Leadership Research Summary:
• The various social issues that accompany economic development pose new challenges for leaders to integrate economic benefits, social responsibility, and environmental protection. In this context, various new leadership styles have emerged. Among them, sustainable leadership reveals the key role of leaders in balancing the triple goals of economy, society and environment, and has become an important part of leadership theory research in recent years.
• The study searched the literature related to sustainable leadership in databases such as Web of Science, EBSCO and CNKI. Based on the existing literature, researchers systematically review the origins, connotations, analytical perspectives, measurement methods, and conceptual comparisons of sustainable leadership. And study also construct an integrated analytical framework of sustainable leadership on the premise of sorting out and summarizing the antecedents and consequences of sustainable leadership.
Leadership Research Implications and Findings:
• While studies on the mechanisms of sustainable leadership have focused on the organizational level, this paper seeks to suggest possible mediating variables between sustainable leadership and its outcomes at the individual level with the help of relevant theories. Specifically, this paper applies AMO theory, similar attraction theory, and social learning theory to propose corresponding perspectives.
• First, AMO theory states that employees’ behavior or performance is determined by their abilities, motivation and opportunities, and that leaders’ leadership behaviors can have an impact on employees’ abilities, motivation and opportunities. Based on this, sustainable leadership is used as a starting point to explore the mechanisms underlying the influence of sustainable leadership on employees’ sustainability behaviors, in which AMO factors necessarily play a mediating role.
• First, the inherent explanatory mechanism centered on competencies. In sustainable activities, employees need to possess certain sustainable competencies, i.e., the mental and cognitive abilities of employees related to effectively engaging in a sustainable activity, including knowledge and skills related to sustainable activities, etc. Sustainable leaders enhance the sustainability of their employees by setting sustainable role models for them in their daily management process, and they also provide the necessary resources to enhance sustainability, such as enhanced coaching and training, and the creation of a positive environment.
• Second, with motivation as the core explanatory mechanism, internal motivation is the most favorable motivating factor that drives employees to engage in an activity. In sustainable activities, internal motivation that can inspire sustainable behaviors carries the same sustainability, reflecting sustainable behaviors implemented by employees out of their love for sustainable activities. Sustainability leadership uses organizational culture to promote sustainability concepts, values, and goals within the organization to induce internal motivation for sustainability.
• Third, opportunity-centered explanatory mechanisms, in general, refer to factors in the work environment that can promote individual behavior, such as organizational policies and working conditions. In sustainability activities, the opportunities that can drive employee behavior are primarily sustainability opportunities, i.e., a set of policies, conditions, elements, etc. that are conducive to improving employee sustainability behavior.
• Sustainable leadership can provide opportunities for employees to implement sustainable behaviors, such as providing relevant training and development opportunities and shaping a sustainable organizational culture.