How Does Leadership Contribute to the Sustainability Strategy Implementation of Higher Education Institutions? A Comparison for Radboud University
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2021-08-24
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en
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Higher education institutions (HEIs) play a crucial role in societal transformation and are acknowledged as vital in their contribution to promoting sustainable development (SD). Despite an enlargement of academic sustainability programmes, holistic integration of SD is not sufficient to lead society to a more sustainable future. Efforts are executed in a non-coherent manner, fostering compartmentalization, and as a result, HEIs have difficulties implementing sustainability and contribute to SD. A lack of leadership has been perceived as one of the causes but is often neglected and has more recently been related to SD through its role in embedding and developing sustainability in HEIs. Due to a scarcity of research on leadership in HEIs, this research attempts to address this gap in exploring how leadership can contribute to sustainability strategy implementation. The main aim of this study was to understand how to improve sustainability strategy implementation in HEIs by discussing the sustainability leadership concept as described in the literature. Data is obtained from a qualitative case study among management, sustainability managers, academic staff, and student initiatives. The sampling strategy was purposive, based on position in the organization. Because the participants obtained high management positions, their perspectives were assumed to entail a major level of expertise. Respondents were questioned to explore which leadership traits and styles can contribute to sustainability strategy implementation. Styles were situational, transformational, servant, and authentic leadership styles, with the decisiveness trait, and actions were empowering, aligning, coaching, and facilitating the development of employees. Based on the findings, the greatest points of improvement appeared to be a lack of responsibility towards sustainability, an improper organizational mindset, and a failure in the execution of the policy. Therefore, this research uncovers a cultural problem with a required change in the underlying paradigm. In the process of managing culture, data neglected the important role of leadership. As a result, this research stresses the importance of the role of leadership in managing the required culture for SD. According to the empirical insights, this study suggests that leadership has a role to play in creating, maintaining, and consolidating culture, and changing the culture if required.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen