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The Multidimensional Sustainable Leadership Competencies Scale, Factor structure, reliability and validity

Dr. Agna Fernandez

Associate Professor HR & OB

Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Chennai-600034

Agna.fernandez@liba.edu

No.1 sterling road, Mahalingapuram

Chennai-600034

Tamil Nadu

India

Fr. Francis David Kullu, SJ

Finance Officer, Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS), Ranchi

Ramesh Shankar,

Executive Vice President HR –South Asia Cluster

The Multidimensional Sustainable Leadership Competencies Scale, Factor structure, reliability and validity

Agna Fernandez, Associate Professor, Chairperson Center for Ethics & Corporate Governance, Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Chennai

Francis David Kullu, Finance Officer, XISS, Ranchi

Ramesh Shankar, Former Executive VP, Siemens

This paper seeks to address the competencies, responsible future leaders require in the age of uncertainty. High performance in the context of sustainability can emerge when we reimagine the manner in which leadership was defined until now. The paper validates the items generated though grounded theory, a qualitative research methodology carried out by the authors of this research paper and presented in an international conference. Through exploratory factor analysis, the paper explores whether the items load on the same factors that were generated in the grounded research phase. Out of the nine factors, eight factors that had, a scale reliability of more than .8, in the Cronbach alpha measure were retained. The factors were named as Psychological empowerment, intuitive decision-making, learning agility, systems thinking, stakeholder engagement, values and dialogic collaboration.

Word Count: 4658 excluding references, tables and charts

The Multidimensional Sustainable Leadership Competencies Scale, Factor structure, reliability and validity

Agna Fernandez1, Francis David Kullu2, Ramesh Shankar3

Introduction

Sustainability as a global development discourse is unequivocal in its approach to satisfying human needs without compromising the health of the ecosystems (Callicott and Mumford, 1997, p. 34). Sustainable business enterprises can be described as viable alternatives to neoclassical business models. The neoclassical business models focussed on maximisation of profit for the shareholders (Stormer,2003). Social and ecological goals hardly featured for consideration. The entire economic model needs to be transformed in which sustainability acts as the driving force of the organization and decision making (Raworth,2017). The harmony of interests in a free society gained a lot of emphasis in 1776 when Adam Smith An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Smith, 1776 [1982]). Adam Smith’s goal was to maximise societal wellbeing. The fast widening wealth and income gap is wreaking havoc in the domain of civil society. Wilkinson (1996), documents the chain of causation, which links economic disparities and poor health has pointed out the malaise that ails our societies today. Chronic economic anxiety releases the stress hormone, which erodes the immune system, bringing out an effect equal to rapid aging. Technical and regulatory fixes are not solving the environmental problems either. Hence, there is a growing need to incorporate as a value the impact of business decisions and action on the society, environment and humankind at large. Environmental leadership is constructed on a different approach to strategy. It requires a long-term vision, which deepens and broadens the linkages with a number of salient stakeholders (Baranova, Morrison & Mutton,2010) A culture of sustainability can permeate only if the leaders in all sections of the society weave sustainable dialogues, ethics and practices as the need of the hour. This scale will act as a preliminary measure to recruit, train and appraise individuals working in any sector in the parameters which emerge from the analysis. The one thing that makes sustainability different from other challenges faced by businesses is that changes need to be made at each level of the organization. Sustainable leaders should be unfettered by borders and develop a holistic approach to problems which confront them. Also referred to as the ‘co-optative model’ (competing and collaborating) organizations and enterprises should are joining together in this endeavour.

This paper examines the competencies of a sustainable leader in the current scenario of uncertainty and complexity. In particular, the paper highlights the need for a new approach that could be used as a framework to build this competency in organizations or even hire people possessing this competency. This paper tries to validate the items generated through a grounded research conducted by the authors (Fernandez, David, Shankar, 2018). Leaders face intense pressures today to craft organizations that are consistent with a sustainable society and a

                                                            1 Associate Professor, Loyola Institute of Business Administration,Chairperson, Centre for Ethics & Corporate Governance . email: agna.fernandez@liba.edu 2 Finance Officer, XISS, Ranchi 3 Former Executive VP Siemens

sustainable planet. Leadership has moved beyond the urge to comply towards being more responsible, nurturing and empowering. How does sustainable leadership in the present context redefine itself? Leaders acknowledge without hesitation that their organizations are part of a huge interconnected web of relationships. Hence their actions impact this large system echoing the call to greater sustainability. Leaders have begun to orient themselves towards a larger purpose and the urgency is visible in their intent and passion. The first part of the grounded research the leaders interviewed expressed strong codes of conduct and envisioned a company that is environmentally sustainable consuming resources in a sustainable way. Eager to see their companies as good corporate and global citizens they have always looked at eco- efficient alternatives thereby working alongside environmental and economic sustainability. The fact that we are currently operating beyond the earth’s carrying capacity (Meadows et al., 2004; Rockström et al ., 2009), poses a lot of dilemma’s for leaders who have to take cognizance of this in routine decision making initiatives. The oldest interpretation of sustainability addresses not only environmental or societal issues but also the tensions prevailing within particular organizations for their long-term viability. Organizations are caught between their compulsions to focus on organizational viability or interorganizational collaborations and thereby relegate sustainable development to the background which might have environmental implications (Koschman, 2013). The intellectual development is shifting towards integrating societal objectives into corporate strategy which hitherto focussed on commercial economic objectives (Roobeek, Swart, Plas, 2018). Companies have begun to realise that when they are socially active within their own competitive context achieving a particular charitable objective will have a social dimension and the economic benefit can be derived at the same time. This leads to a gradual amalgamation of societal and economic objectives.

Sustaining organizational change through sustainable leadership

The NHS Modernisation agency (2002,12) looks at sustainability as one where new ways of working and improved outcomes becomes the norm. It is an integrated and mainstream way of working rather than something added on. Further the agency adds that sustainable organizations are those who can withstand challenge and variation and improve over time. This implies a dynamic perspective of organizations or its response mechanisms geared towards organizational readiness to change (Armenakis et al., 1993). The individual category, one of the seven categories identified by Dale et al. (1999,369) on sustaining organizational change asks whether the organization has a culture where fear and uncertainty about the future are absent, and attitudes towards innovation and change welcoming. He further adds that sustaining change has a managerial style which encourages high-trust, high discretion, open to suggestions and empowering. Systems thinking ability to manage at a meta or systems level is another characteristic of sustainable leader (Senge, 2008). Reflective practice within the realms of systems thinking will entail the process of stepping back to reflect on events that have taken place better understand the underlying assumptions and meanings of various activities and develop an integrated and improved basis for future actions (Raelin, 2002). This can promote an integrative framework of thinking. It is a process of continuous meaning making and reflection between stakeholders of multiple sectors, disciplines and levels in the system (Kurucz et al., 2013). These types of leaders acknowledge interdependency within and between causal relationships operating in the society with an idea that it affects the long term success of the organization (Williams,2008). For this it is said that leaders should be always mindful of their own learning and development. Conventional method of operations has to be abandoned to give way to a culture of the organization being a part of sustainable development. Processes and products need to be reinvented, new sets of data have to integrated and basic knowledge and value systems need to adapt in the overall context of learning (Siebenhuner & Arnold,2007). Learning in relation to the environment has been categorised into three order

types. It is observed that sustainable leaders need to engage in third order learning , which contributes more to learning, learning that engages the cultural and environmental systems in an epistemic, creative or transformative manner (Sterling, 2002: 15-16). This will result in a mindset which understands the ecosystem’s manifestations from a socially sensitive point of view and an introspective focus on one’s personal values and higher self. In turn this will translate into action for the greater good of the entire ecosystem in which the organization exists (Kasse et al, 2016). Sustainable leaders should also overcome inertia while dealing with change and cognitive flexibility the ability to match the type of cognitive processing with the type of problem at hand enables them to achieve significantly higher decision-making performance (Laurerio & Brusoni,2018). Sustainable leaders as initiators of this process can trigger change by bringing in a culture that a new problem has to be approached in a different way. Hence such leaders recognize and value diversity viewpoints, opinions depending on the situation, to proceed with a thorough analysis of all elements, or selecting a few key aspects to guide behaviour. Sustainability leaders in fact become sustainable entrepreneurs. Societal change is integrated into business goals as leaders act as ecopreneurs. Operating with a sense of responsible morality like servant leaders, they ensure that both the ends that they seek and the means they employ are morally legitimized, thoughtfully reasoned and ethically justified (Sendjaya, 2005). Ganz’s (2010), work therefore looks upon sustainable leadership as a social movement- “‘efforts of purposeful actors … to assert new public values’ in order to change an ‘intolerable situation’in this case, the ever-increasing levels of consumption, that threatens to destroy global sustainability and the values which underpin the unsustainable development that is threatening global ecological catastrophe (Diamond, 2005; United Nations, 2015a; WWF, 2014)”. A different framing of organizational leadership needs to take place. The most integral component for a future-safe world is the expansion of leadership which can promote scientifically verifiable sustainable development (Metcalf and Benn, 2013). Sustainable consumption and production needs “leadership that makes a difference” (Tukker et al., 2008:1220). Sustainability leadership requires dealing with complexity, uncertainty and interdependence. Cognitive Evaluation Theory lays emphasis on the individuals need for competence and autonomy (self-determination) and provides employees with direction and choice which results in enhanced intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation has been modelled as an outcome of psychological empowerment (Zang & Bartol,2010). Leaders and managers today believe that encouraging employees to be creative is the need of the hour in this turbulent environment (Shalley & Gilson, 2004)

Need and importance of the study

The characteristics of the Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) requires a paradigm change in the approach to leadership. There’s a need to move away from some old leadership styles that can be seen as less ethical. The styles which held on to leading through: the power of position or authority; packaging leadership as a paternalistic or overprotective “love”; leader as a fountain of “superior” knowledge; or by plain manipulation to influence the outcome cannot lead people towards a sustainable future. This is where this research study becomes more pertinent. The new challenges linked to sustainability, however, “far exceed the capacity of any positional leader to comprehend or manage” (Allen et al., 1998). It is quite reasonable to assume that societal and indeed transformational change such as is needed to achieve SCP will require contributions from large numbers of individuals and groups and not only formal or positional leaders. Furthermore, the new type of challenges needs new elements of leadership styles that have the capacity to address complexity, uncertainty and interdependence. This involves leadership that, among other things, “increases our capacity to learn new ways of understanding, defining, and solving” problems but even more so leadership that develops “the capacity of organizations and people to respond” (Allen et al., 1998:63).

Methods

Sample and Procedure

Data for this study was drawn from employees of large multinational firms. Sustainable leadership has to be cutting across different types of organizations. Leaders and HR managers have a ground level understanding of leadership styles and behaviours in their organizations. Employees were randomly selected to participate in the survey. Random sample gives an unbiased view of the indicators of sustainable leadership. Participants were invited via e-mail to an online survey. After a welcome and an instruction page the items was presented Hence, the sample contained participants from 5 years of experience to above 21 years of experience as presented in Table 1. Sustainable leadership has to be nurtured at every level in the organization. The items generated through the qualitative grounded research by the authors was used as a basis for scale validation. The development and validation of this scale is a step towards nurturing this spirit in organizations, who can begin to have conversations around this emerging concept to bring more clarity and validity of the scale. A pilot study with 30 respondents were conducted to check the reliability of the scale. A Cronbach alpha of .8 indicated that the instrument was good and clear to be understood and responded to by the respondents.

Table 1 Experience of respondents Frequency Percent Valid

PercentCumulative Percent

Valid

1 1 to 5 Years 72 25.4 25.4 25.4 2 6 to 10 Years 50 17.6 17.6 43.0 3 11 to 15 Years 62 21.8 21.8 64.8 4 16 to 20 Years 38 13.4 13.4 78.2 5 21 years and above 62 21.8 21.8 100.0 Total 284 100.0 100.0

Questionnaire

53 items generated through grounded research was administered on a 5-point Likert scale (1= strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree). KMO measure of sampling adequacy close to 1 indicated that data could be subject to factor analysis. Bartlett's test of sphericity tests also shows that the correlation matrix is an identity matrix, indicating that the variables which emerge are unrelated and therefore unsuitable for structure detection. Small values (less than 0.05) of the significance level indicate that factor analysis may be useful with the data and the results are presented in Table 2.

Table 2 KMO and Bartlett’s Test

Communality value is also a deciding factor to include or exclude a variable in the factor analysis. A value of above 0.5 is considered to be ideal and is presented in Table 3. Initial communalities are estimates of the variance in each variable accounted for by all components or factors. Extraction communalities are estimates of the variance in each variable accounted for by the factors (or components) in the factor solution. Small values (red) indicate variables that do not fit well with the factor solution and should possibly be dropped from the analysis.

Table 3 Communalities

Communalities

Initial Extraction Q1 Leaders who look ahead in terms of stakeholders. 1.000 .661

Q2 Leaders who anticipate and prevent crises. 1.000 .540

Q3 Leaders who are futuristic and innovative, thinking for the next generation

1.000 .590

Q4 Leaders who evaluate the impact of their innovation on the environment and the society.

1.000 .642

Q5 Leaders who act with integrity. 1.000 .510

Q6 Leaders who continually learn and develop to stay relevant. 1.000 .595

Q7 Leaders who question, challenge and are future oriented. 1.000 .601

Q8 Leaders who feel the need to reinvent themselves. 1.000 .642

Q9 Leaders who have the ability to question and challenge. 1.000 .689

Q10 Leaders who listen intently to stakeholders. 1.000 .668

Q11 Leaders who take insight from those around. 1.000 .556

Q12 Leaders who make personal adjustments. 1.000 .635

Q13 Leaders who are open to change, change things and study things to learn from it.

1.000 .696

Q14 Leaders who adapt through listening and sensing. 1.000 .566

Q15 Leaders who encourage different shades of opinions. 1.000 .611

Q16 Leaders who promote a culture of participation. 1.000 .688

Q17 Leaders who promote different generational groups working together.

1.000 .715

Q18 Leaders who empower decision making to the lowest level. 1.000 .554

Q19 Leaders who build organizations that understands the ideas of all stakeholders.

1.000 .599

Q20 Leaders who take a holistic view of business. 1.000 .760

Q21 Leaders who have the integrated perspective of the business. 1.000 .730

Q22 Leaders who do business that fits in with the larger section of the society.

1.000 .601

Q23 Leaders who are comfortable working with chaos and complexity.

1.000 .595

Q24 Leaders who create enduring eco-systems and processes that stand the test of time.

1.000 .622

Q25 Leaders who create an integrated perspective to influence and change.

1.000 .691

Q26 Leaders who make decisions aligned to community and organizational needs.

1.000 .641

Q27 Leaders who take prompt and speedy decisions. 1.000 .722

Q28 Leaders who take right decisions at the right time. 1.000 .590

Q29 Leaders whose decisions balance different stakeholders views.

1.000 .543

Q30 Leaders whose decisions are highly agile 1.000 .598

Q31 Leaders who design organizations in an interdependent manner.

1.000 .593

Q32 Leaders who bring about an interconnectedness. 1.000 .601

Q33 Leaders who think collaboratively understanding common deliverers.

1.000 .613

Q34 Leaders who look at the long term impact of their actions on society

1.000 .606

Q35 Leaders who empower others through coaching and mentoring.

1.000 .534

Q36 Leaders who build on the foundational pillars of family values.

1.000 .615

Q37 Leaders who are passionate and have a resolute will 1.000 .652

Q38 Leaders who recognize gratitude and acknowledgment. 1.000 .701

Q39 Leaders who work with humility. 1.000 .718

Q40 Leaders who express courage to take a call. 1.000 .697

Q41 Leaders who express fairness and respect at the workplace. 1.000 .686

Q42 Leaders who articulate purpose and vision. 1.000 .586

Q43 Leaders who engage dialogue with society. 1.000 .687

Q44 Leaders who wish to leave a legacy. 1.000 .641

Q45 Leaders who balance personal values with business objectives.

1.000 .595

Q46 Leaders who lead change. 1.000 .720

Q47 Leaders who attract young minds through personal charisma.

1.000 .593

Q48 Leaders who nurture a leadership culture. 1.000 .675

Q49 Leaders who put people as the focal point in organizations. 1.000 .646

Q50 Leaders who create an environment of belongingness. 1.000 .648

Q51 Leaders who are endowed with digital mind. 1.000 .679

Q52 Leaders who foster creativity. 1.000 .677

Q53 Leaders who reinforce the bigger picture of the organizations.

1.000 .637

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

The total variance explained table shows how the variance is divided among 53 factors. Note that nine factors have eigenvalues (a measure of explained variance) greater than 1.0, which is a common criterion for a factor to be useful. When the eigenvalue is less than 1.0 the factor explains less information than a single item would have explained. More than half of the variance 63% is accounted for by 9 factors as presented in Table 4. These factors will then be compared to the factors that emerged from the grounded research developed by the same authors.

Table 4 Total Variance Explained

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) with orthogonal varimax rotation was considered for the analysis. Orthogonal varimax (Kaiser, 1958) is among the most used orthogonal rotations. To obtain simple structure, it transforms the factors to yield a rotated set of factors that maximize the orthogonal varimax criterion. This criterion is calculated by computing a variance of squared (typically, normalized) pattern loadings among variables for each factor and summing these variances across factors. The advantage of orthogonal varimax is that it provides easily interpretable uncorrelated factors. All items loaded substantially on nine factors. Nine factors were extracted which had an Eigen value greater than 1. Scree plot shows the eigenvalues on the y-axis and the number of factors on the x-axis. It always displays a downward curve. The point where the slope of the curve is clearly leveling off (the “elbow) indicates the number of factors that should be generated by the analysis. Here in this case it is nine factors Figure 1.

Discussion

Rotated Component Matrix

Nine factors have been extracted which have an eigen value greater than 1. Cronbach alpha as a measure of internal consistency was tested. The authors considered only the first seven factors which had an alpha coefficient above .8 suggesting that items have relatively high internal consistency as represented in Table 5. Alpha, therefore, does not simply measure the unidimensionality of a set of items, but can be used to confirm whether or not a sample of items is actually unidimensional (Cortina,1993). On the other hand if a test has more than one concept or construct, it may not make sense to report alpha for the test as a whole as the larger number of questions will inevitable inflate the value of alpha. In principle therefore, alpha

Figure 1 Scree Plot showing nine factors

should be calculated for each of the concepts rather than for the entire test or scale (Nunnally & Bernstein,1994).

Table 5 Scale Reliability

The first factor is named as Psychological empowerment. As an arm of contemporary behavioural leadership theory empowering leadership focuses on people to take decisions and execute tasks without direct oversight (Bass, 1985; Jung, Chow, &Wu, 2003). It also encompasses power sharing. Empowerment in this context can also mean empowering employees to try out new things. Innovate ideas can emerge from anywhere and anyone in the organization. Innovation can thrive in these types of environments where new ideas, models and methods are embraced and championed. Sprietzer (1995) says that psychological empowerment is a significant predictor of innovative behaviour. Empowering leadership can be construed in the analysis provided by Conger & Kanungo (1988) who viewed empowerment as an enabling and motivational construct rather than mere delegation. Through the use of Bandura’s self-efficacy notion (1986) they defined empowerment through the identification of conditions that foster powerlessness and using formal organizational practices and informal techniques to provide efficacy information. Hence item 41 about leaders who express fairness and respect at the workplace, item 46 of leaders who lead change and item 40 of leaders who express courage to take a call fall under this construct of psychological empowerment. As one is empowered through enhanced belief in one’s capability, creativity will abound, and new ideas will be applied successfully in enriched tasks and roles. Psychological empowerment as a psychological state gets manifested in four cognitions, meaning, cognition, self-determination and impact (Spreitzer, 1995). Empowerment helps employees develop open and egalitarian ways of interacting with peers, bosses and other stakeholders. This culture helps them to understand the benefits to themselves and the organization. This egalitarian and open work practices spills over to civic life nourishing democratic tendencies towards citizen involvement brining a tangible effect on peace in the societies in which they live ( Spreitzer, 2007). Q41, which states the leaders who express fairness and respect at the workplace is the crux of psychological empowerment. This is largely reflected in the sharing of power autonomy, improved confidence in the employee’s abilities and removing hindrances to performance (Ahearne et at., 2005; Arnold, Arad, Rhoades, & Drasgow, 2000). Conger and Kanungo(1988a), put forward the argument that psychological empowerment is important for stimulating and managing innovation, in organizations. The creativity literature has

demonstrated that with supportive leaders, employees are more likely to come up with new approaches to work (Amabile, 1988; Oldham & Cummings, 1996). Empirical evidence has pointed out to the role of individualized consideration (leaders who put people as the focal point in organizations) as an important leadership behaviour in the workplace (Sarros, Gray, & Densten, 2002). A far-reaching transformation or revitalisation is the need of the hour. An impetus for individual creativity and responsibility and an enduring transformation of the internal and external relationships of the organization which can bring out lasting behavioural change requires encouragement and empowerment by the leaders (Pascale, Millemann and Gioja,1997) as shown in Table 6.

Table 6 Factor 1 Psychological Empowerment

Factor 2: Intuitive decision making

Organizational leadership is put to the test when at times, when extraordinary circumstances may arise when leaders of organizations are called upon to make quick and accurate decisions. Intuition therefore plays a great role when there is complexity and volumes of information to process. Nobel Laurate Herbert Simon’s contention was that Intuition and judgement are simply “analysis frozen into habit”. Executives very often rely on their Intuition to solve complex problems when logical methods don’t come in handy. However, a combination of intuitive prediction and statistical prediction is considered to be superior (Dawes, 2002; Hayashi, 2001). Intuitive decision making is an integral part of successful business management. In a study of 13000 Business executives by Parikh et al., (1996) executives have credited 80% of their business success to intuitive thinking. Intuition enhances analytical thinking and enables focus on the present situation, providing insights on timing, specific strategy and innovation. Pattern recognition is another area where senior managers find intuition useful (Lank et l.,1995). A cursory look at data or meetings with clients, suppliers and consumers would assist a ‘discerning manager’ understand trends and patterns. In such cases, intuiters can sense the pattern from the ‘feel’ of the individual inputs. This would also naturally

provide for a sense of what should be an appropriate solution from the emerging pattern. Intuition can aid managers to provide a link between the internal and external, so that the organization is, in fact, organic and whole rather than reactive and complex. An intuitive style allows managers to capitalise on the ongoing vision of the purposes and ultimate ends of any enterprise. In the long run, the ability to maintain an internal intuitive ‘compass’ continually synthesizes new conflicts into shared challenges/goals. Goals can be ‘sensed’ in a dynamic rather than a static fashion, and the enterprise can continue its progress without having to stop and reassess the situation whenever change, or conflict begins to mount. According to Rogers and Hudson(2011), decision making on sustainability issues is often complex and is ideal to be taken at a higher level of systemic abstraction. Table 7 depicts this factor.

Table 7 Factor 2 Intuitive Decision Making

Factor 3: Systems thinking

In the words of Mella (2012, Chap1) … “understanding the world” (comprehending) means in fact being able to construct coherent and meaningful mental and formal models – that make up our “knowledge” – which allow us to form and transmit new knowledge”. Systems thinking is a mental attitude and an approach (Meadows, 2008; Wright and Meadows, 2012; Ross et al., 2015; Hitchins, 2017). Systems discipline is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than seeing things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static snapshots (Senge,1990, p 68). In line with Koestler’s holonic thinking it not only specifies not only how far the relationship of the whole or part should be extended but also points out the link and constraints that make the whole and its parts interdependent (Koestler,1967; Mella & Gazzola, 2017). Hence, if leaders want to lead in a sustainable manner they should develop the capacity to zoom from the parts to the whole and move from entities to components. Hence item 22, leaders who do business which fits in with the larger sections of the society, item 23, leaders who are comfortable working with chaos and complexity, item 31, who design organizations in an interdependent manner item, 32 leaders who bring about an interconnectedness, item 33 leaders who do things collaboratively understanding common deliverables. Systems thinking is also called as the “art of seeing the world”, to ensure that what one sees has true meaning, it’s not a means of solving all of humanity’s problems rather

it is an instrument that broadens our intelligence (Mella & Gazzola,2019). This is depicted in Table 8.

Table 8 Factor 3 System thinking

Factor 4: Learning agility

Learning agility has emerged as the most valid and a reliable predictor of high potential leaders and executive success today (Swisher,2013). Learning agility was defined as the willingness and ability to learn from experience, and subsequently apply that learning to perform successfully under new or first-time conditions (Lombardo & Eichinger, 2000). People who are highly learning agile seek out new challenges and seek feedback to improve themselves, self-reflect and use experiences to evaluate and draw conclusions. Leaders need to be agile for many reasons. Learning agility is one of the defining characteristics of potential (Silzer & Church, 2009). It also includes the four facets of learning agility- mental, people, change and results as shown in Figure 2. In this case it is an adaptive response to the changing environment (Meuse, Dai, Hallenbeck, 2010).

Table 9 Factor 4 Learning Agility

Figure 2 Types of Learning Agility

Factor 5: Stakeholder engagement:

Corporate engagement with community projects ensures that considerable resources are invested for community development (Griffin,2008). Stakeholder engagement on the part of the leader means a pro-environment behaviour. Stakeholder engagement perspective will enable leaders to develop dynamic capabilities to generate new internal processes and establish new relationship with stakeholders (McKelevie & Davidsson,2009). In this context corporate leadership which looks at environmentally and socially sustainable solutions can lead to economic, environmental and social growth (Wilden et al.,2013). Freeman (2001) argues that managers are responsible for taking care of the needs of stakeholders. This competency cannot be compromised and a bend of mind that visualises and draws interrelationships between business decisions and its impact on the society can ensure a meaningful growth to the organization. This is depicted in Table 10.

Table 10 Factor 5 Stakeholder engagement

Factor 6: Inclusivity

Leadership is touted as the most important factor that facilitates employees learning from errors Edmondson, 2004; Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006; Zhao, 2011; Putz et al., 2013). It is at this juncture that inclusive leadership provides a psychological safety mechanism on employees learning from errors e (Baumard and Starbuck, 2005; Bauer and Mulder, 2013). Employees learning from errors is effect- sensitive and associated with a high degree of affective content (Zhao, 2011; Shepherd et al., 2011). Inclusive leadership provides the basis for high-quality relationship with employees in the manner in which it supports and meets employees’ needs and interests, treating employees with respect, providing them with hope to do better, an optimism, rather than criticism (Carmeli et al., 2010). This provides greater alignment between employees’ needs and rewards for their work enhancing their positive mood (Hollander, 2009). Items 37-42 expresses the same philosophy of inclusive leadership. Leadership plays an important role in fostering positive diversity outcomes, thereby reaffirming the intrinsic worthiness of diverse employees (Gotsis & Grimani,2016). Winters (2014) defines inclusion “as the creation of an environment that acknowledges welcomes and accepts different approaches, styles, perspectives and experiences, so as to allow employees to reach their potential and result in enhanced outcomes”.

Table 11 Factor 6 Inclusivity

Factor 7: Value based approach

In the context of leadership starts with the leader and the personal values that define a leader. Values provide these leaders a frame of reference within which they take decisions (Frost,2014). Maccoby (2005) stated that organizational values and leadership are areas which are important in judging and creating moral organizations. Chandler (2009) pointed out that the role of personal self-interest as the prime cause behind not acting inconsistently with agreed upon standards of character, decency, and integrity. An ethical leader is concerned proactively on the ethical behaviour of followers and this differentiates them from authentic and transformational leaders (Brown & Trevino,2006). They place great emphasis on the establishment of ethical standards and accountability for adhering to these standards. This is shown in Table 12.

Table 12 Factor 7 Value Based Approach

Factor 8: Dialogic Collaboration

Sustainability issues transcends traditional boundaries. It may include governments, civil societies, academia and other actors in the private sector. The dialogic model of collaboration requires leaders who advocate the need to focus on the underserved sectors of the eco-system in which the business operates. The dialogic nature of this partnership is profound. In the cross

sector collaborative partnership model and classified according to three levels, points out that the highest level, Level 3 involves shared leadership (Colaner, Imanaka and Prussia,2018). Institutional dialogue is a prerequisite for shared leadership( Colaner et al., 2018). Dialogic style involves co-participation, mutual constitution and sense making. This approach looks at each situation differently and in a non-symmetrical manner focusses on equality in the relationship more than on the authority of the leader (Alro & Dahl,2015b). The dialogic method rooted in the theory of social constructivism (Busche & Marshak,2009; Hersted,2017) posits that leaders become the product of the realities they co-create. This can translate into dialogue between individuals across different type of organizations conveying trust, care, sensitivity leading to mutual understanding and meaning making. Dialogue is a central component of evolutionary transformation (Banathy,2000). Partnership working has become a corporate value both internally and publically through corporate communication (Adderley & Mellor,2014). The challenge is to appropriate social balance to in the effort towards greater technological advancement. This is evident in Table 13.

Table 13 Factor 8 Dialogic Collaboration

Conclusion

Psychological empowerment and dialogic collaboration that emerged out of the EFA appeared under the category of Sustainable HR practices in the qualitative research paper. This scale needs to further be tested through Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Thinking on the lines of the above factors can bring about a culture of sustainability in organizations at every level. Every individual has to demonstrate sustainable leadership competencies. A scale developed, tested and made available to organizations can serve multiple uses. As a tool to advocate sustainable leadership training it can bring about deeper conversation on these lines. Traditional competencies should be relooked in the context of current research to prod recruitment, performance management and promotion on these lines. Sustainable leadership should not be discussed in isolated pockets in organizations. They should form part of discussions, meetings and grapevine for a truly high-performance organization aligned to community and environmental needs to emerge.

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CURRENT RESEARCH 

PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT 

LEARNING AGILITY 

INCUSIVITY 

DIALOGIC COLLABORATION 

SYSTEMS THINKING 

VALUES 

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT 

 

GROUNDED RESEARCH 

SYSTEMS THINKING 

LEARNING AGILITY 

STAKEHOLDER  ENGAGEMENT 

INCLUSIVITY 

VALUES 

SUSTAINABLE HR PRACTICES 

Figure 3 Comparison with the factors, which emerged from grounded research

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