable leadership manifests and promotes ethical values and behaviours, which are essential to building sustainable organisations and society. This insight is evident in two frameworks by Davies [20] and Avery and Bergsteiner [17]. For example, the framework of sustainable leadership by Avery and Bergsteiner [17] uphold the organisation's protection through modelling and reinforcing ethical behaviours by leaders. Ethical role modelling, communication of values and reinforcement of ethics by leaders are critical to send strong ethical cues and tone to actively and deliberately promote ethical decision-making and behaviour among followers. Davies [20] consider moral purpose as a critical aspect of sustainable leadership in an organisational context to give a sense of what is right and what is worthwhile in a manner that is accessible and useful to all followers whenever confronted by a moral problem. In this way, ethical leadership is not just the mere possession

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

of ethical competence but also the reputation for being ethically competent, which is necessary to influence others. As a foundation of ethical leadership, ethical competence constitutes conscious decisions and actions within a given responsibility situation. Sustainable leadership apply personal ethics to an organisational situation, called 'personal value-driven competencies', in order to strike an appropriate balance between what is ideal and practical to both the individual and organisation. Sustainable leadership promotes sustainability values and ethics at the individual, organisational and social levels.

### **5.2 Organisational dimension of sustainable leadership**

From the organisational perspective, three pitfalls of sustainable leadership identified are lack of sustainable human resources, absence of a sustainable organisational culture model and lack of clarity on the value of social capital. The review also reveals that organisational-level insights in the practice of sustainable leadership include stakeholder centricity, the complexity of driving sustainability innovation and managing the complexity of internal and external interdependencies. These are presented below as follows:

### *5.2.1 Lack of sustainability human resources*

The frameworks by Casserley and Critchley [19], Avery and Bergsteiner [17], Hargreaves and Fink [29], Davies [20], Lambert [21] and Šimanskienė and Župerkienė [40] alluded to developing people but are less explicit on the embedding of sustainability in the entire human resources management (HRM) processes and activities (e.g. recruitment, selection, training and development, compensation structures, pay and reward, performance management and culture) to develop sustainable human capital. Tang, Chen., Jiang, Paille and Jia [45] refer to green training and development as key to preparing multi-talented workers and improving competencies, knowledge and skills necessary to achieve sustainability.

While academic progress is made to elaborate frameworks and practices of sustainable leadership, there are still missing links, details and resources on how an organisation holistically and systemically incorporate sustainability into the various human resources activities and processes. In recruitment, sustainable organisations have a selection process to ensure that every new employee shares the sustainable organisational vision and values. They also measure the performance of their employees not only by productivity but also by the employees' behaviours consistent with the sustainability values and vision. Notably, the honeybee approach by Avery and Bergsteiner [17] reflects some but not all aspects necessary in the scope of sustainable HRM processes and activities. While this framework underscores positive relationships with labourers, valuing people, staff development, retention and succession planning to create sustainable well-being, human capital and organisational success, it is less explicit and intentional on how to humanise the working environment.

### *5.2.2 Absence of sustainable organisational culture model*

The framework and models of sustainable leadership are clear about the value of organisational culture. For example, Šimanskienė and Župerkienė [40] recognise the influence of organisational culture at individual and organisational levels and intersection with society. Casserley and Critchley [19] and Avery and Bergsteiner [17] see sustainable leaders as powerful agents who create, maintain or change organisational culture. However, scholars of sustainable leadership have not provided a full-blown theory or exhaustive model on sustainability organisational culture. Although shared assumptions have been widely regarded as a fundamental cultural element, the literature on sustainability organisational culture does not explicitly address them. In Ref. [46], culture has been defined as a pattern of basic assumptions that organisational members share and learn as they encounter the problems of external adaptation and internal integration. Basic assumptions refer to unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs, thoughts and feelings [46]. Over time as the pattern of shared basic assumptions becomes proven effective, it becomes valid and a lesson to be taught to new members as the right way to view, feel and think about the problems. In the context of sustainability, organisational members develop a configuration of common basic assumptions they have learned as their organisation effectively solves its sustainability problems [47]. Espoused values or strategies, goals and philosophies represent values. In the process, a value becomes an unconscious assumption about the sustainability problem and its context as the value serves to direct successful responses to the sustainability problem.

The sustainability organisation culture includes the values and beliefs subsystem. This subsystem comprises sustainability vision, beliefs and values articulated by leaders or organisational members [47]. Sustainability vision and values are interconnected [47]. A sustainability vision only conveys the meaning for the future, while values are how a vision can be turned into reality. Leadership modelling is among the most potent ways of creating, changing and maintaining organisational culture. How sustainable leaders act and carry out things, their values and beliefs and their transformations set the example for organisational members to follow.
