Picture yourself as an executive of a large airline company, flying to an important meeting that will determine your company’s long-term future. What’s on your mind? Initially, you’d hope for a seamless flight. Then, as you gaze over the sky, your reflections would center on ensuring the resilience and sustainability of the business. Now, having safely landed, your meeting awaits.
Surprisingly, the leadership principles that secure a safe landing—referred to as visible, felt safety leadership—share significant similarities with leadership ensuring the company’s sustained success takes off.
Visible, felt safety leadership has driven numerous organizations to success, with tangible outcomes such as saved lives, improved morale, and increased efficiency. These safety leadership principles not only offer immediate benefits but can also provide a blueprint for the sustainability leadership revolution. This means organizations and leaders don’t have to begin from scratch.
How (In)Visible Leadership Drives Sustainability in an Organization
Globally, organizations are adopting sustainability leadership, but implementing their vision efficiently is the challenge. Leaders need a holistic approach to foster a culture of care, accountability, and continuous improvement, looking beyond short-term gains for sustainable outcomes. This is where both visible and invisible leadership principles come into play.
Let’s start by establishing what visible and felt (invisible) safety leadership is:
- Visible safety leadership can involve explicit actions such as site walkarounds, involvement in safety training, or the implementation of safety protocols.
- Felt (invisible) safety leadership, on the other hand, is subtle but profound as leaders exert safety through decisions, behaviors, and attitudes.
Similarly, the concept extends to (in)visible sustainability leadership:
- Visible sustainability leaders can include those advocating for sustainability initiatives, teams working on sustainability projects, running sustainability training, and executives communicating their sustainability targets to stakeholders.
- Invisible sustainability leaders exert influence through decisions, attitudes, and values. This could be achieved by integrating sustainability considerations into daily decision-making processes and upholding environmentally responsible behaviors.
When sustainability leadership assumes a subtle rather than forceful role, it provides room for others to contribute and participate. Although individuals may not receive explicit recognition, this leads to increased opportunities for engagement and a profound impact on advancing the sustainability agenda.
(In)Visible Sustainability Leadership: An Action Plan for Executives and the Board
Leaders are at the heart of the sustainability transformation in their organizations. Beyond compliance and regulation, they are stewards of transformation. They empower others to embrace change—creating a culture of care, ownership, and accountability throughout the entire organization. The action plan outlined below paraphrases the framework described by David Grayson, Chris Coulter, and Mark Lee in their book, “The Sustainable Business Handbook.”
The initial step for organizations to implement (in)visible sustainability leadership is to evaluate the status-quo in sustainability leadership proficiency across the organization with the desired attitudes and skills. Identifying specific challenges related to sustainability, drawn from recent incidents, audit findings, or issues raised by stakeholders and customers, can help create valuable insights. A similar approach is used when evaluating an organization’s safety culture or culture of the board and executive team.
Once this assessment is complete, the next step is to scale sustainability leadership across all levels of the organization. The course of action should encompass the concepts of care, accountability, and continuous improvement, ensuring the organization not only protects the well-being of its employees but also ensures the long-term viability of its operations.
While the approach to embedding (in)visible sustainability leadership varies across organizational levels and the board level, some principles are universal:
- At the board level, the goal should be to achieve a well-rounded approach, considering a balance of non-executive directors that are well-informed in sustainability practices and principles, and to shake up board dynamics and culture (e.g. consult from youth). Board members should also self-educate and attend sustainability training and regularly share “hot topics” on sustainability. A comprehensive plan for boards is outlined in our publication, “Boards: Stepping Up as Stewards of Sustainability.”
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Senior leaders could encourage their staff to seek out short-term social enterprise secondments or volunteering opportunities as well as incentivize sustainability leadership training. Middle management should be encouraged by senior leaders to uphold sustainability through the incorporation of sustainability KPIs into targets and decision-making for promotions. Additionally, senior leaders themselves must cultivate the skills to convey their business purpose, decisions and plans as well as actively stay abreast of the changing regulatory landscape.
Brief discussions on a topic can go a long way. As leaders, and just like our executive of a large airline company attending their next meeting, having a “safety” moment or “sustainability” moment can spark thoughtful contemplation and inspire (in)visible sustainability leadership. Even for those who find this unfamiliar territory, leaders can begin these discussions by exploring the following topics:
- Would it be beneficial to designate a Chief Sustainability Officer, and how should we structure sustainability and health, safety, and environment (HSE) within the organization?
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What are employees’ annual goals and performance agreements saying about sustainability activities and targets? How can we encourage the incorporation of sustainability target setting? Have we integrated sustainability performance targets into bonuses and compensation? -
Does our organization encourage individual safety and sustainability pledges to encourage employees in mentoring others and supporting wellness, inclusion and sustainable practices? -
How does our organization present to potential job applicants in terms of sustainability, and how is sustainability encouraged during the recruitment process? -
How do we want to communicate sustainability KPIs across the organization? -
Are there systems in place that encourage the sharing of sustainability best practices across the organization?
Whether orchestrating the right leadership mechanisms for a safe airplane landing or spearheading a sustainability agenda, leadership stands at the core of forging organizational excellence and resilience. Senior leaders, as stewards of change, assume a pivotal role in ingraining sustainability throughout the organization, empowering their people, addressing pressing global challenges, and ensuring enduring business continuity.
Beyond tools, achieving this demands a profound commitment to radical mindset shifts and the courage to advocate for change. Such transformative leadership requires the right kind of leader and an ongoing commitment to continuous leadership development.
