Engelina Jaspers, Vice President of Environmental Sustainability at Hewlett-Packard recently spoke at The Wall Street Journal's ECO:nomics conference about how to deal with green issues on a strategic level. She made points that align with a few of the characteristics of Bill George’s Authentic Leadership Approach, which describes the qualities of authentic leadership and the corresponding behaviors to develop these qualities.
1. “The first: It doesn't really matter where you start. If it's a top-down-driven initiative from your company because the CEO is passionate about it, or if it's a bottom-up, grass-roots-type movement within your organization—it doesn't matter, but at some point the two need to meet. It requires CEO support and organizational readiness.”
“Fourth, don't forget it's a team effort and to include your partners, your supply chain, and your employees and others in the efforts.”
- Both of these quotes fall into the Relationships characteristic. George prescribes that authentic leaders develop strong relationships that are built on being connected through mutual disclosure, trust, and closeness. I believe that by having all of these stakeholders involved in sustainability efforts allows for this connectedness to occur.
3. “Third, the business case is not sufficient. There needs to be an internal narrative that goes along with the return on investment. Reason drives the decision, but emotion will drive the action.
- Jaspers emphasis on not relying solely on the business case truly illustrates the Purpose that George implies that authentic leaders demonstrate. The emotion to drive action that Jasper talks about would be a result of the underlying passion exhibited by Jasper (provided she’s not blowing smoke)
5. “Fifth, you need to embed the sustainability strategy within the business strategy. There is no app for sustainability, as someone aptly said.”
- Though this may seem like a long shot, I would like to attempt to relate this strategic alignment to George’s characteristic of Self-discipline. He describes it as a means of aiding leaders in reaching their goals. As the VP of environmental sustainability, Jasper must constantly be aligning sustainability to their business strategy. If not, it will be seen as an afterthought and just another greenwashing cycle (no pun intended).
Read the article here.
Posted By: Michael Condupa
I would agree with you in your alignment with George's concept and process of Self-discipline. There is a point in every organization where self-discipline has to be enacted in order to keep in the right direction. Thus, the steps that you have aligned will keep companies, people, and industries in check when dealing with authentic leadership and how to possess these characteristics in order to help aid your organization on a route to sustainability.
ReplyDelete-Jeff Parrish