Sustainable Leadership: What Needs To Change?

Leadership, as we know it, stands at a crossroads. The environmental, social and economic pressures of the 21st century demand a fundamental reimagining of how businesses operate.

Sustainability is no longer a PR exercise or an optional initiative; it’s about redefining what success looks like and aligning actions with long-term impact.

In fact, 94% of global consumers say they expect companies to take a stand on social and environmental issues. To lead responsibly in an evolving world, leaders need to shift their mindsets, models and metrics. This involves four key imperatives: embedding purpose, transforming culture, empowering people and redefining success.

Professor Serkan Ceylan, Dean of the Faculty of Business and Innovation at Arden University, explains more.

Leading With Purpose

Every great transformation starts with a clear and authentic vision. But too often, sustainability commitments are misguided by greenwashing, a surface-level attempt to appear eco-conscious while avoiding meaningful change. These misguided initiatives falter under scrutiny and damage trust among employees, customers and communities.

True sustainable leadership requires more. Purpose must be genuine, rooted in values and backed by measurable action. As such, leaders must articulate a sustainability vision that resonates, inspires and, crucially, aligns with the organisation’s mission and speaks to the challenges of our global reality.

Take Patagonia as an example, its mission: “We’re in business to save our home planet,” drives every action it takes. This is purpose made tangible, spanning its environmental commitments, supply chain ethics and social values. That transparency and consistency has built a brand that leads by example, proving that purpose-driven leadership pays off.

Sustainability can’t be an afterthought, or a veneer on traditional priorities; it must be the lens through which leaders make every strategic decision.

True purpose-driven leadership requires:

1. Defining a sustainability vision that aligns with an organisation’s core mission.

2. Communicating it transparently across all stakeholder groups.

3. Making purpose the lens through which all decisions are made.

Companies that do this well don’t just earn trust; they perform better. Research from Harvard Business School shows that purpose-driven companies experience 10–20% higher growth compared to their peers.

Embedding Sustainability Into Culture

Sustainability initiatives also often falter because they’re siloed, treated as secondary, rather than central, to the business. Sustainable leadership demands a different approach, which must be woven into the fabric of organisational culture.

For example, Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan integrates sustainability into every product innovation. By embedding purpose across departments, Unilever ensures sustainability isn’t a one-off project, but a core business priority. One result stands out here: its “Sustainable Living Brands” grew 69% faster than the rest of the business in 2022.

While leadership sets the tone, sustained change can only thrive when employees internalise these values. Hiring practices, training programmes and performance metrics should all reflect the organisation’s sustainability commitments.

That means:

• Aligning incentives: Introduce KPIs tied to environmental and social goals.

• Integrating into hiring: Prioritise candidates who value sustainability, and make it part of onboarding processes.

• Have champions in every department: Identify and empower sustainability advocates to drive initiatives forward.

Empowering People At Every Level

Sustainable leadership isn’t about grandstanding from the top, it’s about creating an empowered workforce. Every employee, regardless of their role, holds the potential to make choices that align with sustainability goals. Leaders must cultivate that potential.

This starts with education. Employees who are well-informed about sustainability are better equipped to contribute ideas and innovate responsibly. Continuous training, transparent communication and open dialogue create an atmosphere where people feel engaged and accountable.

But empowerment goes beyond knowledge; it’s also about creating environments that encourage risk-taking in pursuit of sustainability. This could mean giving employees the agency to try new eco-efficient practices, pilot ethical supply chain models or rethink waste-minimisation efforts, for example.

Redefine What Success Means

The traditional metrics of business success: year-on-year growth, increasing shareholder value and quarterly performance, can often prioritise short term resilience. To lead sustainably, we must redefine success.

True success considers impact, resilience and shared value. Leaders must adopt metrics that go beyond profit, measuring how their actions preserve resources, contribute to communities and reduce risks for future generations. When companies adopt these broader measures, they can create value in more meaningful ways.

Moving towards this new definition of success requires courage. Leaders have to challenge ingrained norms and make decisions that may not yield immediate financial rewards but hold immeasurable value in the long term.

That means:

• Broadening metrics: Introduce performance indicators that measure environmental, social and governance outcomes.
  

• Communicating the bigger picture: Report transparently on the ripple effects of decisions, from employee wellbeing to supply chain ethics.
  

• Building resilience: Focus on strategies that future-proof the organisation against climate risks and market volatility.

Embedding sustainability into leadership is an ethical imperative and the foundation for resilience and growth. By crafting authentic purpose, fostering cultural change, empowering teams and redefining success, leaders can create businesses that thrive in the face of complexity.