A New Psychology for Sustainability Leadership: The Hidden Power of Ecological Worldviews

During the last decade, the sustainability position in multinational corporations has grown in influence. Much literature has explored how corporations can play an important role in solving the environmental challenges facing the planet. However, until now, there has been little research on sustainability leadership at the individual level. In this book, Schein explores the deeper psychological motivations of sustainability leaders. He shows how these motivations relate to overall effectiveness and capacity to lead transformational change and he explores the ways in which the complexity of sustainability is driving new approaches to leadership.

Drawing on interviews with 75 leaders in more than 40 multinational organizations, NGOs, and academia, Schein explores how ecological worldviews and conscious mindsets are developed and expressed in the context of global sustainability practice. By empirically grounding key theories from developmental psychology in sustainability leadership practice, the author encourages us to think about leadership in a different way.

A New Psychology for Sustainability Leadership will be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience of social scientists, educators, corporate executives, and social entrepreneurs. The insights from this book can be usefully integrated into leadership curriculum and development programs to help the next generation of sustainability leaders respond to global challenges.