ERIC Number: EJ1310759
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Jul
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1552-9045
EISSN: N/A
Reflecting on Responsible Leadership in the Context of Higher Education
Cavagnaro, Elena; van der Zande, Indira S. E.
Journal of Leadership Education, v20 n3 p139-155 Jul 2021
In the last decades, the notion that leadership comprises responsible leadership has gained support and the academic debate has shed some light on the antecedents, processes, and multi-level outcomes of responsible leadership. Being at the intersection of the leadership and sustainability discourses, responsible leadership has benefitted from the increasing interests that both fields of study have received. Nevertheless, the debate has left several questions around the nature and development of responsible leadership unanswered. Among these questions we reckon an understanding of "responsible" in the definition of "responsible leadership," the width of leaders' responsibility and the depth of their impact including the role of personal alongside formal leadership, and the distinction between "responsible" and "non responsible" leaders. The aim of this theoretical paper is to further the academic discussion on leadership in the context of sustainability and its integration in higher education settings. We review the literature and explore the academic debate while step-by-step building a description of responsible leadership that could form the basis for leadership programmes in higher education. Then, borrowing insights from pro-environmental psychology, we share a tripartite description of responsible leadership, which centres around identity, behaviour and responsiveness. As a final step, we share our experience in building an undergraduate programme based on this tripartite description of responsible leadership. Here, we illustrate how the leadership description can be visualised in a figure and used to develop an undergraduate Liberal Arts and Sciences curriculum centred on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Descriptors: Leadership Responsibility, Higher Education, Sustainability, Leadership Styles, Leadership Qualities, Undergraduate Study, College Programs, Foreign Countries, Administrator Education
Association of Leadership Educators. e-mail: Jole@aged.tamu.edu; Web site: http://leadershipeducators.org/page-1014283
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Netherlands
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A